“Miss Marion has cut her hand rather badly,” I explained. “We won’t talk about it just now. I will tell you everything presently when you have put her to bed. Now I want some stuff to make dressings and bandages.”
Miss Boler looked at me suspiciously, but made no comment. With extraordinary promptitude she produced a supply of linen, warm water, and other necessaries, and then stood by to watch the operation and give assistance.
“It is a nasty wound,” I said, as I removed the extemporized dressing, “but not so bad as I feared. There will be no lasting injury.”
I put on the permanent dressing and then exposed the wound on the arm, at the sight of which Miss Boler’s eyebrows went up. But she made no remark; and when a dressing had been put on this, too, she took charge of the patient to conduct her up to the bedroom.
“I shall come up and see that she is all right before I go,” said I, “and meanwhile, no questions, Arabella.”
She cast a significant look at me over her shoulder and departed with her arm about the patient’s waist.
The rites and ceremonies abovestairs were briefer than I had expected—perhaps the promised explanations had accelerated matters. At any rate, in a very few minutes Miss Boler bustled into the room and said: “You can go up now, but don’t stop to gossip. I am bursting with curiosity.”
Thereupon I ascended to my lady’s chamber, which I entered as diffidently and reverentially as though such visits were not the commonplace of my professional life. As I approached the bed she heaved a little sigh of content and murmured:
“What a fortunate girl I am! To be petted and cared for and pampered in this way! Arabella is a perfect angel, and you, Dr. Gray—”
“Oh, Marion!” I protested. “Not Dr. Gray.”
“Well, then, Stephen,” she corrected, with a faint blush.
“That is better. And what am I?”
“Never mind,” she replied, very pink and smiling. “I expect you know. If you don’t, ask Arabella when you go down.”
“I expect she will do most of the asking,” said I. “And I have strict orders not to stop to gossip, so let me see the bandages, and then I must go.”
I made my inspection without undue hurry, and, having seen that all was well, I took her hand.
“You are to stay here until I have seen you tomorrow morning, and you are to be a good girl and try not to think of unpleasant things.”
“Yes; I will do everything that you tell me.”
“Then I can go away happy. Good night, Marion.”
“Good night, Stephen.”
I pressed her hand and felt her fingers close on mine. Then I turned away, and with only a moment’s pause at the door for a last look at the sweet, smiling face, descended the stairs to confront the formidable Arabella.
Of my cautious statement and her keen cross-examination I will say nothing. I made the proceedings as short as was decent, for I wanted, if possible, to take counsel with Thorndyke. On my explaining this, the brevity of my account was condoned, and even my refusal of food.
“But remember, Arabella,” I said, as she escorted me to the gate, “she has had a very severe shock. The less you say to her about the affair for the present the quicker will be her recovery.”
With this warning I set forth through the rapidly thinning fog to catch the first conveyance that I could find to bear me southward.
XI
Arms and the Man
The fog had thinned to a mere haze when the porter admitted me at the Inner Temple Gate, so that, as I passed the Cloisters and looked through into Pump-court I could see the lighted windows of the residents’ chambers at the far end. The sight of them encouraged me to hope that the chambers in King’s Bench Walk might throw out a similar hopeful gleam. Nor was I disappointed; and the warm glow from the windows of No. 5a sent me tripping up the stairs profoundly relieved, though a trifle abashed at the untimely hour of my visit.
The door was opened by Thorndyke himself, who instantly cut short my apologies.
“Nonsense, Gray!” he exclaimed, shaking my hand. “It is no interruption at all. On the contrary, how beautiful upon the staircase are the feet of him that bringeth—well, what sort of tidings?”
“Not good, I am afraid, sir.”
“Well, let us have them. Come and sit by the fire.” He drew up an easy chair, and, having installed me in it and taken a critical look at me, invited me to proceed. I accordingly proceeded bluntly to inform him that an attempt had been made to murder Miss D’Arblay.
“Ha!” he exclaimed. “These are bad tidings indeed! I hope she is not injured in any way.”
I reassured him on this point, and gave him the details as to the patient’s condition, and he then asked:
“When did the attempt occur, and how did you hear of it?”
“It happened this evening, and I was present.”
“You were present!” he repeated, gazing at me in the utmost astonishment. “And what became of the assailant?”
“He vanished into the fog,” I replied.
“Ah, yes. The fog. I had forgotten that. But now let us drop this question and answer method. Give me a narrative from the beginning, with the events in their proper sequence. And omit nothing, no matter how trivial.”
I took him at his word—up to a certain point. I described my arrival at the studio, the search in the cupboard, the sinister interruption, the attack, and the unavailing attempt at pursuit. As to what befell thereafter I gave him a substantially complete account—with certain reservations—up to my departure from Ivy Cottage.
“Then you never saw the man at all?”
“No, but Miss D’Arblay did;” and here I gave him such details of the man’s appearance as I had been able to gather from Marion.
“It is quite a vivid description,” he said, as he wrote down the
