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About The Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 19??-1984 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1937)
Thursday, January 14, 1937 THE HERMISTON HERALD, HERMISTON, OREGON. DEPUTY of the DEVIL By Ben Ames Williams Copyright, Ben Ames Williams. SYNOPSIS Dr. Greeding, a wealthy and talented middle aged surgeon, is possessed of seem- ingly supernatural powers. Occasionally he can wish for something extraordinary to happen and have the wish fulfilled. Greed- Ing meets Ira Jerrell, a wealthy business friend of his own age, who tells him he loves his daughter Nancy and would like to marry her. Dr. Greeding is pleased and tells Jerrell he has a clear field. Nancy, however, is in love with Dan Carlisle, on assistant professor at the University who has little means. They discuss marriage, but decide to delay talking to her father about it. Nancy, who has been playing ten nis with Dan that afternoon, tells her father she had been playing with a irl fr iend. Greeding knows this is untrue and is secret ly enraged. Stepping into his wife’s room, his eye ’falls on a marble statuette which he dislikes. He picks it up, wishing he could smash it to bits. Suddenly it is snatched from his grasp as by an in visible force and burst asunder. Mrs. Greeding is greatly disturbed over the mys terious destructor of the statuette. The doctor reveals that Ira Jerrell wants to marry Nancy. On the way to a dinner party a car cuts in front of G reeding’s He angrily expresses the wish that the driver would break his neck. An instant later an accident occurs in which this very thing happens. At the dinner the Greedings meet Prof. Carlisle, Dan's father, and his daugh ter Mary Ann. Dr. Greeding is intrigued by Mary Ann, who is a surgical nurse. Mrs. Greeding tells Prof. Carlisle about the de struction of the statuette and he indicates it might have been caused by a "polter geist,” a "racketing, mischievous spirit.” CHAPTER II—Continued He said quizzically: “That’s not the same Judith Plank with whom you played tennis this afternoon.” “Judith?” she repeated in aston ishment, forgetting her mendacity; and then suddenly she remem bered. and her cheeks were crim son. She retreated from him, white and startled; turnea and ran up the stairs. He had only meant to tease her; but by her flight his al most-forgotten anger was a little re vived. “Nancy!” he called. She stopped, half turning. “You mustn’t ever lie to me, Nancy,” he said sternly. She hesitated, facing him doubt fully; but after a moment she de scended to meet him ascending. On the step above him, she said ap pealingly: “I’m sorry, Father. I—a girl—" She laughed in confused dismay. “Well, a girl instinctively wants to keep some things secret.” she con fessed happily. And before he could speak, she added: “You’re right It wasn’t Judith, this afternoon. It was Dan Carlisle. When you asked me who was here, we’d only just found out that we love each other! That was why I—fibbed to you!” Doctor Greeding touched her shoulder affectionately, guarding his tones ‘‘No reason why you shouldn't tell me and yout mother, is there?" he asked quietly. “I was afraid you wouldn't—” “Never be afraid of me, l.ancy,” he urged. ‘‘You'll always And me on your side.” "Then you don’t mind my—loving Dan!” “I mind your being afraid of me.” He kissed her again, and he added judicially: “As for Dan, I hardly know him, Nancy. Bring him around more often. Let your moth er and me get acquainted with that young man.” And he suggested: “After all, there's no hurry. You and he will want to treasure this new happiness in secret for a while.” Then, before she could either as- sent or demur, he said: “Good night. It’s late, my dear.” She hugged him warmly. “You’re sweet!” she whispered. “Good night, Father!” And ran up the stairs. He followed more slowly; and in his own room, the door closed be hind him, he stood fixed and rigid, frowning. But in the end he dis- missed Nancy for the present from his mind, and opened the volume he had bi ought upstairs. CHAPTER HI Next day Doctor Greeding was not his usual self while in the op erating-room. Ordinarily he worked without conscious effort, smoothly and swiftly; but today each proced ure required a conscious concentra tion. Doctor Mayhew, his assistant, ob served this; and Miss Rimes, the surgical nurse, likewise felt it, and reacted to Doctor