“All the way I kept wondering how I could smother the rumours my action was going to start. Call in a doctor, and you always open the sluice. When I thought of the flood behind, my foot went out to the brake. It amounted to this—I was putting all our shirts on the rankest outsider that ever was saddled up. Then I thought of the shock his death would be to Adèle and the awful look in your face as we carried him in. …
“By the time we ran into Lass, I had a half-baked plan.
“We drove to the local surgeon’s. His door was open and, by the grace of God, he was just showing Buchinger out. Then I made a most happy mistake. I took Buchinger for the local, and the local for Buchinger’s man. Before the bookseller could stop me, I’d asked if he could speak English, and, when he said ‘yes,’ I dragged him into the house and started in. There was no time for finesse: my only card was the money, so I jolly well bunged it in. I said if he’d do the case, we’d pay him a thousand pounds—and another four thousand pounds three months from today, provided we’d reason to think that he’d held his tongue. Then I took out the wallet that Mansel keeps in the car and laid the notes on the table before his eyes. He seemed rather staggered and looked at me very hard. Then the bookseller put in his oar. ‘I will give you my word,’ he said, ‘that there is nothing to fear. This gentleman is saving a lady’s name.’ That seemed to reassure Buchinger, but still he wouldn’t say ‘yes.’
“ ‘Dr. Rachel must help me,’ he said, and looked at the wallah that I had thought was his man.
“Then I saw my mistake and that he must be another and bigger pot.
“ ‘By all means,’ said I, and added two hundred and fifty to what there was on the board.
“The two of them looked at the notes.
“Then Rachel made a noise like a siphon and picked his up. …
“Well, he has a kind of clinic attached to his house. All the stuff for an operation was ready to hand. Without Buchinger, he’d have been hopeless—forgotten from A to Z. But Buchinger knows his job. He called for paper and pencil and made out a list. When he’d done, he checked it over: then he gave it to Rachel and told him to ‘get those things into the car.’ Five minutes later we picked him up at a chemist’s two streets away.”
“You’ve saved his life,” said I.
“That remains to be seen,” said George. “But, if I have, it’s pure fluke. Buchinger was leaving the house to catch his train. He was actually on the doorstep. And Rachel could no more have done it than you or I. Clever enough, no doubt: but take him out of his groove, and he loses his mind.”
This estimate, if not exact, was unpleasantly near the truth. As Rachel was bidden, he did—with an excellent grace: but the poor man’s composure was gone, and his efforts to bring it to heel were as obvious as they were vain. This made us all fear for his discretion; but the bookseller presently insisted that the sight of familiar surroundings would send this disorder away and that, once he was back in his province, we could count upon his prudence as upon that of a sage.
This comforted us, for there was much to be done, and our cup of anxiety was full.
When the operation was over, Buchinger told us plainly that, so far from his life being saved, Mansel might die any minute during the next three days.
“When he thought he was dying,” he said, “he was perfectly right. He was dying—and dying fast. He is now no longer dying: Dr. Rachel and I have stopped that. But he is standing still—on the very edge of death. And there we must try to keep him, for, nothing that I can do can draw him back. If he should live for three days, he will himself draw back: and then a medical student could make him well. But if, before then, he slips—that is the end.
“I shall, of course, stay here. As luck will have it, my holiday does not end for another six days. But Dr. Rachel must go. You will fetch him again this evening, when he will bring my things and some drugs that I want. And, if you will keep your secret, I think I should drive into Lass by some indirect way. Of course, you should have a nurse—two nurses. But women would talk. Only, I fear for the health of that beautiful girl. …”
We drew what cheer we could from these solemn words and, since Adèle was with Mansel, turned with relief to the business of setting our house in order as best we might.
Rose Noble lay still unburied, for Carson and Bell had left him and rushed to the castle directly they heard the shot, and, finding the truth so dreadful, had rightly stayed within call. And, since another grave had now to be dug, we put these two matters in train before anything else.
The surgeons had not seen Casemate for, while George was gone for a doctor, the servants had taken the body into the Dining-room. For this I was thankful, for to help a man out of a trespass is one thing, but to stand accessory to homicide is, as they say, a different pair of shoes.
And here I may say that, if Rachel was too much bemused, Buchinger was far
