Enoch’s lips were still moving. Thane listened.
There was one thing more, Enoch said. He had no right to ask it except as a favor for which he would be deeply grateful. Would Thane listen very carefully? In that walnut secretary by the door, in a secret drawer of it that would come open when the moulding above the pen rack was pressed downward—there he would find the key to a room upstairs, directly above the one they were in. He wished to die in that room upstairs,—by himself. He knew better than to ask the nurses or the doctors. They already thought him mad. Anyhow they would ask questions and he couldn’t tell them why he wished to die in that room alone. He had been saving his strength against an opportunity to give them the slip, intending to lock himself into it. Once in it he would be safe. But his strength had suddenly departed forever. No one knew this yet. It had just happened. The nurses supposed he was resting. The fact was he could not move foot, hand or finger. So now he was utterly helpless and hopeless except for Thane,—and the end was so near.
Would Thane get the key?—carry him over all obstacles to that room above?—set him in a certain chair, taking care not to move it?—then retire and lock the door and keep them all off for an hour? An hour would do it. In one hour he would be out of their reach.
Thane did not pause to reflect. The old man’s appeal to be permitted to die as he would in his own house was irresistible. It moved him dynamically. He strode to the walnut secretary, discovered the key, dropped it in his pocket and returned to the bedside.
The nurses were dumfounded! scandalized! to see him suddenly take the old man up in his arms, sheet and all, and start off with him toward the door.
They followed, exclaiming and chattering. They were too amazed to act. At the door occurred a scene of pure confusion. As Thane pulled it open the four doctors, having heard the commotion within, were there in a group on the momentum of entry. At sight of Enoch in Thane’s arms they recoiled and stood blankly aghast. The two nurses behind Thane became hysterically vocal, trying all in one breath to exculpate themselves and explain an inconceivable thing.
Thane was pushing through.
“He wants to die upstairs,” he said.
Instantly on speaking of it he became aware that the situation had an irrational aspect; and he wondered how he should clear them out of the room in which Enoch wished to die and keep them out,—for of course they would follow. He could not help that. With a resolve if necessary to throw them all downstairs he crossed the threshold. The alienist from Philadelphia and the two Wilkes-Barre consultants fell back. It was not their case. The family doctor barred Thane’s way at the foot of the staircase.
“You must be crazy,” he shouted, waving his arms. “This simply cannot be permitted. As his physician I order you to take him back.”