CHARLES BULLIVANT
By Edgar Wallace
CHARLES BULLIVANT, the up-to-date doctor of medicine, the experienced surgeon.
Don’t take a chance! Take Charles!
Watch Yourself Grow Better!
Call on me any hour of the day or night—I shall be waiting for you.
Note the address: Willough Lodge, (Look for the house with the pink curtains.)
“You see,” she said eagerly, “we can put that in all the local papers. I learned advertisement-writing by correspondence,” she explained proudly. “It was awful good fun—and that’s just how “ She stopped suddenly.
There was a pained look on the faces of the two young men—the exquisite pain of men who are trying not to laugh.
“It won’t do, sister,” gasped Gould Mortimer. “It’s fine—it’s grand, but it’s—it’s verboten! It’s—oh, heavens!”
She looked from one to the other, disappointed.
“I think you’re both horrid!” she flared, and marched out of the room.
A roar of laughter, too loud for the door to muffle, brought her back with a flaming face and eyes that glittered ominously.
“Why—why are you laughing?” she demanded coldly.
“He—he tickled me,” lied her brother.
It was a lame excuse as the slamming door testified.
“Something has to be done,” said Gould, limp and exhausted. “I’m coming down to stay a day or two in Saxmonleigh.”
“It’s no use, Mort,” groaned the depressed young man. “They won’t let me in. You see, I’ve got a wrong impression of my own value. Yes—yes, I have.” He silenced the other’s protest fiercely. “It comes of having been a popular ship doctor and having hobnobbed with royalties on board ship. If I were to go round Saxmonleigh,” he said bitterly, “with the signed photograph of a viceroy in one hand and an autographed letter from a crown prince in the other, and my chest covered with the little decorations that royal travelers chuck about instead of tips, I might have a chance.”
“Why don’t you?” asked the innocent Mortimer. “I should.”
“Don’t rot,” pleaded the other.
But Gould Mortimer was really serious.
* * * * *
Sir James Colebroke had a suspicious twinge in his left toe and telephoned to Green- Sanders, and that great man motored over to Highhouse to see his distinguished patient and tell him, as he had told him some forty times in the past twenty years, to avoid old brandy and to take more exercise.
“How’s that youngster doing?” asked Sir James, after complaint and remedy had been punctiliously exchanged.
“Which youngster?”
“What’s his name—the doctor?”
Green-Sanders shrugged his shoulders.
“Poor man, I’m afraid he’s doing nothing. He has a house-party this week—rather a pretty girl and her brother.”
Sir James grunted.
People did not have house-parties outside the charmed circle of the County society—they merely had folk to stay with them.
“He’s an outsider—knows nobody in the County. Why the devil he doesn’t chuck up the sponge and go back to London, I don’t know,” he said irritably. He had caused it to be conveyed to Dr. Charles Bullivant that he might expect from Highhouse no encouragement to extend his visit to Saxmonleigh. The fact that Dr. Charles Bullivant had, in a fit of exasperation, not only ignored the hint, but had expressed his opinion of the County society in coarse terms, was sufficient to establish him in the County Index.
“I met the young man who is staying with him,” remarked Green-Sanders casually. “Came down in the same smoker—pleasant person, but American.”
A look of understanding came to Sir James’ face.
“American!” he said significantly. “0f course, if he’s one of those Anglo- American people, he’ll never do.”
It was one of those vague but portentous nothings which the Lord of the Manor indulged in occasionally.
“If you see his friend—as you might—you would be rendering Dr. What ‘s-his- name a service if you suggested that he goes back to London. He is not wanted here, and that’s the end of it.”
Dr. Green-Sanders shared with his fellow-practitioners a resentment for what he regarded as an unwarrantable intrusion on the part of Charles Bullivant. That same afternoon he met a very elated Gould Mortimer emerging from the printer’s shop in the High Street. Gould would have passed on with a nod, but Green-Sanders detained him with a gesture.
“I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Mortimer,” he said. “I think we introduced one another in the train the other day.”
Gould was all attention. His big, homely face beamed down benevolence on the withered little doctor.
“Sure,” he said, with a vigorous nod.
“You’re a friend of Bullivant’s, aren’t you?”
“Sure,” said Mortimer again.
The doctor smiled tolerantly.
“Well, you know, Mr. Mortimer,” he said, “our friend is up against it—that is the expression, isnt it?”
“It’s one I’ve heard,” agreed Big Mort cautiously.
“He’s up against a very disappointing combination of circumstances,” said Green-Sanders soothingly. “Why doesn’t a young man like that try his luck somewhere else?”
Gould Mortimer smiled largely and amusedly.
“Why should he!” he asked.
“What chance has he here?” asked the other.
“A mighty good chance,” said Big Mort earnestly. “Why, see here, Dr. Green- Sanders, somebody has got to get your practice when you’re dead.”
“When I’m dead?” gasped the shocked medico.
“Sure,” responded the visitor, “you can’t go living round here for ever, can you? You’ve got to die sometime, I guess, and that’s just where old man Charles Bullivant gets his chance.”
Dr. Green-Sanders drew himself up.
