Читать книгу A Secret Service - Fred M. White - Страница 9

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Ida shuddered violently. Had she acted on the spur of the moment she would have rushed from the house to the motor and returned home fully resolved to have no more to do with this ghastly business.

After all, she was under no obligation to Valerie Brune. She had gone into the affair out of sheer good nature, and, perhaps, in the hope that she might be able to help Elsie Harness. At any rate, she never expected to find herself face to face with a tragedy. It was her duty to place the facts at once in the hands of the police. But by adopting such a course she might do Valerie Brune an injustice, and cause her serious trouble. She would wait a little longer.

Looking round the dingy, dirty room she saw the cobwebs hanging on the walls, and the discoloured ceiling, and felt it almost impossible to breathe freely in that close foul atmosphere. Late as it was, she heard children whining and quarrelling below, and the sick man moaning. Her senses were alert for what might happen next.

"Would you take a chair, your ladyship?" the old woman suggested.

"The doctor may be some time. Did you bring any money with you? Because I haven't got anything left, and the gentleman upstairs is expensive. Just a five-pun note?"

"I have no money with me." Ida explained. "I had to come here in a great hurry."

The old woman evinced some anxiety.

"There's no danger, I suppose, my lady?"

"I know of no danger except the risk we always have to take," Ida said cautiously. "You shall have money all right. Go upstairs and ask the doctor how much longer he is likely to be. I cannot stay indefinitely, as I must be home at two o'clock. I came here to fetch something. You know what I mean."

Apparently the old woman did, for her one eye gleamed, and she shook her head regretfully.

"We can't find it anywheres, your ladyship," she said. "We've searched and searched, but it's nowhere to be found. Mr. you-know-who says as its all my fault. I believe he thinks as 'ow I took it myself. As if it would be any use to an ignorant woman like me. Why I can't even read. Pay me any money, I says, and I can keep my mouth shut with the best of 'em. But I don't keep no papers about, thank you. The police is too partickler for that. And they've been 'ere a few times afore. Accused me of doing a bit o' smuggling they did. But, Lor' bless your ladyship, they never found nothing. Still, they've not their eye on the place, and when anything comes into my 'ands in the way o' business I gets rid of it as soon as possible. It's my opinion as the gentleman didn't bring them papers with 'im at all."

"All this is very annoying," Ida said. "Now let me clearly understand how matters stand. In the first place, how did Mr. Gray come here? Who brought him?"

The woman cocked her head cunningly and winked her solitary eye. She looked like some evil bird of prey.

"I dunno, your ladyship," she leered. "I dunno nothin' as amounts to anythin'. It ain't for a poor lone body like me to ask questions. But I did 'ear one or two remarks all the same. The gentleman met with an accident—fell out of a train or something like that. Perhaps 'e didn't want 'is friends to know as 'e was in England, p'raps 'e'd got 'imself into trouble. Anyway they finds 'im by the side o' the line and they brings 'im 'ere. They knew I'd be a mother to 'im."

Ida shrank away in disgust. There was something almost loathsome in the manner in which the woman spoke. The smoky lamp was beginning to burn lower, and the room reeked with the smell of it. Ida's overpowering impulse was to get out of this as soon as possible, but her curiosity and a womanly desire to help the sick man upstairs kept her lingering. She could not bring herself to quit the house.

Probably the patient was a gentleman who had fallen into the hands of a gang of rascals who had obviously plotted to do him a mischief, and who might have murdered him by this time if they had only obtained possession of the mysterious papers to which the one-eyed crone had alluded. Ida decided to stay until she had seen the doctor. Not that she expected to learn much from him, for no respectable practitioner would have lent himself to a mysterious case like this. The medical man came downstairs a few moments later. He stared at the sight Ida, and removed a dilapidated cap.

"I should like a few words with you," Ida said. "My good woman, will you kindly leave me alone with the doctor?"

The woman vanished up the grimy stairs, and Ida turned sharply towards her dissipated-looking companion. It was as she had expected.