Greeding s ten sion by a definite fallut e in her usual efficiency Once when with out looking toward her he reached for dissecting scissors, she offered him the knife instead, and the point punctured his glove, so that he had to change. Such accidents had recurred be fore; but today Doctor Greeding was in no case to meet the incident equably and calmly. Fortunately the skin was not even pricked; yet many a surgeon had lost a finger, or a hand or an arm as easily as this; and he told Miss Rimes so, in dry, cutting tones. Even while he spoke he realized suddenly that he disliked Miss Rimes intensely. She was an effi- cient nurse; but he recognized now that she was a dark, unlovely wom an. He had never before thought of her except as an automaton; and his physical distaste for her lent an unintended heat to his rebuke. She made no defense; but after ward in the corridor he saw her talking with Doctor Mayhew; and there was a hint of tears, of hyster ia, in her manner. So Doctor Greed ing belatedly repented his heat; and back in his office, he summoned Doctor Mayhew and by way of amends bade him grant Miss Rimes a month’s full-pay vacation. Doctor Mayhew suggested doubt fully: “I’m afraid, after her mis take this morning, she may feel this is a reproof?’ “Not at all,” Doctor Greeding in sisted. “It is simply that I think she is overworked, tired.” But the othei man persisted in his view; and Doctor Greeding re luctantly summoned Miss Rimes and in Doctor Mayhew’s presence made amends. “I owe you an apology, Miss Rimes,” he confessed. "I was tired this morning, nervous; and I blew off steam at your expense. I’m sorry.” She assured him, eagerly: “I was clumsy!” But when he spoke of the vacation he proposed that she should take, she protested: “Oh, 1 can’t just now! With Miss Johnson ill, there’s no one to handle the work; and I’m not tired, really.” “Nonsense!” he said in fraternal kindliness. “We’ll manage!” After she had left the office, Dr. Mayhew asked: "Who will you use in her place? Miss .Ryan?” Doctor Greeding hesitated. He had not considered this problem; but now he smiled in swift appreci ation of the fact that luck once more had played his game. But he only said guardedly: "I have some one in mind. Let if rest for now.” But when Doctor Mayhew was gone, he rang for his secretary. “Will you phone Miss Mary Ann Carlisle,” he directed, and gave Professor Carlisle’s name and ad dress. “Ask her to come in and see me, if she can; say I may have some work for her.” An hour later. Miss Carlisle was announced. “Our meeting last night may have been fortunate for us both, Miss Carlisle,” he said to her. “I don’t know if my secretary told you why I wished to see you?” She shook her head, and he ex plained: “My surgical nurse, Miss Rimes, has been working too hard. I’ve given her a vacation, and that leaves us short-handed Naturally, I thought of you. I believe you said you’ve had some experience in as sisting?” “Yes,” she agreed. “I worked with Doctor Homans.” “His specialty was the brain, of course.” Doctor Greeding com mented. in no hurry, content to watch her, to go slowly. “My work ir more general.” He added: “However, a few days will give you the routine. I’m sure.” And he smiled. “I’m proposing, you un derstand, that you come in and work with me.” She said: “I’ve been doing spe cial nursing; but—I should be glad ot a more steady income.” She smiled faintly. “As you may imag ine, with two rather improvident professors in the family—” He chuckled. “Naturally.” They discussed finances. “Then suppose we try it,” he suggested “If we are both satisfied, there is no rea son why you should not stay on in- definitely. Even after Miss Rimes returns. You can alternate with her, and there are a lot of details out side the operating-room which you can divide between you ” She asked calmly: “Shall I start now? Or report in the morning?” And thus swiftly the matter was arranged. Doctor Greeding drove home that afternoon in his usual easy mind. The tragedy of the day before, he began to dismiss as the coincidence it had appeared to be; he could ignore the form less. terrifying shapes that floated in the background of his thoughts. So soon as he came home, he asket for Nancy. "She’s gone into the countiy with Dan," Mrs Greeding explained. "To some little inn for dinner." She watched her husband doubt fully; but he said, in a disarming tone: “1 saw her for a moment last