“Let me tell you, Mr. Mortimer,” he said stiffly, “that Saxmonleigh has failed to take your friend to its bosom: he has no more chance of getting along here than—than—”
He was at a loss for a simile, so he contented himself with shrugging his shoulders. This he did with such vigor that his top hat fell off, was neatly fielded by Mortimer, and restored with some loss of dignity to the doctor.
“I’m sorry to hear you say all that stuff about Charles,” said the resourceful American, with elaborate regret. “I guess he’ll have to go back to Spain.”
“Spain?”
Mortimer nodded.
“He’s some doctor in Spain,” he said mysteriously.
That afternoon Dr. Charles Bullivant departed for London at Mortimer’s urgent request.
“Stay in my house for a week,” said Big Mort, “and don’t read the newspapers.”
“But why—”
“Why me no whys, but be wise,” quoted Gould Mortimer musically. “Get a wiggle on you—you’ll lose that train.”
“But suppose I’m called in,” protested the reluctant young doctor.
“I’ll go,” said the other promptly. “Under the present circumstances you aren’t likely to be called in an^n^here—except for a bet.”
Still the young man was not satisfied, and Mortimer eyed him sternly.
“You’re mighty unwilling to get away from here,” he said. “This two- cylinder village is surely attractive—but you can’t take her with you because I want her help.”
The “she” referred to stood behind her brother and out of the range of his vision, so she was safe in making the little grimace with which she favored the back of his head.
Dr. Bullivant blushed and went off to London, horribly perturbed, for he knew his Gould Mortimer.
Scarcely had his train disappeared out of sight when Mr. Tagge, the local bill- poster, proceeded with his commission. “Wherever it was possible to fly- post a bill upon a fence or tree trunk, that bill was posted. Wherever a shop expressed its willingness to display the notice, that shop was liberally supplied.
The tiny placard appeared at frequent intervals along the High Street, in every shop in Church Street and Cathedral Row. It was tacked to the uprights of the stalls in Market Square; it was (crowning infamy) even displayed blandly upon the notice-boards of St. Helen’s and St. Asaph’s—by permission of the Vicar.
People stopped in the street to read it. Farmers reined up their carts to gather its import. Sir James Colebroke descended from his car, in full view of the town, to read the announcement in Suggett’s window.
“Good Lord!” said Sir James in perplexity, and went home to lunch, very thoughtful.
“Wherever men met in the Borough Town of Saxmonleigh, they prefaced their comments on the Government or the crops or the weather with:
“Have you read that—”
In the morning of the following day, the Vicar of St. Asaph’s called and asked whether Dr. Bullivant would call and see his wife’s throat.
“I’m very sorry,” said the genial Mr. Mortimer, “but my friend has been called in to an important case in London.”
“”When he comes back—ah,” said the Vicar.
“When he comes back,” agreed Big Mort gravely.
Whilst the Vicar was walking down the drive to the road, Big Mort was dancing uncouthly on the mat, to the scandal of his sister.
Half an hour later Colonel “Westinghouse’s victoria drove up the drive, and the Colonel, an irascible man, swore gently at the door till it opened.
“Doctor in?” he demanded explosively.
“No,” replied Big Mort.
“When’ll he be in!” rapped the Colonel.
“How the devil do I know!” replied Mortimer, who spoke the language very well.
“Woof, woof!” said the Colonel, or something of the sort. “Where’s he!”
“He’s in town,” said Mortimer deliberately; “at this moment he is removing the appendix of an ambassador.”
“Then come and see me—Green-Sanders—an ass—old Tingumy- jig’s ass too— Colonel Wes’nlane, Merrut Lodge—’morning.”
“M’n’g,” responded Big Mort, not to be outdone in the matter of contraction.
Mrs. Grayling called about her daughter’s earache at two o ‘clock. At half- past, came Lady Visey-Fane, the relict—she always called herself “relict,” being an earnest student of regal phraseology—of the late Sir William Visey- Fane (born Visey, and Fane adopted by deed poll). Lady Visey- Fane wanted somebody to try her heart.
“Dr. Bullivant is in London,” explained Mortimer. “You have probably read in the papers that a Certain Personage is in Town!”
“I quite understand,” said Lady Visey-Fane graciously. “Will you ask him, on his return, to call! I have no regular medical attendant.”
Dr. Green-Sanders went uninvited to Sir James Colebroke.
“Do you know that that infernal man has already taken four of my best patients,” he said bitterly. “Never, my dear Sir James, have I seen anything so drivelling, so sycophantic, so horribly contemptible as the attitude of these people.”
But his wrath awoke no enthusiasm in the breast of his host, and something like a cold chill struck at the heart of the little doctor.
“Well, you know,” said Sir James tolerantly, “ there must be something in him —I mean, there’s no sense in blinding oneself to facts; people like to be associated with—er—the great ones of the earth—even remotely associated. For myself,” he spread out his hands in self-depreciation, “I am human; what is good enough for—er—Certain Exalted Personage is good enough for me.”
“You don’t mean?” began the horror-stricken doctor.
“I mean,” said Sir James stoutly, “I mean I should like you to call him in over this question of my—er—gout.”
