‘No,’ said George gravely, ‘he hasn’t come round yet, and he’s not likely to before morning. We still don’t know whether he ever saw whoever attacked him, or even where and how it happened.’
Bill Lawrence said, with the authority of the half-expert: ‘It has to be the laconicum. There isn’t any other way he can have got in there. If he’d been exploring from the open flue, he wouldn’t have needed to trail around in there for a day and a night. He knew his stuff, he wouldn’t lose himself. And there’s his car. Whoever made away with that tried to make away with him. Shouldn’t we be having a close look at the laconicum right now, whether it’s night or not?’
‘The laconicum will keep till morning,’ said George. ‘As for Mr Hambro’s actual condition, Doctor Braby can inform you better than I can.’
‘Mr Hambro,’ said the doctor firmly, ‘is suffering from an extreme degree of exhaustion, physical and mental, and however minor his physical injuries may be, they certainly don’t help his general condition. At this moment I’d say his nervous collapse has passed into more or less normal sleep, and since his immediate need is for recuperation, I’ve left him under fairly strong sedation, so that he shall certainly sleep overnight without a break, and probably longer. I realise it’s important to get a statement from him—for it seems from his head injury that he certainly was attacked—but from my point of view it’s even more important that he should get the long period of total rest which he requires. I’m afraid police enquiries will have to wait until he’s fit to deal with them.’
‘And will he be fit?’ asked Bill. ‘I mean eventually? Will he remember, after all this?’
‘Remember? Look, we’re dealing with a perfectly sound and strong young man, who at this moment happens to be gravely weakened by circumstances strictly temporary. There’s no question of serious concussion. Nothing whatever to impair his memory, unless a nervous block occurs, and frankly, I think that very unlikely. Yes, he’ll remember. Whether he saw anything of relevance, whether he can identify his assailant, of course, is another matter. But whatever he did record, he’ll remember. We may have to wait a day,’ he said indifferently, ‘to find out what he has to tell, but he’ll be perfectly capable of telling it when he does surface.’
He came down the rest of the staircase, passed by Lesley with a sympathetic smile and a general goodnight, and walked out to his car.
‘I think,’ said George, ‘we should all leave you now to get what rest you can. I’m assured that Mr Hambro will be all right until morning, and I’ll be in in good time tomorrow to see him.’
‘Do you think we should sit up with him?’ asked Lesley. ‘We would, you know, we’d split the watch. I mean, if he should wake up, and feel lost? After an ordeal like that… and in the dark…’
George shook his head. ‘He won’t wake up. The doctor’s sunk him for twelve hours or so, I assure you. Sleep is what he needs, and what he’s going to get for a while. We shall have to wait. It’s only sense, you know.’
He walked out, too, closing the door gently after him. He was not at all surprised to find, before he reached his car, that Charlotte was there in the darkness beside him, though she certainly had not got there by way of the same door.
‘You can’t do it,’ she said in a rapid, indignant whisper in his ear. ‘You can’t just go away and leave him like this. You’ve just made it clear that he hasn’t said a word yet, but may have plenty to say when he does wake up. Everybody knows it, you’ve made sure of that. And then you go away and leave him to it!’
‘What would you like?’ asked George as softly. ‘A couple of constables with notebooks sitting by his bed?’ He looked at her closely and smiled. ‘So you don’t accept Paviour’s evidence against himself? If the would-be murderer is in hospital at Comerbourne, seriously ill, what is there left to worry about?’
‘I don’t know! It did look like that. It
The brief and unprotesting silence shook and enlightened her. Dimly as she could see his face, she knew he was looking at her with respect, with affection, certainly with a very gentle and grave measure of amusement.
‘That’s what you want!’ she whispered. ‘You’ve got him all pegged out for bait, like a goat for tigers, waiting for someone to have another attempt.’
‘In which case,’ said George mildly, ‘you may be sure I don’t intend the event to go unwitnessed—or uninterrupted.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Charlotte, charmed into meekness.
‘Well, if you insist—it isn’t strictly necessary, but it would help. When you’re sure everyone else is in bed, you can go quietly down and slip the catch on the back door.’
‘I will.’ The door at the foot of those well-carpeted back stairs that led to the room where Gus Hambro was asleep; the room, she remembered, with a spacious walk-in wardrobe. ‘And what after that?’
‘After that,’ said George, ‘go to bed. And go to sleep.’
‘I should have to have a lot of faith in you,’ she said, ‘to do that.’
‘Well?’ said George. ‘You have a lot of faith in me, haven’t you?’
George drove as far as the nearest telephone box that worked, and made two calls, the first being to Barnes, who was standing by for orders, the second to the ward sister in the Comerbourne General Hospital. He was lucky; the night sister on duty was an old friend, and though she was slightly disapproving, she knew him well enough to consent to bend her conscience very delicately to oblige him.
Then he went home to bed.
Barnes let himself in gently by the back door when the house was in complete darkness and silence, eased the catch into place after him without a sound, and made himself reasonably comfortable inside the wardrobe that opened out of Gus’s bedroom. Not too comfortable, for fear of drowsiness. He left the door unlatched, but only a hairline open, to admit sound or light should there be either, and adjusted his own line of vision to cover any approach to the bed where the patient still slept, not so much peacefully as rapturously.
He spent a disappointing, even a puzzling night. Nothing whatever was heard or seen to break the serenity. Nothing whatever happened.
