On my last day Miss Wiold me about Dr. and Mrs. Maudsley.
Leaving gates open and wandering into other people』s houses was ohing, walking off with a baby in its pram was quite ahe fact that the baby, when it was found, was discovered to be he worse for its temporary disappearance was beside the point. Things had got out of hand; a was called for.
The villagers didn』t feel able to approach Charlie directly about it. They uood that things were stra the house, and they were half afraid to go there. Whether it was Charlie or Isabelle or the ghost that enced them to keep their distance is hard to say. Instead, they approached Dr. Maudsley. This was not the doctor whose failure to arrive promptly may or may not have caused the death in childbirth of Isabelle』s mother, but a new man who had served the village fht or nine years at this time.
Dr. Maudsley was not young, yet though he was in his middle forties he gave the impression of youth. He was not tall, nor really very muscular, but he had an air of vitality, of vigor about him. His legs were long for his body and he used to stride along at a great pace, with no apparent effort. He could walk faster than anyone, had growo finding himself talking into thin air and turning to find his walking panion scurrying along a few yards behind his back, panting with the effort of keeping up. This physical energy was matched by a great mental liveliness. You could hear the power of his brain in his voice, which was quiet but quick, with a facility for finding the right words for the right person at the right time. You could see it in his eyes: dark brown and very shiny, like a bird』s eyes, observant, i, with strong, eyebrows above.
Maudsley had a knack of spreading his energy around him—that』s no bad thing for a doctor. His step oh, his knock at the door, and his patients would start feelier already. And not least, they liked him. He was a toni himself, that』s eople said. It made a differeo him whether his patients lived or died, and when they lived, which was nearly always, it mattered how well they lived.
Dr. Maudsley had a great love of intellectual activity. Illness was a kind of puzzle to him, and he couldn』t rest until he』d solved it. Patients got used to him turning up at their houses first thing in the m when he』d spent the night puzzling over their symptoms, to ask one more question. And once he』d worked out a diagnosis, then there was the treatment to resolve. He sulted the books, of course, was fully izant of all the usual treatments, but he had an inal mind that kept ing baething as simple as a sore throat from a different angle, stantly casting about for the tiny fragment of knowledge that would enable him not only to get rid of the sore throat but to uand the phenomenon of the sore throat in airely new light. Eitelligent and amiable, he was an exceptionally good doctor and a better than average man. Though, like all men, he had his blind spot.
The delegation of village men included the baby』s father, his grandfather and the publi, a weary-looking fellow who didn』t like to be left out of anything. Dr. Maudsley weled the trio and listetentively as two of the three men reted their tale. They began with the gates left ope on to the vexed issue of the missing saus and arrived after some mi the climax of their story: the kidnapping of the infant in the perambulator.
『They』re running wild,「 the younger Fred Jameson said finally.
『Out of trol,「 a