“I suppose I ought,” Miller conceded, “but it would have been a triumph to put him in the dock, after he had been written off as dead and cremated. However, we must take things as we find them; and now I had better go and look over that house.”
With a friendly nod to me, he took himself off, and Thorndyke went off to notify the ladies that the intruders had departed.
As he returned with them I heard Marion cross-examining him with regard to my injuries and listened anxiously for his report.
“So far as I can see, Miss D’Arblay,” he answered, “the damage is confined to one or two muscles. If so, there will be no permanent disablement and he should soon be quite well again. But he will want proper surgical treatment without delay. I propose to take him straight to our hospital if he agrees.”
“Miss Boler and I were hoping,” said Marion, “that we might have the privilege of nursing him at our house.”
“That is very good of you,” said Thorndyke, “and perhaps you might look after him during his convalescence. But for the present he needs skilled surgical treatment. If it should not be necessary for him to stay in the hospital after the wound has been attended to, it would be best for him to occupy one of the spare bedrooms at my chambers, where he can be seen daily by the surgeon, and I can keep an eye on him. Come,” he added coaxingly, “let us make a compromise. You or Miss Boler shall come to the Temple every day for as long as you please and do what nursing is necessary. There is a spare room, of which you can take possession; and as to your work here, Polton will give you any help that he can. How will that do?”
Marion accepted the offer gratefully (with my concurrence), but begged to be allowed to accompany me to the hospital.
“That was what I was going to suggest,” said Thorndyke. “The cab will hold the four of us, and the sooner we start the better.”
Our preparations were very soon made. Then the door was opened, I was assisted out through a lane of hungry-eyed spectators, held at bay by two constables, and deposited in the cab; and when the studio had been locked up, we drove off, leaving the neighbourhood to settle down to its normal condition.
XIX
Thorndyke Disentangles the Threads
The days of my captivity at No. 5a, King’s Bench Walk passed with a tranquillity that made me realize the weight of the incubus that had been lifted. Now, in the mornings, when Polton ministered to me—until Arabella arrived and was ungrudgingly installed in office—I could let my untroubled thoughts stray to Marion, working alone in the studio with restored security, free forever from the hideous menace which had hung over her. And later, when she, herself, released by her faithful apprentice, came to take her spell of nursing, what a joy it was to see her looking so fresh and rosy, so youthful and buoyant!
Of Thorndyke—the giver of these gifts—I saw little in the first few days, for he had heavy arrears of work to make up. However, he paid me brief visits from time to time, especially in the mornings and at night, when I was alone, and very delightful those visits were. For he had now dropped the investigator, and there had come into his manner something new—something fatherly or elder-brotherly; and he managed to convey to me that my presence in his chambers was a source of pleasure to him: a refinement of hospitality that filled up the cup of my gratitude to him.
It was on the fifth day, when I was allowed to sit up in bed—for my injury was no more than a perforating wound of the outer side of the calf, which had missed every important structure—that I sat watching Marion making somewhat premature preparations for tea, and observed with interest that a third cup had been placed on the tray.
“Yes,” Marion replied to my inquiry, “ ‘the Doctor’ is coming to tea with us today. Mr. Polton gave me the message when he arrived.” She gave a few further touches to the tea-set, and continued: “How sweet Dr. Thorndyke has been to us, Stephen! He treats me as if I were his daughter, and, however busy he is, he always walks with me to the Temple gate and puts me into a cab. I am infinitely grateful to him—almost as grateful as I am to you.”
“I don’t see what you have got to be grateful to me for,” I remarked.
“Don’t you?” said she. “Is it nothing to me, do you suppose, that in the moment of my terrible grief and desolation, I found a noble, chivalrous friend whom I trusted instantly? That I have been guarded through all the dangers that threatened me, and that at last I have been rescued from them and set free to go my ways in peace and security? Surely, Stephen, dear, all this is abundant matter for gratitude. And I owe it all to you.”
“To me!” I exclaimed in astonishment, recalling secretly what a consummate donkey I had been. “But there, I suppose it is the way of a woman to imagine that her particular gander is a swan.”
She smiled a superior smile. “Women,” said she, “are very intelligent creatures. They are able to distinguish between swans and ganders, whereas the swans themselves are apt to be muddleheaded and self-depreciatory.”
“I agree to the muddleheaded factor,” I rejoined, “and I won’t be unduly ostentatious as to
