The Dark Other by Stanley G. Weinbaum (new ebook reader .txt) 📕

“Well,” observed the Doctor, “I can see how they might think that.”

“Don’t you believe it?”

“I don’t exactly disbelieve it, Honey. The human mind plays queer tricks sometimes, and this may be one of its little jokes. It’s a psychiatrist’s business to investigate such things, and to painlessly remove the point of the joke.”

“Oh, if you only can, Dr. Carl! If you only can!”

“We’ll see.” He patted her hand comfortingly.

“Now, you say the kind, gentle, and all that, phase is the normal one. Is that usually dominant?”

“Yes. Nick can master the other, or could until recently. He says this last⁠—attack⁠—is the worst he’s ever had; the other has been gaining strength.”

“Strange!” mused the Doctor. “Well,” he said with a smile of encouragement, “I’ll have a look at him.”

“Do you think you can help?” Pat asked anxiously. “Have you any idea what it is?”

“It isn’t a devil, at any rate,” he smiled.

“But have you any idea?”

“Naturally I have, but I can’t diagnose at second hand. I’ll have to talk to him.”

“But what do you think it is?” she persisted.

“I think it’s a fixation of an idea gained in childhood, Honey. I had a patient once⁠—” He smiled at the reminiscence⁠—“who had a fixed delusion of that sort. He was perfectly rational on every point save one⁠—he believed that a pig with a pink ribbon was following him everywhere! Down town, into elevators and offices, home to bed⁠—everywhere he went this pink-ribboned prize porker pursued him!”

“And did you cure him?”

“Well, he recovered,” said the Doctor non-committally. “We got rid of the pig. And it might be something of that nature that’s troubling your boy friend. Your description doesn’t sound like a praecox or a manic depressive, as I thought originally.”

“Oh,” said Pat abruptly. “I forgot. He went to a doctor in New York, a very great doctor.”

“Muenster?”

“He didn’t say whom. But this doctor studied him a long time, and finally came out with this fixed idea theory of yours. Only he couldn’t cure him.”

“Um.” Horker grunted thoughtfully.

“Do fixed ideas do things like that to people?” queried the girl. “Things like the pig and what happened to Nick?”

“They might.”

“Then they’re devils!” she announced with an air of finality. “They’re just your scientific jargon for exactly what Magda means when she says a person’s possessed by a devil. So I’m right anyway!”

“That’s good orthodox theology, Pat,” chuckled the Doctor. “We’ll try a little exorcism on your devil, then.” He rose to his feet. “Bring your boy friend around, will you?”

“Oh, Dr. Carl!” she cried. “He’s leaving! I’ll have to call him tonight!”

“Not tonight, Honey. Mueller would let me know if anything of that sort were happening. Tomorrow’s time enough.”

The girl stood erect, mounting to the top step to bring her head level with the Doctor’s. She threw her arms about him, burying her face in his massive shoulder.

“Dr. Carl,” she murmured, “I’m a nasty, ill-tempered, vicious little shrew, and I’m sorry, and I apologize. You know I’m crazy about you, and,” she whispered in his ear, “so’s Mother!”

“He doesn’t answer! I’m too late,” thought Pat disconsolately as she replaced the telephone. The cheerfulness with which she had awakened vanished like a patch of April sunshine. Now, with the failure of her third attempt in as many hours to communicate with Nicholas Devine, she was ready to confess defeat. She had waited too long. Despite Dr. Horker’s confidence in Mueller, she should have called last night⁠—at once.

“He’s gone!” she murmured distractedly. She realized now the impossibility of finding him. His solitary habits, his dearth of friends, his lonely existence, left her without the least idea of how to commence a search. She knew, actually, so little about him⁠—not even the source of the apparently sufficient income on which he subsisted. She felt herself completely at a loss, puzzled, lonesome, and disheartened. The futile buzzing of the telephone signal symbolized her frustration.

Perhaps, she thought, Dr. Horker might suggest something to do; perhaps, even, Mueller had reported Nick’s whereabouts. She seized the hope eagerly. A glance at her wristwatch revealed the time as ten-thirty; squarely in the midst of the Doctor’s morning office hours, but no matter. If he were busy she could wait. She rose, bounding hastily down the stairs.

She glimpsed her mother opening mail in the library, and paused momentarily at the door. Mrs. Lane glanced up as she appeared.

“Hello,” said the mother. “You’ve been on the telephone all morning, and what did Carl want of you last night?”

“Argument,” responded Pat briefly.

“Carl’s a gem! He’s been of inestimable assistance in developing you into a very charming and clever daughter, and Heaven knows what I’d have raised without him!”

“Cain, probably,” suggested Pat. She passed into the hall and out the door, blinking in the brilliant August sunshine. She crossed the strip of turf, picked her way through the break in the hedge, and approached the Doctor’s door. It was open; it often was in summer time, especially during his brief office hours. She entered and went into the chamber used as waiting room.

His office door was closed; the faint hum of his voice sounded. She sat impatiently in a chair and forced herself to wait.

Fortunately, the delay was nominal; it was but a few minutes when the door opened and an opulent, middle-aged lady swept past her and away. Pat recognized her as Mrs. Lowry, some sort of cousin of the Brock pair.

“Good morning!” boomed the Doctor. “Professional call, I take it, since you’re here during office hours.” He settled his great form in a chair beside her.

“He’s gone!” said Pat plaintively. “I can’t reach him.”

“Humph!” grunted Horker helpfully.

“I’ve tried all morning⁠—he’s always home in the morning.”

“Listen, you little scatterbrain!” rumbled the Doctor. “Why didn’t you tell me Mueller brought you home last night? I thought he was on the job.”

“I didn’t think of it,” she wailed. “Nick said he’d have to make some preparations, and I never dreamed he’d skip away like this.”

“He must have gone home directly after you left him, and skipped out immediately,”