Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/213

Rh "Yes; but not—not in these sort of cases. I'm sure the other man's better. And, if you like, I'll send in a man; I—I know a most wonderful man."

"And what did Dr. Nockolds say?"

"He seemed to think she was going on all right, only a little feverish. But he sent in a nurse, who's going to sit up with her to-night."

"She'll be all right with the nurse, not a doubt of it. Good night, Mr. Ferguson. So good of you to call."

That woman showed me to the door without giving me a chance to slip a word in edgeways. I went home in the cab which had brought her from the theatre. Hume indeed! Why had I not been trained to be a doctor? If there was a more miserable man in London that night than I was, I should have liked to have seen him.

And on the morrow it was worse! They held the inquest, after the agreeable English custom, in a public-house—the Bolt and Tun—the sort of place no decent person would have entered in the ordinary way. There, in a long room, with a sanded floor, the coroner sat with his jury. The witnesses hung about as if they did not know what to do with themselves. The police were very much in evidence. And a heterogeneous collection of doubtful-looking men, women, and children represented the general public.