The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell [77]
‘I am not strong enough,’ he said.
Albert turned towards us and shook his head.
‘He’s done this before,’ he said in a lower tone. ‘It’s my belief he just wants to get attention. He was angry when your uncle died, Mr Nick, and the wife and I had to see about that, and not about him for a change. It can’t go on. I won’t put up with it. He’ll have to go. I’ve said so before. It’s too much. Flesh and blood won’t stand it.’
‘Shall we bust the door down?’ said Duport. ‘I could if I took a run at it, but there isn’t quite enough space to do that here.’
That was true. The bathroom door stood at an angle by the end of the passage, built in such a way that violent attack of that kind upon it was scarcely possible. Dr Trelawney’s hoarse, trembling voice came again.
‘Telephone to Mrs Erdleigh,’ he said. ‘Tell her to bring my pills. I must have my pills.’
This request seemed to bring some relief to Albert.
‘I’ll do that right away, sir,’ he shouted through the keyhole.
‘What on earth can Mrs Erdleigh do?’ said Duport.
Albert, with an old-fashioned gesture, touched the side of his nose with his forefinger.
‘I know what he wants now,’ he said. ‘One of his special pills. I might have thought of Mrs Erdleigh before. We’ll have him out when she comes. She’ll do it.’
‘What pills are they?’
‘Better not ask, sir,’ said Albert.
‘Drugs, do you mean?’
‘I’ve never pressed the matter, sir, nor where they come from.’
Duport and I were left alone in the passage.
‘I suppose we could smash the panel,’ he said. ‘Shall I try to find an instrument?’
‘Better not break the house up. Anyway, not until Albert returns. Besides, it would wake everybody. We don’t want a bevy of old ladies to appear.’
‘Try taking the key out, Dr Trelawney,’ said Duport in an authoritative voice, ‘then put it back again and have another turn. That sometimes works. I know that particular key. I thought I was stuck in the bloody hole myself yesterday, but managed to get out that way.’
At first there was no answer. When at last he replied, Dr Trelawney sounded suspicious.
‘Who is that?’ he asked. ‘Where has Mr Creech gone?’
‘It’s Duport. You know, we sometimes talk in the lounge. You borrowed my Financial Times the other morning. Creech has gone to ring Mrs Erdleigh.’
There was another long silence, during which Dr Trelawney’s breathing grew a little less heavy. Evidently he was making a great effort to bring himself under control, now that he found that people, in addition to Albert, were at work on his rescue. Then the ritual sentence sounded through the door:
‘The Essence of the All is the Godhead of the True.’
Duport turned to me and shook his head.
‘We often get that,’ he said.
This seemed the moment, now or never, when the spell must prove its worth. I leant towards his keyhole and spoke the concordant rejoinder:
‘The Vision of Visions heals the Blindness of Sight.’
Duport laughed.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ he said.
‘That’s the right answer.’
‘How on earth did you know?’
We heard the sound of Dr Trelawney heaving himself up with difficulty from wherever he was sitting. He must have staggered across the bathroom, for he made a great deal of noise as he came violently into contact with objects obstructive to his passage. Then he reached the door and began to fumble with the key. He removed it from the lock; after a moment or two he tried once more to insert it in the keyhole. Several of these attempts failed. Then, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, came a hard scraping sound; the key could be heard turning slowly; there was a click; the door stood ajar. Dr Trelawney was before us on the threshold.
‘I told you that would work,’ said Duport.
Except for the beard, hardly a trace remained of the Dr Trelawney I dimly remembered. All was changed. Even the beard, straggling, dirty grey, stained yellow in places like the patches of broom on the common beyond Stonehurst, had lost all resemblance to that worn by the athletic, vigorous prophet of those distant days. Once broad and luxuriant, it was now shrivelled almost to a goatee. He no longer seemed to have stepped down from a stained-glass window or ikon. His skin was dry and blotched. Dark spectacles covered his eyes, his dressing-gown a long blue oriental robe that swept the ground. He really looked rather frightening. Although so altered from the Stonehurst era, he still gave me the same chilly feeling of inner uneasiness that I had known as a child when I watched him and his flock trailing across the heather. I remembered Moreland, when we had once talked of Dr