night when she came home. We had a little calk, Myra Probably 1 was wrong to be—dogmatic, yes terday, to play the angry parent. Dan's all right, 1 expect.” He hesitated, conscious of a faint con fusion. “As a matter of fact," he said, smiling at his own thoughts. “1 think better of the Carlisles than 1 did yesterday. I even engaged Miss Cailisle to take Miss Rimes' place, this afternoon." She stared at him, frank ooubt in her eyes "Ned. was that wise?” she wondered. "After all, while she may be a charming dinner part ner—” “Oh. 1 sha n't keep her on unless she does her work.” he said casu ally. “She's entirely too attractive to be a nurse,” Mrs. Greeding insisted “Mary Ann is one of these inde pendent young women, perfectly sure of herself and ot everything else; resentful of—conventions.” “You make her sound dangerous ly fascinating,” he said, amused, and touched her arm affectionate ly. "You’ve always had the notion some siren would carry me away, Myra. In spite of the fact that none has ever even tried!” She smiled at him. “Nonsense, Ned. You know I never worry about you, my dear!” “You never need to,” he assured her gently. So Mrs. Greeding was silenced; but there was not long any doubt in Doctor Greeding’s mind that Mary Ann was competent. She was like a second pair of hands. At the operating-table she anticipated his desires before they took shape in his mind. She watched his fin gers and the progress of the opera tion; and when he was ready for knife, scissors, snaps, retractors, he found the desired implement in her hand, awaiting his grasp. He found the morning’s work left him fresh and free from fatigue; he thought his own teennique im proved, and told her so. “Miss Rimes was excellent,” he said. “But—I shall be tempted to overwork you, even after her re turn. You must protect yourself against my impositions.” She smiled and said: “I never saw anyone whose work was at She Smiled and Said: “1 Never Saw Anyone Whose Work Was at Once as Unhurried and as Swift as Yours.” once as unhurried and as swift as yours ” And he was by her approv al absurdly pleased. They progressed by degrees from acquaintance to friendship. Doctor Greeding committed to her atten tion the matter of that man whose death he and Mrs. Greeding had witnessed. “I saw the accident,” he ex plained. “It—touched me. For no particular reason, I am inclined to do something for his family, if they need help of any kind.” He was not blind to the approval in her eyes as she promised to in vestigate. Subsequently, Mary Ann report ed that the man was ah automobile mechanic; and he had been, on that particular evening, in haste to come to the hospital, where his wife was about to be delivered. "But the accident has its compen sations,” she confessed. “He ap pears to have been a worthless sort. He used to be a chauffeur in a nice family; and the daughter of the house eloped with him. I went to see her, last night. She told me that after they were married, when her husband realized that her father would not support them, he was furious; and since then he has mis treated her abominably. Now that he’s dead, she’s going home, for given, happier than she could ever have been as long as her husband lived!” Doctor Greeding found in this dis covery a surprising satisfaction. He had since the tragedy moved wari ly, like a stranger in a great pow er-plant who avoids contact with the machinery about him, lest he loose forces beyond his understanding and control. But now, assured that this man for whose death he felt re sponsibly was better out of the world than in It. a treacherous feeling of infallibility took lodgment in his mind. Yet outwardly there was no change in the routine of his days, except that he saw more and more of Mary Ann. He no longer dis turbed himself so much (bout Nan cy and Dan. Nancy hid agreed with him as to the wiscom of de laying for a while any formal an nouncement of her engagement, and —he had always banked on his luck He did so now. Jerrel was seeing WNU Service. So Dan grinned, and he too dis appeared. Doctor Greeding sat at one end of the table, the Professor at the other; for Professor Carlisle had filled the pipe which he pre ferred to a cigar, and the Doctor had no desire to come near the source of that scent so offensive to his nostrils. For a little, nothing was said. Then Doctor Greeding remembered certain matters almost forgotten; and he said, making his tone casu