Then H.M. took out his watch, consulted it, and moved his finger round the dial as though he were counting hours.
"What is it?" demanded Sharpless, in a high voice. "You know something. What is it?"
"Steady, son!"
"You know something you won't tell me," cried the other. He strode forward and seized H.M.'s shoulder. "You're keeping something back; but by God you're going to tell me. What is it? What is it?"
H.M. shook off the hand.
"If I tell you what I think it may be, can you be steady enough to help and not hinder?" "Yes. Well?"
H.M. gave it to him straight between the eyes. "Blood-poisoning," he said. "Tetanus. Lockjaw nasty way to die."
Eleven
Distantly, a church clock in the town struck the half hour after ten.
In the front garden of Arthur Fane's house, a warm-looking and misty moon penetrated the elms to illumine two figures who were standing on the lawn, glancing up at intervals towards the left-hand bedroom windows. These windows were closed and their curtains drawn, since in tetanus cases no breath of wind must touch the victim lest it bring on convulsions.
Outside in the street stood Dr. Nithsdale's car, and the hospital car which had brought the antitoxic serum.
Ann Browning and Phil Courtney, together on the lawn, spoke in whispers.
"But is there any chance?" Ann muttered. "That's what I want to know. Is there any chance?"
"I can't tell you. I seem to remember reading that if the symptoms come on very quickly, you're a goner."
She put her hand, a warm soft hand, on his arm. She tightened her fingers, and shook the arm fiercely. He had never felt closer to her than in this darkness, where her face looked pallid, her lips dark, and her eyes larger.
"But a little pin?" she insisted. "A little thing like a pin, to do all that?"
i "It can and has. And it was pressed in to the head, remember."
She shuddered. "Thank heaven I didn't use it; Poor Vicky!"
He pressed the hand on his arm. "I didn't even notice," she said, "that the pin was— rusty."
"It wasn't rusty." He recalled the picture. "I remember how it shone when the light touched it. But then this germ's in the air, in dust; it comes from dust. From anything."
Again she shuddered. A light sprang up in the long windows of the front bedroom across the hall from Vicky's. A long shadow, that of Hubert Fane, crossed and recrossed the windows, beating its hands together. From the house they heard no noise or voice.
"Look here," Courtney said sharply. "You're worrying yourself to death. You can't do any good out here, just watching a closed window. Go in and sit down. H.M. will tell us when there's any news."
"You-you think I'd better?"
"Definitely."
"The trouble is," she burst out, "that Vicky's such a decent person. Always trying to do the right thing, always putting herself out for someone else. It just seems as though there's been nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble for her ever since two nights ago, when we first saw…"
The front gate clicked.
Dr. Richard Rich, in a somewhat theatrical-looking soft black hat and a dark blue suit, closed the gate behind him and came hesitantly up the path.
"Miss Browning, isn't it?" he inquired, peering in the gloom. "And Mr.-?"
"Courtney."
"Ah, yes! Courtney. Sir Henry's secretary." Rich rubbed his cheek. "I hope you'll excuse this intrusion. I came to see whether there were any developments."
"Developments!" breathed Ann.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Dr. Rich," said Ann with cruel clearness, "I don't know how many people you've killed, through carelessness, in the course of your professional career. But you killed Vicky Fane last night. She's dying, do you hear? Dying."
Rich appeared to be staring back at them through the distorting moonlight.
"What in the name of sanity are you talking about?"
"Steady, Ann!" said Courtney. He put his arm round her shoulders tightly. All her body seemed to droop. "Doctor, do you remember showing Mrs. Fane was really hypnotized by driving a pin into her arm?"
"Yes? Well?"
"Tetanus. The doctors are upstairs with her now."
There was a pause, while they heard him draw in his breath. Then Rich's bass voice hit back like a blow of commonsense directness, with fear behind it.
"That's impossible!"
"Don't take my word for it. Go in and see."
"I tell you it's impossible! The pin was perfectly clean. Besides—"
Rich pulled the brim of his hat still further down. After a pause, during which his mouth seemed to be working, he turned round and started for die house. They followed him. The front door was on the latch, and a light burned in the hall. Rich's mottled pallor was still further revealed as he removed his hat.
"May I go upstairs?"
"I doubt if they'd let you in. The doctors are there, and a man from Scotland Yard."
Rich hesitated. There was a light in the library, at the front and to their left. Motioning to the others to precede him, Rich went in and closed the door.
This library, you felt, was seldom used. It had a correct air of weightiness: a claw-footed desk, a globe-map, and an overmantel of heavy carved wood. The books, clearly bought by the yard and unread, occupied two walls: in their contrasts of brown, red, blue, and black leather or cloth among the sets, even in an occasional artistic gap along the shelves, they showed the hand of the decorator. A bronze lamp burned on the desk.
"Now," Rich said through his teeth. "Please tell me the symptoms."
Courtney told him.
"And these symptoms came on when?"
"Just before tea-time, I understand."
"God in heaven!" muttered Rich, as though unable to believe his ears. He massaged his forehead, and then hastily consulted his watch. "Sixteen hours! Only sixteen hours! I can't believe it would have got as bad as that in only…"
His voice grew bewildered, almost piteous.
"I forget," he added. "I have not practiced medicine for eight years. Your knowledge grows scrambled. You…" His eyes wandered round the bookshelves. "I don't suppose they'd have any medical works here? Stop. There's a Britannica, at least. It might help to jog my memory."
The set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, fourteenth edition, was on a rather high shelf. Rich stood on tiptoe and plucked down the twenty-first volume, "SORD to TEXT." He carried it to the desk under the lamp. His hands shook. But it was unnecessary for him to leaf through in order to find the article on tetanus.
An envelope, used as a book-mark, was already in the volume at the page containing the tetanus article.
"Somebody's been looking it up already," he observed, flattening out the book.
"Nothing in that," said Ann. "Maybe someone wanted to know — how bad it was. It's convulsions, isn't it?"
"In the final stages, yes. Excuse me." "And you did it," said Ann.
"Young woman," said Rich, raising a quietly haggard face as his finger followed the words of the text, "I have had much trouble in my life. I don't deserve this."
The door opened, and Sir Henry Merrivale lumbered in.
H.M., still wearing his white flannels and shirt, had his big fists on his hips. His manner had grown even more uneasy. Ann and Courtney regarded him questioningly.
"No better," he growled. "If anything, a little worse. And goin' on," His scowl deepened. "Y'know," he seemed to be speaking to himself rather than to the others, "I'm glad I didn't have the responsibility for diagnosin'. Every symptom exact; rusty pin on dressing table… Oh, Lord love a duck, what's wrong?"