CHAPTER III

Esther was not mistaken in her surmise that the doctor was by choice at
least more of a scientist than a physician. Patients he had to be
sure, a respectable number, composed mostly of English and American
tourists, well-to-do people. Esther thought that if he had been more
keenly interested or a better business man he might have developed his
practice into a large and lucrative one. She recognised in him the
sure instinct of the natural diagnostician, she knew enough to realise
that his methods and knowledge were up to date. Even that manner of
his, though a little forbidding, had the merit of inspiring confidence.
One felt he was a big man and could afford to dispense with geniality.
Yet it was perfectly apparent that his practice never came first with
him. Esther had not been in the house with him half a week before she
made that discovery. Every free minute of the day found him engrossed
in his experiments, to the utter exclusion of all else, so intolerant
of interruption that he more than once kept patients waiting a quarter
of an hour in the gloomy salon while he finished some piece of work.

The laboratory, with which Esther quickly became familiar, was at the
top of the house, up two flights of stairs, a bare, L-shaped room built
originally for a studio. A sloping skylight admitted a strong north
light, which streamed down on the long table covered with all the
paraphernalia of research. There were two glass cabinets containing
bottles of many descriptions, and a plain Normandy oak armoire, fitted
with shelves upon which were specimens and materials for work. A fibre
mat and a couple of kitchen chairs completed the furnishings of the
main part, but in a sort of alcove which formed the base of the L, and
which was curtained off by thick red hangings, was a camp bed with a
table beside it and a chest of drawers. Here, so she was told by
Jacques the servant, the doctor not infrequently slept when he had
carried on his labours far into the night. He would drop down on the
hard bed at perhaps five in the morning, just as he was, in his shirt
and trousers, with only an old army blanket over him, and there he
would sleep like a dead man till Jacques brought him his tea.

Esther learned a good deal from Jacques who, despite his desperado
exterior, proved to be friendly and communicative, glad no doubt of
someone to chat with since his master was so particularly reserved.
His master, Jacque