al: "Professor, Mrs. Greeding tells me that you gave her, that evening at the Jordans', quite a lecture on poltergeists. She had so much to say about it that I came home and read up on the subject myself. Do you seriously think there is any truth in these tales?” Professor Carlisle smiled faintly. “I should hardly expect you to ac cept them,” he confessed. Doctor Greeding chuckled. “But I’m not completely incredulous,” he protested. "I had a friend once who confessed to some personal experi ences of the sort.” Professor Carlisle looked at him with a new interest. He said, at hazard: "It has often seemed to me that an open-minded physician must observe in his practice many things not easily explained by any medical formula.” Doctor Greeding nodded. “That is true,” he said. “I do remember occasions when things seemed to go unusually well, in the course of an operation ; when my fingers were successful without my mind’s being fully conscious of the sources of that success. For instance, there was a man with a crushed and lacerated arm, necessitating amputation; it was during my days at the City, on relief work. An artery tore loose and retracted into the upper arm. Ordinarily, this means a swift and extensive dissection in order to catch the end of the vessel and check the hemorrhage. I did it in a matter of seconds; and even now, I don’t know just how it was done. The artery seemed almost to thrust itself into my reach.” He continued: “But I wasn’t re ferring to any experience of my own. This friend of mine—” He hesitated guardedly. “Well, you know the old belief. Professor, that to be born under a caul was lucky. This chap was born under a caul; and I think he was always secretly a little proud of the fact, feeling that he was set apart from other men by that circumstance.” The Professor smiled. “He wasn’t also, by any chance, the seventh son of a seventh son?” he suggested in ironic amusement. Doctor Greeding chuckled. “No. An only child," he admitted; and he went on: “We grew up on adjoining farms, and if there are poltergeists. I sus pect that he was one. 1 remember that when he was a boy. if he was left alone in a room, something was apt to fall and break. Of course, he was always blamed, and punished. His father used to say he whipped this youngster not for breaking the thing in question, but for lying about it afterward.” Professor Carlisle commented: “Boys have bed before, and will again.” “I know,” Doctor Greeding ad mitted stubbornly. “But this boy al ways denied, even to me, that he had done the things for which he vas blamed. I remember once we were haying, on a hot day in July; and they put us in the mow to stow the hay, and the hay caught fire. The barn, in fact, burned to the ground. Fortunately, it was a small hay-barn, across the road Lorn the house, used only for storage, and the loss was not serious. But there again, he was blamed. They insist ed that he had lighted a match, or done some other folly.” He chuck led. “He bore the welts of that af fair for days,” he said; and he Doctor Greeding had heretofore asked: "Isn’t this the stuff polter made of?” save on the occasion of their first geists are (TO BF. CONTINVED) meeting, seen Mary Ann only in street clothes, or in her nurse’s uni form; but tonight he thought he saw Pronghorn Not Antelope; her for the first time Her gown it Mixture of Three Others self he could not have described, The pronghorr is not a true ante knew only that it was a harmonious lope: rather a cross between a deer, part of her. Yet she seemed to a goat and a giraffe, with a few him so radiant that it required a characteristics of each Zoologists conscious effort on his part to con say the Rocky Mountain goat is trol his tones and make them no more nearly a true antelope more than casual. The pronghorn is one of the He took refuge in jocosity. “Dan,” swiftest animals on toot, declares he announced, “we’ve a special a writer in the Washington Star. Leat for you tonight. A friend of He clears prodigious lengths at a ours sent Nancy a salmon, and bound, but is a better broad jumper we’re having it for dinner'” than high jumper. It is said that It requires not much encourage- L 4-foot fence will retain him. ment to lead a fishermai. to talk On their native plains pronghorns about fishing, and Dan was full of rely upon fleetness and alertness to reminiscences of his trip. The din protect them from enemies. The