I began to rave again and was taken off to bed by the orderlies. Ihsan Bey came and stood beside me. He had a tiny silver-plated hammer, capped with rubber, in his hand. With this he went over my reflexes, hastily at first and then more and more carefully. He took a needle and tried the soles of my feet, the inside of my thighs, and my stomach reflexes. He paid special attention to my pupils. Then he stood up, scratched his head, and after gazing at me for a moment rushed out into the corridor and brought in a second doctor—Talha Bey. Together they read over my “deposition” and together they went over my reflexes, again. Both men were obviously well up in their work, and I made no effort to hold back my knee jerks or other reflexes for I had been warned by O’Farrell that concealment against a competent doctor was hopeless. So all the responses had been normal, and Ihsan and Talha, who were both convinced from my “history” and my answers that I must have had syphilis, were hopelessly puzzled by the absence of the physical symptoms they expected to find. They consulted together for some time and then Talha came and sat down by me.
He was a clever youth, and should get on in the world. He began by talking about India. A little later he said I appeared to have suffered much from the climate—dysentery and malaria and so on. I admitted that was so, and chatted away quite frankly and pleasantly. Then he talked about microbes and asked if the doctors in India were as clever as the Constantinople doctors, and knew about combating diseases by injections. I said they did. He pretended surprise and disbelief—how did I know?—had they ever given me injections?
I saw what the sly fellow was after, and pretended to walk straight into his trap. O’Farrell had coached me very thoroughly.
“Oh yes!” I said. “I’ve had plenty of injections! You’ve come to the right man if you want to know about injections. I had a regular course of them once.”
“How interesting,” said Talha. “Where did they inject you?”
“In the thigh,” I said. “First one thigh and then the other. A sort of grey stuff it was.”
“Not more than once, surely!” he said, with pretended surprise.
“Oh yes,” I said. “Every week for about six weeks, and then a spell off, and then every week for another six weeks, and so on, and then I had to take pills for two years. I know all about injections, you bet.”
“Dear me!” said Talha, “what a curious treatment! What was that for, I wonder?”
I managed to look confused, stammered a little, plucked nervously at the hem of my nightgown, and then brightened up suddenly and said, “Malaria!—yes, that was it! Malaria!”