Page:How I Acted for an Invalid Doctor.pdf/7

Rh offend you, but do you mind telling me where you got it? It's not from curiosity I ask."

"In Dr. Ringmer's workshop, if you must know."

He handed me back the lever without another word. But my own curiosity was raised, and I began to ask questions in my turn.

"Do you mind telling me what there is about it that interests you so much?"

He stepped back, and shut the door of the police station before he answered, in a low voice:

"If you'd found it anywhere else than where you did, sir, I should have said it was a picklock." I suppose I must have looked my amazement, for he added emphatically, "I should, sir!"

Our conversation was cut short by the arrival of a constable with a sheaf of papers, and as I rode off I smiled to think what a mountain the man's professional instinct had raised from such a molehill. No doubt it was a picklock, since he said so; but what then? Ringmer was a mechanic, as I knew; and had not Mrs. Carpenter spoken of his skill as a locksmith?

When I got back I found a far more important matter to think about. An urgent call had arrived from Paddenswick Castle; Ringmer seemed very excited over it, and, I learnt, had asked for me a dozen times.

"Look here!" he commenced, the moment I entered the room. "The Duke of Hammersmith is my best patient. It's just my luck to be laid up when I'm wanted—most likely he's got D.T. There's a strain of hereditary alcoholism in the family, and he was drinking like a fish last week. You know, by the by, that there's no such thing in private practice, don't you?"

"Brain fever, you mean," I answered promptly.

"That's it. Well, you'll have to be as tactful as you can with the Duchess, who'll probably have hysteria if she finds the Duke has got 'em again. You know what hysteria is, too, I suppose?"

"Influenza."

"Good; you know more about private practice than I gave you credit for. Well, hurry up, for goodness sake."

On the way out Cave dilated on the magnificence of Paddenswick; how the Duke had nearly drunk himself to death (a fact which seemed quite common property) until he married Miss Hepzibah Mudross, daughter of the millionaire ironmaster of Pittsburg, U.S.A., and reformed; how the Duchess's diamonds were the talk of the country, and how she had so many that she even wore them in bed; and how a rumour had filtered through the police station that the house had been attempted by the burglars only last night. I asked him at length how he came to know so much about the family, and he answered—rather sheepishly, as I thought—that he knew one of the servants, at which I smiled.

When we arrived at the Castle I was hurried across a vast mausoleum of a hall and up a staircase, lined with portraits of dead and gone Hammersmiths, into a boudoir, where I found an agitated lady who nasally demanded the reason of Dr. Ringmer's absence. It was a hard task to explain matters, and a harder still to retain my footing. Indeed, just how I did it I cannot explain now, but whether through impudence or diplomacy I gradually led her on to a relation of the patient's symptoms, and was standing by his bedside within a quarter of an hour of my arrival.

There was no doubt about the "brain fever"; it was as bad a case as could well be. His Grace was struggling with four men-servants, who had all their work cut out to keep him on the bed; while as to his language, it was calculated to make a pirate quail. There was only one thing to be done, so I waited until he had quieted down a bit, and then gave him a hypodermic injection of morphia. When I got away after a stay of over three hours he was enjoying the first sleep he had had for nearly a week.

After dinner, while I was smoking in the garden, Ringmer sent down for some "Nepenthe," and when I took it up I told him all about the morning's adventures. He smacked his lips as much over the big fee he expected to get, perhaps, as over the "Nepenthe," and leaving him a dose for the night, I turned in myself, horribly tired.

It seemed as if I had only just closed my eyes when the night-bell went off with the dismal cracked note of all its tribe—well do I know the sound! The speaking-tube was in Ringmer's room, so I had to go downstairs to the door. It was the Duke again. I could have sworn it.

As I passed Ringmer's door I listened a second, and thought I detected a snore. I was glad he had not been roused, thanks to the "Nepenthe." I had no wish to