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came up the garden path and I saw they were carrying a stretcher. Both men were wearing uniforms and peaked caps.
    With a loud trampling, everyone passed upstairs and there was an interval of silence. Then I caught the sound of the men’s return, more slowly this time. One of them said: “Mind the corner.” And then: “Your end a bit higher. Steady. Steady. That’s it.” By this time I had the sitting-room door ajar and was peering into the hall. I saw the uniformed men walk along the hall bearing the stretcher on which was a muffled figure I knew was Mary. My father and the old woman brought up the rear. As my father passed me he caught my eye, and I hastily retreated and closed the door.
    Some time after the van had moved off the old woman came into the room and began to clear away the remains of my meal which had lain upon the table all through the evening.
    â€œAin’t it time you went up to bed?” she said, curtly.
    â€œHave they taken Mary to the hospital?” I asked.
    â€œYes, she’s been took away,” the old woman replied.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with her?” I persisted.
    â€œNothin’ you’d understand,” she said. “You get up to bed.”
    Although I was of an age to resent this old woman’s orders I saw no point in remaining up. After a decent interval to show I was not to be ordered about, I went to bed. And in spite of the abnormal events of the evening and my general bewilderment I fell asleep very quickly.
    On the following morning I had no sight of my father before leaving for school, and the only evidence of his presence in the house at mid-day when I came home for dinner was a low, continuous muttering proceeding from the surgery as though he were talking to himself. As I left the house to return to school I saw Dr. Sims coming down the road and evidently making for our house and, acting upon a sudden impulse, I stopped and raised my cap.
    â€œIf you please, how is Mary?” I asked him. “I’m Dr. Carnac’s son,” I added in case he should not know me—though he evidently did.
    He hesitated for a few moments, eyeing me curiously. “She’s dead,” he said. And without another word continued on his way.
    I was so taken aback by this intelligence—although I think I must have sub-consciously expected it—that I hesitated as to whether I should go to school or return home. Ultimately I continued to school, for obviously there was nothing I could do at home. I hardly think I felt shocked at learning of Mary’s death; my feeling was more one of morbid excitement, for this was the first time death had come within my personal circle. And even that feeling was overlapped by puzzlement regarding my father’s position in the affair. I had gathered enough during the past two days to realize that the matter meant trouble of some kind for him. His distress and the attitude of the other doctor were, alone, enough to convey that. But how could the death of a patient cause him trouble? Other of his patients had died and nothing had happened. Had he “violated professional etiquette,” a term which, in the past, I had heard him use and which I understood to mean taking insufficient care of patients? Or had he made some mistake in treating Mary? Given her poison by mistake, or something like that?
    The latter theory seemed the only one to meet the case and, knowing my father as I did, it seemed not improbable. Supposing my father had been drunk when making up Mary’s medicine, for example. And had mixed poison with it. In that case would he be “struck off the medical register” (another term I had heard used) or would even worse befall? Would he get sent to prison? What, exactly, did happen to doctors who poisoned their patients by mistake—or carelessness? (Incidentally, who would know if he had been drunk when he mixed the medicine?)
    And then my thoughts reverted to