Had an anarchist dropped a cartload of petro-glycerine on the bald head of Dr. Green-Sanders, he could not have been more astounded.
“Phoo!” he snorted, “your gout!”
He said no more, but stalked from the drawing-room of Highhouse, never to return. That night he declined an invitation to dine with the relict—a fatal blunder, since it was an olive branch extended by a lady who had broken through convention and was scared to death at her own temerity.
For three days Charles Bullivant chafed and fretted in the big house in Onslow Gardens, which Gould Mortimer called “home,” reading nothing more amusing than Tackitt on Fracture, which light reading he had brought for his entertainment.
He arrived at Saxmonleigh late at night, and thought that the solitary porter who carried his bag to the station fly was unusually deferential.
He paused in the hall of his house to look at his letters, and was astounded to discover that he had quite a budget—mostly local.
Maisie flew down the stairs to greet him.
“Everything is splendid!” she cried, as she hugged him gleefully; “you’re going to be a great practitioner. Oh, Charles, I’m just delighted!”
Dr. Charles Bullivant looked at her in amazement.
“What has happened? Is old Green-Sanders dead!” he asked hopefully.
“He’s out—”
Gould, from the landing above, an unheroic figure in a smoking-jacket and slippers, conveyed the information through a large cigar. “Out—Green—out the other two guys. You’re It—you’re the first medicine man that the tribe of Saxmonleigh… Come up and paint the wigwam red.”
“I can’t understand it. What does it mean?”
The young doctor was blundering through his correspondence as well as a man could whose one arm was occupied by a girl. “A11 these blight—all these good people want me to call. Here’s an invitation from Sir James himself!”
He stared up at the calm figure in bewilderment.
“What devil’s work have you been up to?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Come up and smoke,” responded the diplomatic Gould.
He left the two alone together, and after an unconscionable time he heard the flying feet of Bullivant ascending the stairs to his bedroom. Maisie came up to the drawing-room more leisurely.
“There’s nothing gained by your doctor dashing upstairs at fifty miles per,” grumbled Gould as the girl came in. “He can’t make up the time he’s lost in the hall. What the dickens you find to talk about, I don’t know.”
“I hope you will one of these days,” said the flushed girl, and rumpled his hair in passing.
They waited with an exchange of glances till they heard the footsteps descending the stairs again—no less hurriedly. Charles Bullivant was really agitated as he came into the room.
“Mort,” he said, “I’ve been robbed!”
“Robbed?” cried the shocked pair together.
“Somebody has been in my room,” said young Dr. Bullivant rapidly, “and cleared out all the things I value most—except your portrait, darling. The brutes had the grace to leave that.”
“What have you lost?” asked Big Mort. He was disgracefully calm in face of the catastrophe.
“I can’t tell for the moment,” said Charles, with a worried frown, “but a little case with the Order of Isabella la Catholica is gone—the young King gave me that when we carried him from Vigo to Malaga; a portrait of the Crown Prince, signed; the Order of St. Stephanie, that the Grand Duke Basil gave me when we were taking him to India—oh, Lord, lots of things!”
Gould Mortimer removed his cigar.
“I was the first to discover the robbery,” he said solemnly. “You did not imagine that anybody could rob this house and me not know it? Sir, I have been on the track of those robbers; I have moved my artillery against the brigands.”
He rose and went to a desk, opened a drawer, and took out a printed sheet. Dr. Charles Bullivant was the only soul in Saxmonleigh who had not seen it. It ran:
£50 REWARD
LOST OR STOLEN
The undermentioned articles were either left in the train between London and Saxmonleigh or removed from the residence of Dr. Charles Bullivant, Willough Lodge, Saxmonleigh.
- The medallion and ribbon of the Order of Isabella la Catholica: engraved “From Alfonso to Charles Bullivant, in Memory of a Pleasant Association.”
- A signed photograph of the Crown Prince of Mid-Europe, signed “Wilhelm Kron-Prinz.”
- The Order of St. Stephanie in brilliants, and framed portrait of the Grand Duke Basil, inscribed “Mille remerciments, Basil.”
- Photographic group (signed) in gold frame of Dr. Bullivant, the Prince of the Asturias, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Crown Prince of Mid-Europe, and the Grand Duchess Maria.
- The freehold deeds of Willough Lodge.
Information leading to the recovery of these should be lodged at the County Police Station, or to Dr. Charles Bullivant, by whom the above reward will be paid.
The doctor read it again, his hand to his brow.
“It is all right,” said Gould, and patted the shoulder of the other. “The bag containing these sacred goods was returned anonymously tonight.”
“But—but I don’t understand,” said the doctor. “0f course, those things were mine, and I’m jolly glad to get them—but the deeds of this house; I only rent this place.”
Big Mort smiled at his sister.
“That’s all right—all right,” he said easily. “The freehold is my wedding gift.”
Dr. Charles Bullivant looked first at the notice in his hand, then at the pile of correspondence which lay on the table, and a slow light dawned upon him.
“Which of you two was the burglar?” he asked.
The girl laughed. “That’s a secret,” she said. “I only drew up the advertisement.”