Chapter Eighteen.
Mystery Inexplicable.
Britten was, I immediately detected, one of those men whose well-feigned air of fussy sympathy, whose unruffled good humour, and whose quick perception enabled him to gauge to a nicety his patient’s character, and to thus ingratiate himself. By the younger people he was, no doubt, pronounced clever on account of his age and known experience, while old ladies—those whose very life depended upon regularly seeing the doctor—declared him to be “such a dear, kind man.” Upon the family doctor’s manner alone depends the extent of his popularity and the size of his practice. The most ignorant charlatan who ever held a diploma can acquire a wide practice if he is only shrewd enough to humour his patients, to take pains to feign the deepest interest in every case, and assume an outward show of superior knowledge. In medicine be the man ever so clever, if he has no tact with his patients his surgery bell will remain for ever silent.
Dr Britten was a shrewd old fellow; a bit of a bungler, who made up for all defects by that constant good humour which people like in a medical man. “Don’t worry, my dear sir; don’t worry,” he urged, when he had finished. “Rest well, and you’ll be right again very soon.”
“But the events of last night?” I said. “A man made a dastardly attempt upon my life, and I intend to secure his arrest.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” he answered, patting me on the shoulder with a familiarity curious when I reflected that I had never set eyes upon him till half an hour before. “But take my advice, and don’t reflect upon it.”
“If you know, then perhaps you’ll kindly give me some explanation?” I said, resenting his manner. He was treating me as he would a child.
“I only know what you’ve told me,” he responded. “It’s a strange story, certainly. But don’t you think that it is, greater part of it, imagination?”
“Imagination!” I cried, starting up angrily. “I tell you, Doctor Britten—or whatever your name is—that it is no imagination. The wound on my head is sufficient proof of that.”