ner-table conversation was almost warning signal for a pronghorn a monologue. When Mrs. Greeding stampede is the flash of some wary rose at last, she said: leader's white tail. “Ned. I expect Professor Carlisle The pronghorn shares this warn and Dan would like a liqueur, and ing signal with the cotton-tail rab to smoke their cigars here.” bit. She and Mary Ann and Nancy Curiosity has cost the lives of went into the other room; but Doc many a pronghorn. The timid tor Greeding saw Dan's eyes follow beasts will pause in full flight to them, and he said amiably: examine an unexplained object. "No need of you staying with us. Hunters often lure them within Dan. I think Nancy has some de range by waving a rag on a stick sign on you. Go along and see.” while lying concealed in the grass. much of Nancy, for Dan had gone to Newfoundland to fish for salmon, and Nancy’s time was free . . . Doctor and Mrs. Greeding kept open house every Sunday afternoon and evening; and any number of people were apt to drop in, casual ly, without forewarning. Jerrell took advantage of one of these occasions; and after supper he and Nancy disappeared together. When later they returned, Jerrell joined Doc tor Greeding in the library. They spoke at first of casual things; Jerrell said presently: "By the way, Nancy tells me she knows Dan Carlisle.” Doctor Greeding was instantly on guard. “You know him?” he asked. “Only through his book,” Jerrell said. "That is an able piece of work. A textbook not only for col lege classes, but for business men, and investors too.” The Doctor smilea. “I haven’t read it,” he confessed, and turned the conversation into safer channels. “I suppose you’re as busy as usu al?” "Just now, yes,” Jerrell assent ed; and after a moment’s hesita tion, he explained: “I’m taking an interest in a new outfit. Associated Cottons. We’re proposing to cov er the field from plantation to re tailer, in one way or another. Of course I’m not personally connect ed with the technical end; only with the financing. We issued the stock privately at ten, and then had it listed. It’s around eighteen now.” He looked at the ash on the end of his cigar. “It’s apt to sell off a bit this month and next,” he said. “But we expect it to hit fifty by the first of October.” “Your profession has always in terested me,” Greeding assented in an indifferent tone, but he was not indifferent. If Jerrell said Cottons would hit fifty, it was likely to do so. He filed the information in his mind. “I never speculate, myself,” he added, unnecessarily. But despite his disclaimer, he tel ephoned next day an order to Paul Master, who handled his invest ments, to buy a block of Cot tons . . . Jerrell continued to see Nancy frequently; and Doctor Greeding, vatching his daughter without seeming so to do, thought that she vras faintly ill at ease in the older man’s company. When Dan came back from Newfoundland and brought a fourteen-pound salmon to Nancy, Doctor Greeding proposed to Mrs. Greeding: “Why not invite the Carlisles over for dinner? We 11 have the salmeni” Mrs. Greeding said sensibly: “I expect Dan would rather have steak. After all, he must have eat en salmon in Newfoundland till he feels like one himself." The Doctor chuckled. “He won’t care what he eats, as long as he can be with Nancy,” he pointed out. Mrs. Greeding suggested: “Mr. Jerrell has been here so much while Dan was away. I think Nancy has —enjoyed seeing him.” “Give Dan a chance to repair his fences then,” Doctor Greeding re torted. He saw her surprise, and said with a chuckle: “I’m not tak ing sides, Myra. I’m for a fair fight and let the best man win. Dan’s probably all right. If he’s anything like his sister, he’s an able young man. Mary Ann has done very well with me. She’s much the best nurse I ever had.” “You mean that we should invite Mary Ann too?” she asked doubt fully. “Of course.” he assured her. “And Professor Carlisle. Make it a family party!” Mrs. Greeding in the end, al though with a clear reluctance, agreed. Professor Carlisle and Dan and Mary Ann would come to din ner on Tuesday night. Lots of Variety in Crocheted Edgings Pattern 1300 Wonderfully dainty edgings, the laciest of borders, can roll off your crochet hook if you have pat tern 1300, You can crochet an in expensive bit of dress-up for col lar and cuff set, lingerie, hankies, towels, sheets, cases and napkins. 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