The Barkerville Mysteries 3-Book Bundle by Ann Walsh

Author:Ann Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2014-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Four

“Welcome to my surgery,” said J.B. He unlocked the door of a building between two stores on Barkerville’s main street. “Come in, come in.”

I hung up my jacket and pulled off my boots while the doctor stoked the fire in the wood stove. Although I had been tended to by doctors at home a time or two in the past, I had only once been inside a doctor’s surgery, the time J.B. gave me the laudanum. I hadn’t paid too much attention then, but now I looked around me with more curiosity. At first glance it seemed not unlike any other office, only J.B.’s black leather travelling bag indicated that this was where a doctor worked.

A roll top desk, open to show a dozen pigeonholes crammed with papers, was pushed up against one wall and two chairs were beside the desk. Both the desk and the chairs were covered with books—thin books, thick books, books with tattered covers, leather-bound books. There were piles of books everywhere, even stacked in a corner on the floor.

Close to the stove, beside a small table with a reading lamp, was a cushioned easy-chair with one broken leg. That chair, too, was piled with books; they overflowed onto the table, threatening to nudge the lamp over the edge. Where did J.B. expect his patients to sit, I wondered?

I picked up one of the books, a heavy one. Anatomy of the Human Body it said on the cover. “What is ‘anatomy,’ J.B.?”

“I don’t think anatomy is the best subject to begin with,” he said. “Perhaps we will start with something more suitable to your age. And more, I am certain, to your mother’s liking.” He took the book from my hand and tossed it back onto the chair. A cloud of dust puffed up around my face, and I sneezed.

J.B. looked around him as if he were seeing, for the first time, the books that filled the room. “I think that one of your duties will be to use your carpentry skills and build a bookshelf,” he said. “I suspect that my patients sometimes find it disconcerting to perch on a pile of books—to perch, perhaps painfully, on plentiful piles… Well, enough of that. To work, Ted.”

I looked around me. “But what shall I do?” I asked, sneezing again. “Do you want me to start building the bookshelf now?”

“Certainly not. My consultation hours begin shortly and patients will not want to relate their symptoms against the noise of hammer blows. Or sneezes.”

I sneezed once more. “Most odd,” said J.B. “However, let us forget your sneezes for I have a suggestion as to how you can occupy your time. Come with me.”

We went into a second room, smaller than the first one and even thicker in dust.

“Welcome to my dispensary,” he said. “From this palatial room I dispense dosages for my patients, dreams for myself—for, as you can see, this room is where I sleep—and dinner. Rarely dinner, for I am not a skilled cook.”

Again I looked around me.

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