The Alcoholics Read Online Free PDF Page A

She was barely inside her own room, when Doctor Murphy and Rufus, the former in the lead, came pounding up the stairs. She leaned, fearfully, against her door, listening, listening to the sudden starting and stopping of the shrieks, as the door to Room Four was opened and closed.
    They'd know, she thought, terrified. He'd know. That room was soundproof. He'd know that she'd been in there.
    But maybe… she'd have to try… maybe he wouldn't think of that. Oh, God, don't let him think of it!
    Minutes passed. Were they talking about her, deciding what should be done with her? Then, she heard the door of Room Four open, and she opened her own and stepped firmly out into the hallway.
    Rufus bobbed his head as he passed her, carrying a white-enamel hypodermic tray. Doctor Murphy sauntered along behind him, still wearing his bathing trunks.
    He smiled at her engagingly. "Some fun, eh?"
    "I'm awfully thorry to be late, Doctor, but you thee my alarm didn't go off…"
    "No harm done," shrugged the doctor. "Wasn't that some yelling, though? Funny. I'd have sworn he didn't have so much as a whisper in him."
    "Yeth," said Miss Baker. "It ith odd, ithn't it?"
    "Funny that we could hear him, too. Perhaps the noise leaked out through the ventilating system. Never known it to do it before, but- -do you suppose it did, Miss Baker?"
    "Well, I thuppoth it-"
    "Oh, I forgot. You probably looked in on him for a moment. Didn't you, Miss Baker?"
    "Well, I did feel"- no, no, no !-"Oh, no thir! I-" The doctor snapped his fingers. "Of course, not. You were still in bed."
    "Well, I, uh-I wasn't in bed, egthackly. I was getting dressed, and-"
    Doctor Murphy picked up her right hand. He opened the finger of his left hand, and placed a small square of cambric in her palm, folding her hand around that.
    "Must have dropped that," he said, "when you were there-last night."
    He grinned at her, started down the stairs. "See me right after breakfast, eh, Miss Baker?"
    "Yeth, thir," said Lucretia Baker, her voice a thin whisper. "R-right-right after breakfast, Doctor Murphy."

5
    Doctor Murphy went down the steps to the first landing, turned left down a narrow wrought iron-railed mezzanine, and proceeded to the southernmost wing of the house where his own room was located. He dressed, whistling, feeling unusually pleased with himself.
    All his impulses had inclined him to shove Nurse Baker into her room, shake her until her teeth rattled, paddle her little round butt until she couldn't sit down, herd her out of the house and hurl her clothes after her. That was what he had wanted to do, and a man less strong-willed-a man lacking the perfect self-control which he had so definitely demonstrated-would have done that . Which, of course, would have been the worst thing he could do.
    She was a sick woman: reason had told him that as it cried down the rage that prompted him to smack her. So for once-oh, hell, not just once; he didn't blow up very often-he held onto his temper in the face of genuine outrage. He had done exactly the right thing.
    She was sick. The sick should be cured, not punished. He had taken the first step toward that cure. He had shown the damned nasty little stinker-this sick woman-that he was wise to her goddam-that he was aware of her ailment and yet was not angry with her. He had edged the matter out of the shadowed and secret recesses of her mind. Another such nudge or two, and it would be out in the open. If she didn't fly into a defensive rage.
    Doctor Murphy carelessly knotted a tie around the neck of his short-sleeved sport shirt, raked his fingers through his hair until it assumed some semblance of order and stuffed a couple of clean handkerchiefs into his pockets. He let his grin fade, deliberately, and stared pugnaciously at himself in the mirror.
    Washed up? Who you talking about, bud?
    Well? You got fifteen grand in your keister? Anything to keep the bank from tossing you out of here with a few days' grace period?
    Now, look. I don't