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Doctor Sarson was some little time before he replied. "Yes," he said, "some one seems to have been rummaging about." "Send down the steps quickly," Mr. Fentolin ordered. "I am beginning to find the atmosphere here unpleasant." There was a brief silence. Then they heard the sound of the ladder being dragged across the floor, and a moment or two later it was carefully lowered and placed in position.
The roof had been stripped off the inn where we were, and the place was quite uninhabitable, so we should have had to have moved him somewhere. We put him in the tonneau of the car and covered him up. They have carried him now into a bedroom, and Sarson is looking after him." Mr. Fentolin sat quite silent. His eyes blinked once or twice, and there was a curious curve about his lips.
Fentolin's speech came to an abrupt termination. A convulsive movement of Meekins', an expression of blank amazement on the part of Doctor Sarson, had suddenly checked the words upon his lips. He turned his head quickly in the direction towards which they had been gazing, towards which in fact, at that moment, Meekins, with a low cry, had made a fruitless spring.
Fentolin remarked, as Hamel and Gerald re-entered the dining-room. "A queer fellow almost a new type to me. Dogged and industrious, I should think. He hadn't the least right to travel, you know, and I think so long as we had taken the trouble to telephone to Norwich, he might have waited to see the physician. Sarson was very angry about it, but what can you do with these fellows who are never ill?
"Is there anything more," the doctor asked, "that can be done for your comfort?" "Nothing at present," Mr. Dunster replied. "My head aches now, but I think that I shall want to leave before three days are up. Are you the doctor in the neighbourhood?" Sarson shook his head. "I am physician to Mr. Fentolin's household," he answered quietly. "I live here. Mr.
Still the man upon the bed made no movement nor any reply. Mr. Fentolin sighed and beckoned to Doctor Sarson. "I am afraid," he whispered, "that that wonderful drug of yours, Doctor, has been even a little too far-reaching in its results. It has kept our friend so quiet that he has lost even the power of speech, perhaps even the desire to speak. A little restorative, I think just a few drops."
I wish you to understand one thing. You have, I believe, in my employ learned the gift of silence. It is to be exercised with regard to a certain visitor brought here by my nephew, a visitor whom I regret to say is now lying seriously ill." There was absolute silence. Doctor Sarson alone turned from the window as though about to speak, but met Mr. Fentolin's eye and at once resumed his position.
On the landing he blew his whistle; the lift almost immediately ascended. A moment or two later he glided into the dining-room. The three men were still seated around the table. A decanter of wine, almost empty, was before Doctor Sarson, whose pallid cheeks, however, were as yet unflushed. "At last, my dear guest," Mr. Fentolin exclaimed, turning to Hamel, "I am able to return to you.
"Rather a quick recovery, wasn't it, nurse?" Hamel asked. "It wasn't a recovery at all, sir," the woman declared sharply. "He'd no right to have been taken away. It's my opinion Doctor Sarson ought to be ashamed of himself to have permitted it." "They couldn't exactly make a prison of the place, could they?" Hamel pointed out. "The man, after all, was only a guest."
The doctor was standing, still and dark, a motionless image. "Is he asleep?" Hamel asked. "He is under the influence of a mild anaesthetic," Doctor Sarson explained. "He is doing very well. His case is quite simple. By to-morrow morning he will be able to sit up and walk about if he wishes to." Hamel looked steadily at the figure upon the bed. Mr.
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