Dr. Carter dropped upon his knees again beside the insensible man.
“How long,” he demanded, “since the shadow appeared?”
“Difficult to say, doctor,” I replied. “He was alone here. But it hasn’t increased.”
“How long since the injection?”
Nayland Smith shot out a lean brown wrist and glanced at a gun-metal watch in a leather strap.
“Forty-three minutes,” he reported.
Cartier sprang to his feet again.
“Dr. Smith!” he cried excitedly—and I saw Sir Denis suppress a smile—”this is triumph! From the time that the
“Let us dare to hope so,” said Sir Denis gravely.
When all arrangements had been completed and the good Dr. Cartier had grasped the astounding fact that Nayland Smith was not a confrere but a super-policeman:
“It’s very important,” Sir Denis whispered to me,, “that this place should be watched to-night. We have to take into consideration—” he gripped my arm—”the possibility that they fail to save Petrie. The formula for ‘654’
But we had searched for it in vain; nor was it on his person.
The driver of the car in which Sir Denis had come, agreed, on terms, to mount guard over the laboratory. He remained in ignorance of the nature of Petrie’s illness; but Dr. Cartier assured us there was no danger of direct infection at this stage.
And so, poor Petrie having been rushed to the isolation ward, Nayland Smith going with the ambulance, I drove Mme Dubonnet home, leaving the chauffeur from Cannes on guard. Returning, I gave the man freedom of the dinner which Fate had decreed that Petrie and I were not to eat, lent him a repeater, and set out in turn for the hospital.
This secret war against the strange plague which threatened to strip the Blue Coast of visitors and prosperity had aroused the enthusiasm of the whole of that small hospital staff.
Petrie, with other sufferers from the new pestilence, was lodged in an outbuilding separated from the hospital proper by a stretch of waste land. A porter, after some delay, led me through this miniature wilderness to the door of the isolation ward. The low building was dominated by a clump of pines.
A nursing sister admitted me, conducting me in silence along a narrow passage to Petrie’s room.
As I entered, and the sister withdrew, I saw at a glance the cause of a suppressed feverish excitement which I had detect-^deven in the bearing of the lodge porter.
Dr. Cartier was in tears. He was taking the pulse of the unconscious man. Nayland Smith, standing beside him, nodded to me reassuringly as I came in.
The purple shadow on Petrie’s brow had encroached no further—indeed, as I thought, was already dispersing!
Dr. Cartier replaced his watch and raised clasped hands.
“He is doing well,” said Sir Denis. “‘654’ is the remedy...but what, exactly is ‘654’?”
“We must know!” cried Dr. Cartier emotionally. “Thanks to the good God, he will revive from the coma and tell us. We must know! There is no more that I or any man can do now. But Sister Therese is a treasure among nurses, and if there should be a development, she will call me immediately. I shall be here in three minutes. But tomorrow? What can we do? We must know!”
“I agree,” said Sir Denis quietly. “Don’t worry any more about it. I think you are about to win a great victory. I hope, as I have told you, to recover a copy of the formula for ‘654’— and as Dr. Petrie’s safety is of such vital importance, you have no objections to offer to my plan?”
“But none!” Cartier replied. “Except that this seems unnecessary.”
“I never take needless risks,” said Sir Denis drily.
But when Cartier was gone:
“I am going into Nice,” Sir Denis said, “now, to put a phone call through to London.”
“What!”
“There’s a definite connection. Sterling, between the appearance in Petrie’s laboratory of a new species of tropical fly at the same time as an unfamiliar tropical plant—the latter bloodstained!”
“So much is obvious.”
“The connecting link is the Burmese dacoit whom I heard and you and Mme Dubonnet saw. He was the servant of a dreadful master.”
A question burned on my tongue, but:
“Sister Therese is all that Carter claims for her—I have interviewed the sister. She will attend to the patient from time to time. But I’m going to ask you to do something, Sterling, for me and for Petrie.”
“Anything you like. Just say the word.”
“You see. Sterling, since Petrie left London and came here, he had kept in close touch with Sir Manston Rorke, of the School of Tropical Medicine—one of the three big names, although I doubt if he knows more than Petrie. Some days ago. Sir Manston called me up. He had formed a remarkable opinion.”
“What about?”
“About the French epidemic. Two cases, showing identical symptoms, occurred in the London dock area, and he had had news of several in New York and of one in Sydney, Australia. Having personally examined the London cases (both of which terminated fatally) he had come to the conclusion that this disease was not an ordinary plague. Briefly, he believed that it was being induced artificially!”
“Good heavens, Sir Denis! I begin to believe he was right.”
Nayland Smith nodded.
“I invited him to suggest a motive, and he wavered between a mad scientist and a Red plot to decimate unfriendly nations! In my opinion, he wasn’t far short of the truth; but here’s the big point: I have reason to believe that Petrie submitted to Sir Manston the formula for ‘654’—and I’m going to Nice to call him up.”
“God grant he has it,” I said, glancing at the bed where the sick man lay.
“Amen to that. But in the meantime. Sterling—I may be away two hours or more—it’s vitally important that Petrie should not be alone for one moment.”
“I quite follow.”
“So I want you to stand by here until I get back. What I mean is this—I want you to sit tight beside his bed.”
“I understand. You may count on me.”
He stared at me fixedly. There was something almost hypnotic in that penetrating look.
“Sterling,” he said, “you are dealing with an enemy more cunning and more brilliant than any man you have ever met East or West. Until I return you are not to allow a soul to
I was startled by his vehemence.
“It may be difficult,” I suggested.
“I agree that it may be difficult; but it has to be done. Can I rely upon you?”
“Absolutely”
“I’m going to dash away now, to put a call through to Manston Rorke. I only pray that he is in London and that I can locate him.”
He raised his hand in a sort of salute to the insensible man, turned, and went out.
chapter seventh
IVORY FINGERS
I thought of many things during the long vigil that followed. The isolation ward harboured six patients, but Petrie had been given accommodation in a tiny private room at one end. The corresponding room at the other end was the sanctum of Sister Therese.
It was a lonely spot, and very silent. I heard the sister moving about in the adjoining ward, and presently she entered quietly, a fragile little woman, her pale face looking childishly small framed in the stiff white headdress of her order. Deftly and all but noiselessly she went about her duties; and, watching her, I wondered, as I had often
