Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/96

 which glistened in the candlelight. His eyes were preternaturally wide open; his lips were shut, so as to make a small straight line.

He glanced up at me not in alarm but in defiance, and stretching out one dimpled hand, laid it with a caressing motion on the head of the sick woman.

"That child ought to go to bed," I said to Dr. Roper.

"Oh, no, never mind him," he replied, quickly. "He is perfectly happy here, and determined to stay. He will make a noise if you disturb him."

I said nothing further, but bending over the bed prepared to examine the patient.

She was a young woman of not more than two or three and twenty. Her hair was abundant and of the same colour as the child's. Her eyes were partly closed—her face had a grey and ghastly appearance. In health she may have been pretty, but there was a look about her now which gave me again that nervous sensation which I had experienced once or twice before during the evening.

I proceeded at once to make the usual examinations. I found the skin of the patient warm and bathed in perspiration—the breathing was low and had a stertorous sound. The pulse was very slow.

I raised the lids of the eyes and looked into them. The pupils, as I expected, were considerably contracted. I took up a candle and passed it backwards and forwards before the face of the patient. She was, as I knew beforehand, absolutely insensible to light. Dr. Roper began to speak to me in a hurried, anxious way.

"I heartily wish her husband were home," he said. "I have done all that is possible to arouse her, but in vain; each hour, each moment, the heavy stupor in which she is lying increases—in short, I have every reason to apprehend the worst consequences."

While the doctor was speaking, Taylor's opinions with regard to neurotic poisons kept flashing before my mind.

"I should like to speak to you in another room," I said; "come with me at once."

We went into the dressing-room.

Dr. Roper saw by my manner that I was disturbed, and his own uneasiness became more manifest.

"It is an awful responsibility to have a woman in this condition, and her husband unaccountably absent," he repeated.

"Never mind about her husband now," I said. "The thing is to restore her, and there is not an instant to lose."

"What do you mean; what more can we do?"

"You believe her to be suffering from embolism?" I said.

"Undoubtedly, all the symptoms point to it. There is a clot of blood in one of the arteries of the brain."

"Nothing of the kind," I said. "Your patient is suffering from the effects of an overdose of opium—not the faintest doubt on the subject."

To say that Dr. Roper turned pale is to give but a very faint idea of his appearance when I pronounced my verdict.

"Nonsense, nonsense," he said, with a sort of gasp; "who would give Mrs. Ogilvie opium? She was a perfectly strong woman—she suffered no pain of any sort. There was nothing to tempt her to administer it to herself; and as to her husband, he is devoted to her. For goodness' sake, young sir, don't come down to a quiet place like this and set such scandal afloat."

"I don't want to set any scandal going," I replied. "It is nothing to me what anyone thinks. You have called me in to see the patient. I pronounce the case one of opium poisoning, and I insist on immediately using restoratives. We must make use of the stomach-pump and see what electricity will do."

My manner was so firm, and I carried my convictions so plainly written on my face, that Dr. Roper began to be convinced against his will.

"There is not a moment to lose," I said.

"Is there an electric battery in the house? I suppose Dr. Ogilvie has everything necessary for our purpose in his surgery."

Dr. Roper interrupted me.

"I wish to say," he began, in a hesitating voice, "that my friend, Ogilvie, and I consulted together over this case. Our opinions are absolutely unanimous. All the symptoms pointed to a cerebral clot."

"Excuse me," I said. "The state of the pupils of the eyes, the warmth of the patient's skin, the slow and yet stertorous breathing, can all be accounted for by an overdose of opium. If nothing is done to restore that young woman she will certainly die, and if she dies in my presence I shall think it my duty to see that some investigations take place. It will then rest with the post-mortem examination to prove the truth of my diagnosis or not."

"I wish Dr. Ogilvie were home," murmured the old physician, perspiration breaking out on his brow, and his eyes growing troubled. "But, on my soul, I believe you are right