The doctor proclaimed abject poverty in every line and seam of his shabby garments, and his receding chin was adorned with a ragged beard of some days' growth. His eves were red and heavy and the restless trembling of his capable-looking hands told its own story. For the rest he did not lack refinement, and was evidently a man who at one time had been accustomed to mix in fairly good society; in fact, ignorant of the world, as she was, Ida felt that she knew this man's story without a word of explanation.

"I am interested in your patient," she said. "We need not go into details, but I have come to see him, By the way, the woman here did not mention your name."

"Doctor Truscott," the man stammered. "Matthew Truscott at your service."

"You are properly qualified, I suppose?" Ida had touched a tender spot, for the sallow cheek flushed an indignant pink.

"I am a Doctor of Medicine of London University," he said. "I am telling you the simple truth. You are wondering what I am doing in these parts?"

"It would be a natural curiosity, Dr. Truscott."

Truscott hesitated for a moment.

"I will be candid with you," he replied "I have not had the pleasure of speaking to a lady for so long that I felt embarrassed when you addressed me, and you will pardon me if my curiosity may also be troublesome. This is a strange place to find a M.D. of London attending a patient, but it is a still stranger place in which to meet a lady of your standing in society. If you will be frank with me, madame, I will be frank with you. I won't ask your name—"

"I appreciate your delicacy," Ida smiled "Briefly, as I have said, I am interested in your patient. A few hours ago I was not interested in him, but time presses and we need not go into that. Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that a gentleman like Mr. Arnold Gray should be hiding in a slum like this? I understand that he is exceedingly ill, but his proper place is with his friends. Does this not occur to you?"

"Well not to the same extent," Truscott said. "You see, doctors come in contact with such strange things that they become case-hardened after a time. I have a practice of sorts here, and was called in to see Mr. Gray. I didn't even know his name till you mentioned it. I was told that there had been an accident and, that there were reasons why the patient's friends should not know anything about it. I come here twice a day, and am paid a guinea in advance for each visit. I have a wife and child dependent upon me, and there are times when it is difficult to obtain food for them. A few years ago when I was practising in the West End—"

Truscott broke off abruptly and his voice trailed away into a whisper. Ida laid her hand upon his arm.

"I am very, very sorry," she said gently, "I am afraid my curiosity has carried me too far."

"Mine is by no means an unusual case. I was getting on too well. I worked too hard, and dared not take a holiday till I was thoroughly established. Then, because I was afraid to touch stimulants. I had recourse to drugs. Only a small dose at first, and well. I'm not going to weary you with the story. I am a dreadful-looking wreck. I know, but that is because I have recently conquered my foe, and my system is on the verge of collapse. But I am getting better. I am beginning to pull myself out of the rut and perhaps in time—. Goodness knows why I've told you this story. Perhaps it's because you look so kind and sympathetic, perhaps because it's good to speak to one of one's own class again. I agree with you as regards my patient. The case has given me a good deal of anxiety, but in my position I am powerless, and I am only too delighted to find a lady coming to the rescue. It has eased my mind immensely."

"I suppose he is very ill?"

"Well, he is and he isn't. There has been a slight fracture of the skull, and this has affected the brain. There are moments when the patient is semi-conscious, but these intervals are not frequent. Some days must elapse before Mr. Gray can be taken away. So far as the people in the house are concerned, they can do nothing with him. Even in his present state he is afraid of them and mistrusts them. On the other hand, with me he is quite different. Once or twice I have seen glimpses of reason, and he has asked me questions which show me that he has something on his mind. It is clear that he has lost something of special importance. When the brain is in that condition it doesn't do to treat a man's ramblings too seriously, and my patient always talks in the same vein. Throughout all his conversation there runs a constant allusion to a fawn coat. What he means I haven't the remotest idea. But I need not tell you that I have not mentioned this fact to anyone in the house."

"I think I understand,"' Ida said, "I wonder if there is any objection to my seeing Mr. Gray?'"

"Not in the least," Truscott replied. "Perhaps you would like to go up. It is the first door at the top of the stairs. I'll keep the woman talking and take care that you are not disturbed. Possibly you may be able to do some good."

"Ah, then I'd better see him at once,"