The Taint and Other Novellas Read Online Free

quickly turned to anger when he heard the veiled threat in the older man’s question. “You’re out of bounds, Barstowe—” he harshly answered, “—and what do you mean by sneaking about down here? If you’re thinking of changing duties with me you can forget it—I don’t like the way these people behave when you’re on duty!” Spellman made his oblique accusation and watched Barstowe’s reaction.
    The fully-trained nurse had gone gray on hearing Spellman “tick him off,” and he was plainly at a loss as to how to answer. When he did speak he had dropped his “Spellman” attitude: “I—I—what are you getting at, Martin? Why! I only came down here to do you a service. I’m not blind, you know. It’s plain you don’t like it down here. But you’ve done yourself now, Martin. I won’t be offering to help you out again—you can bet your life on that.”
    “That suits me fine, Barstowe—but hadn’t you better be getting back upstairs? By now half the inmates could be out running about the grounds—or are they too afraid of that stick of yours to try it?” Barstowe’s gray color took on an even lighter shade, and beneath the folds of his smock his right hand jerked involuntarily at mention of his stick. “Got it with you, have you?” Spellman pointedly stared at the tell-tale bulge in the froggish man’s clinical attire. “I shouldn’t have bothered if I were you. You won’t be needing it tonight—not down here at any rate.”
    At that Barstowe seemed to shrink into himself, the color leaving his face completely, and he turned without another word and almost ran along the corridor and up the stone steps. For the first time, as the squat nurse hurriedly climbed those steps, Spellman noticed that all the spy-holes in the doors lining the corridor were occupied. Faces—in various stages of agitation or animation—with eyes all fixed on the retreating figure of the ugly man, were framed in those tiny barred openings. And Spellman shuddered at the positive hatred those mad faces and eyes reflected.
    On his next visit to Hell one hour later, Martin Spellman tried to talk to the basement ward’s three or four occasionally articulate inmates; to no avail. Even Larner would have nothing to do with him. And yet the student nurse seemed somehow to detect an air of satisfaction; a peculiar feeling of security flowed out quite tangibly from behind those locked doors and padded walls….
    • • •
    For at least a week after the incident with Barstowe, Spellman felt tempted to mention the man’s odd ways to Dr. Welford; and yet he did not wish to cause Barstowe any real harm. After all, he had no genuine proof that the man was not carrying out his duties in anything other than a proper manner, and the fact that he carried a stick with him whenever he visited the basement ward could hardly be called conclusive evidence of any unprofessional intent; there was no way at all in which Barstowe could put his weapon to any use. It seemed purely and simply that the man was a rather nasty coward and nothing more—someone to be avoided and ignored, certainly, but not really worth bothering oneself about.
    Beside, things were bad at that time; Spellman did not want a jobless Barstowe on his conscience. He did ask one or two discreet questions of the other nurses, however, and while it appeared that none of them particularly cared much for Barstowe, it was likewise evident that no one considered him especially evil or even a bad nurse. And so Spellman dismissed the matter….
    • • •
    Towards the end of November Spellman first heard the news of Barstowe’s projected move into “living-in” quarters; apparently the landlady with whom the squat man lodged was expecting her son home from abroad and needed Barstowe’s room. Only a few days later the unpleasant possibility became reality when the oddly offensive nurse did indeed move into one of the four ground-floor flatlets; and he had hardly settled in