But, as he watched the man who sat across from him, tilted back in his
swivel chair, he was not so sure. Here was the same tall figure, the
heavy brown hair, the features and boyish smile of the photograph he had
seen the night before. As Judson Clark might have looked at thirty-two
this man looked.
He made his explanation easily. Was in town for the day. Subject to
these headaches. Worse over the right eye. No, he didn't wear glasses;
perhaps he should.
It wasn't Clark. It couldn't be. Jud Clark sitting there tilted back
in an old chair and asking questions as to the nature of his fictitious
pain! Impossible. Nevertheless he was of a mind to clear the slate and
get some sleep that night, and having taken his prescription and paid
for it, he sat back and commenced an apparently casual interrogation.
“Two names on your sign, I see. Father and son, I suppose?”
“Doctor David Livingstone is my uncle.”
“I should think you'd be in the city. Limitations to this sort of thing,
aren't there?”
“I like it,” said Dick, with an eye on the office clock.
“Patients are your friends, of course. Born and raised here, I suppose?”
“Not exactly. I was raised on a ranch in Wyoming. My father had a ranch
out there.”
Bassett shot a glance at him, but Dick was calm and faintly smiling.
“Wyoming!” the reporter commented. “That's a long way from here.
Anywhere near the new oil fields?”
“Not far from Norada. That's the oil center,” Dick offered,
good-naturedly. He rose, and glanced again at the clock. “If those
headaches continue you'd better have your eyes examined.”
Bassett was puzzled. It seemed to him that there had been a shade of
evasion in the other man's manner, slightly less frankness in his eyes.
But he showed no excitement, nothing furtive or alarmed. And the open
and unsolicited statement as to Norada baffled him. He had to admit to
himself either that a man strongly resembling Judson Clark had come from
the same neighborhood, or--
“Norada?” he said. “That's where the big Clark ranch was located, wasn't
it? Ever happen to meet Judson Clark?”
“Our place was very isolated.”
Bassett found himself being politely ushered out, considerably more at
sea than when he went in and slightly irritated. His annoyance was not
decreased by the calm voice behind him which said:
“Better drink considerable water when you take that stuff. Some stomachs
don't tolerate it very well.”
The door closed. The reporter stood in the waiting-room for a moment.
Then he clapped on his hat.
“Well, I'm a damned fool,” he muttered, and went out into the street.
He was disappointed and a trifle sheepish. Life was full of queer
chances, that was all. No resemblance on earth, no coincidence of
birthplace, could make him believe that Judson Clark, waster, profligate
and fugitive from the law was now sitting up at night with sick
children, or delivering babies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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