The doctor pursed his lips and looked wise, while Drummond wondered that no one had ever passed a law allowing men of his type to be murdered on sight.
“His heart seems sound,” he answered after a weighty pause, “and I found nothing wrong with him constitutionally. In fact, I may say, Captain Drummond, he is in every respect a most healthy man. Except—er—except for this peculiar condition.”
Drummond exploded. “Damnation take it, man, what on earth do you suppose I asked you to come round for? It’s of no interest to me to hear that his liver is working properly.” Then he controlled himself. “I beg your pardon, doctor: I had rather a trying evening last night. Can you give me any idea as to what has caused this peculiar condition?”
His companion accepted the apology with an acid bow. “Some form of drug,” he answered.
Drummond heaved a sigh of relief. “Now we’re getting on,” he cried. “Have you any idea what drug?”
“It is, at the moment, hard to say,” returned the other. “It seems to have produced a dazed condition mentally, without having affected him physically. In a day or two, perhaps, I might be able to—er—arrive at some conclusion. …”
“Which, at present, you have not. Right; now we know where we are.” A pained expression flitted over the doctor’s face: this young man was very direct. “To continue,” Hugh went on, “as you don’t know what the drug is, presumably you don’t know either how long it will take for the effect to wear off.”
“That—er—is, within limits, correct,” conceded the doctor.
“Right; once again we know where we are. What about diet?”
“Oh! light. … Not too much meat. … No alcohol …” He rose to his feet as Hugh opened the door; really the war seemed to have produced a distressing effect on people’s manners. Diet was the one question on which he always let himself go. …
“Not much meat—no alcohol. Right. Good morning, doctor. Down the stairs and straight on. Good morning.” The door closed behind him, and he descended to his waiting car with cold disapproval on his face. The whole affair struck him as most suspicious—thumbscrews, strange drugs. … Possibly it was his duty to communicate with the police. …
“Excuse me, sir.” The doctor paused and eyed a well-dressed man who had spoken to him uncompromisingly.
“What can I do for you, sir?” he said.
“Am I right in assuming that you are a doctor?”
“You are perfectly correct, sir, in your assumption.”
The man smiled: obviously a gentleman, thought the practitioner, with his hand on the door of his car.
“It’s about a great pal of mine, Captain Drummond, who lives in here,” went on the other. “I hope you won’t think it unprofessional, but I thought I’d ask you privately, how you find him.”
The doctor looked surprised. “I wasn’t aware that he was ill,” he answered.
“But I heard he’d had a bad accident,” said the man, amazed.
The doctor smiled. “Reassure yourself, my dear sir,” he murmured in his best professional manner. “Captain Drummond, so far as I am aware, has never been better. I—er—cannot say the same of his friend.” He stepped into his car. “Why not go up and see for yourself?”
The car rolled smoothly into Piccadilly, but the man showed no signs of availing himself of the doctor’s suggestion. He turned and walked rapidly away, and a few moments later—in an exclusive West End club—a trunk call was put through to Godalming—a call which caused the recipient to nod his head in satisfaction and order the Rolls-Royce.
Meanwhile, unconscious of this sudden solicitude for his health, Hugh Drummond was once more occupied with the piece of paper he had been studying on the doctor’s entrance. Every now and then he ran his fingers through his crisp brown hair and shook his head in perplexity. Beyond establishing the fact that the man in the peculiar condition was Hiram C. Potts, the American multi-millionaire, he could make nothing out of it.
“If only I’d managed to get the whole of it,” he muttered to himself for the twentieth time. “That dam’ fellah Peterson was too quick.” The scrap he had torn off was typewritten, save for the American’s scrawled signature, and Hugh knew the words by heart.
plete paralysis
ade of Britain
months I do
the holder of
of five million
do desire and
earl necklace and the
are at present
chess of Lamp-
k no questions
btained.am C. Potts.
At length he replaced the scrap in his pocketbook and rang the bell.
“James,” he remarked as his servant came in, “will you whisper ‘very little meat and no alcohol’ in your wife’s ear, so far as the bird next door is concerned? Fancy paying a doctor to come round and tell one that!”
“Did he say nothing more, sir?”
“Oh! a lot. But that was the only thing of the slightest practical use, and I knew that already.” He stared thoughtfully out of the window. “You’d better know,” he continued at length, “that as far as I can see we’re up against a remarkably tough proposition.”
“Indeed, sir,” murmured his servant. “Then perhaps I had better stop any further insertion of that advertisement. It works out at six shillings a time.”
Drummond burst out laughing. “What would I do without you, oh! my James,” he cried. “But you may as well stop it. Our hands will be quite full for some time to come, and I hate disappointing hopeful applicants for my services.”
“The gentleman is asking for you, sir.” Mrs. Denny’s voice from the door made them look round, and Hugh rose.
“Is he talking sensibly, Mrs. Denny?” he asked eagerly, but she shook her head.
“Just the same, sir,” she announced. “Looking round the room all dazed like. And he keeps on saying ‘Danger.’ ”
Hugh walked quickly along the passage to the room where the millionaire lay in bed.
“How are you feeling?” said Drummond cheerfully.
The man stared at him uncomprehendingly, and shook his head.
“Do you remember last night?” Hugh continued, speaking very slowly and distinctly. Then a sudden idea struck him and he pulled the scrap of paper out of his case.
