“I see.” The doctor’s manner changed abruptly. His gaze lost its probing impersonality, became shrewd and searching. He warned stiffly, “If you’ve been retained to effect the discharge of a patient you’re wasting your time and mine. This is strictly a private institution and no legal technicalities are involved. I prefer not to deal with intermediaries, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne said, “If you’d let me speak my piece we’d get along faster. I want to talk to you about Mrs. Burt Stallings. You’re her personal physician, I believe.”
“Mrs. Stallings? Yes.” Patterson hesitated. “What information do you want concerning Mrs. Stallings?”
“What’s the matter with her?” Shayne asked bluntly. “You’re not a general practitioner. Why were you called in?”
“What is your authority for these questions?” Patterson parried bluntly. “I don’t make a practice of discussing my patients with an outsider.”
“I’m making an investigation for Stallings. He sent me to you. Call him if you want to verify it.”
Shayne’s voice and manner were so assured that the doctor did not call his bluff. He said reproachfully, “I don’t understand why Mr. Stallings didn’t come directly to me. But that’s neither here nor there. Mrs. Stallings had a mental and physical breakdown and I’ve been treating her for that. Though she might have recovered faster here at the sanitarium, her progress has been very satisfactory and I expect another few days to see a complete recovery.”
“This breakdown,” Shayne asked, “it came right after her daughter’s return home — after the daughter clashed with her stepfather and filed suit against him for mishandling her father’s estate? Was that the cause of Mrs. Stallings’s breakdown?”
“It was a contributing factor.”
“But the girl withdrew her suit almost immediately.”