Page:Weird Tales Volume 14 Issue 3 (1929-09).djvu/30

 digitalis, two sterile syringes, alcohol and cotton sponges, then shoved abottle of quinine tincture into the bag as an added precaution.

"Better run along to bed, old chap," I advised de Grandin as I opened the front door. "I've been called to attend a woman with heat prostration, and mayn't be back till morning. Just my luck to have the car laid up for repairs when there's no possibility of getting a taxi," I added gloomily, turning to descend the front steps.

The Frenchman rose languidly and retrieved his wide-brimmed Panama from the porch floor. "Me, I suffer so poignantly, it is of no moment where I am miserable," he confided. "Permit me to come, too, my friend. I can be equally unhappy walking beside you in the street or working beside you in the sickroom."

Sattalea cottage was a pretty example of the Colonial bungalow type-modified Dutch architecture with a low porch covered by an extension of the sloping roof and all rooms on the ground floor. Set well back from the double row of plane-trees bordering the avenue's sidewalks, its level lawn was bisected by a path of sunken flagstones leading to the three low steps of the veranda. Lights showed behind the French windows letting into a bedroom at the right end of the porch, and the gentle flutter of pongee curtains and the soft whining of an electric fan told us the activities of the household were centered there. Without the formality of knocking we stepped through the open window into the room where Vivian Sattalea lay breathing so lightly her slender bosom scarce seemed to move at all.

She lay upon the bed, uncovered by sheet or blanket, only the fashionably abbreviated green-voile night-robe veiling her lissome body from the air. Her soft, copper-gold hair, worn in a shoulder bob, lay damply about her small head on the pillow, and her delicate, clean-cut features had the smooth, bloodless semi-transparence of a face cunningly molded in wax.

"La pauvre!" de Grandin murmured as I introduced myself to the frightened young man who hovered, hot-water bottle in hand, beside the unconscious woman, "La belle, pauvre enfant! Quick, Friend Trowbridge, her plight is worse than we supposed; haste is imperative!"

As I undid the fastenings of my emergency kit he advanced to the bed, took the girl's wrist between his fingers and fixed his eyes intently on the dial of the diminutive watch strapped to the under side of her left wrist.

"Seventy"—he counted slowly, staring at the little timepiece—"non, sixty-seven—sixty"

Abruptly he dropped her hand and bent down till his slim, sensitive nostrils were but an inch or so from the girl's gently parted lips.

"Sacré bleu, Monsieur, may I ask where you obtained the liquor with which you have stimulated your wife?" he demanded, staring with a sort of incredulous horror at Sattalea.

The young husband's cheeks reddened. "Why—er—er," he began, but de Grandin cut him short with an impatient gesture.

"No need," he snapped, rising and regarding us with blazing eyes. "C'est la prohibition, pardieu! When this poor one was overcome by heat, it was Dr. Trowbridge's order that you give her alcohol to sustain her, is it not so?"

"Yes, but"

But' be everlastingly consigned to the flames of hell! The only stimulant which you could find was of the bootleg kind, is it not true?"

"Yes, sir," the young man admitted. "Dr. Trowbridge told me to give her whisky in broken doses, if I had it. I didn't, but I got a quart of gin a couple of weeks ago, and"

"Name of a thousand small blue devils!" de Grandin half shrieked.