Chapter 49
"Hum! Well, yes, that is a bad symptom. But he has his cure in his hands. He will worry himself about money, always striving to make more, when I'll be bound to say he already has plenty."
"So report says, doctor."
"Oh, yes, and I daresay it's true enough but that's nothing to us. If he will only leave off worrying about the increase, he'll be able to sleep well enough. But you said you would like a word with me."
"Yes. Nothing much the matter, but I think I do want setting up a little."
"Come into my consulting-room, and we'll see," said Asher, leading the way through a dainty-looking hall, full of the tasteful collections of a man who had evidently an eye for beauty, and had turned his home into quite a little museum.
"Why, doctor," cried Glyddyr, in astonishment, "I didn't know you had this sort of taste?"
"Indeed? Oh, yes. Regular lover of bric-a-brac, as far as my income will allow. This way."
The next minute he had his new patient seated in a consulting-room that was the very opposite of the mausoleum-like abode of gloom into which a London physician has his patients shown.
"Take that seat, my dear sir. Don't be alarmed; it is not an operating chair. A man who has to exist in this out-of-the-way part of the world need have some tastes. Hum, ha! pulse, tongue, heart, lungs. Look here, my dear Mr Glyddyr, I am very glad you have called upon me, or rather called in my services."
"What?" said Glyddyr anxiously. "You find something wrong?"
"Nothing at all, my dear sir. Just the sort of patient I like. Sound as a roach; wants a dose now and then, and can afford to pay me my fees."
"Come, you are frank," said Glyddyr.
"Most commendable quality in a doctor, sir. You have not been living quite so regularly lately as you should. You have some anxiety on your mind, and it has upset your digestion. Then, feeling a bit low, I should say you had been drinking some bad champagne instead of an honest drop of good Scotch whisky. That's all."
"I say, doctor, are you a necromancer or a magician?"
"Bit of both, my dear sir. Here, I'll begin and give you a dose at once."
"No, hang it all, doctor, not quite so soon," said Glyddyr, glancing at the shelves with their large array of bottles.
"St.i.tch in time saves nine, sir," said the doctor, taking out his keys, opening a closet of quaint old carved oak, and bringing forth tumblers, a seltzogene, and a large, curiously-cut decanter. "There, take one third of that to two-thirds of the carbonic water, and one of these," he continued, handing a cigar box.
"Oh, come!" said Glyddyr, laughing. "Doctor Asher, if you'll come to town I'll guarantee you a fortune."
"Thank you," said the doctor, helping himself mechanically to that which he had prescribed; and as soon as he had lit his cigar, throwing himself back in another chair. "But no, my lot seems cast here, and
"Delicious; but is this all the medicine I'm to have?"
"No, I'll send you a box of pills. Take a couple now and then, and leave the champagne alone."
"I beg pardon, sir, you are wanted at the hotel," said the servant, after a tap at the door, from behind which she spoke without attempting to enter.
"Yes: directly."
Glyddyr took a good sip of his whisky and water, and was in the act of rising when the doctor promptly clapped his hands on his shoulders, and pressed him back.
"No, no, my dear sir, sit still. I don't suppose I shall be many minutes. I have a patient there who thinks he is very bad. I want to finish my cigar with you."
He hurried out, leaving Glyddyr leaning back smoking; but, as soon as he was alone, he sat up and his eyes began to search the three rows of bottles before him, and to read the Latin inscriptions upon the drawers beneath, one of which was pulled half out.
He sat forward listening intently to the retreating step of the doctor, after which all was still as death, save the regular beat of a timepiece on the mantelpiece.
Then he threw himself back frowning, and took out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, though the room was perfectly cool, and the window open.
"It's madness," he muttered; "impossible!"
He stretched out his hand, seized his gla.s.s, and gulped its contents down quickly, then, taking the decanter, poured out some more and drank that.
"Dutch courage," he muttered, setting down the gla.s.s. "No spirit. But it's impossible," he said again, and he laid down his cigar, listening intently.
And yet it seemed so easy, for there before him, in the upper row, with its black letters on a gold ground, was the bottle that would do the work.
"No, no," he said, in a husky whisper; but he rose all the same, and stood listening in the midst of a silence that seemed death-like.
"I should hear his step a minute before he could get here," he thought; and with the mocking face of Gellow before him, and his threat, he strode across the room, looked sharply about him, and saw that in the half-opened drawer there were a number of clean phials, each with a cork fitted loosely in.
Taking one of these quickly, he drew the cork with his teeth. Then, raising his hand, he was in the act of taking down the bottle upon which he had fixed his eye, when--
_Paugh_!
A hoa.r.s.e, braying, trumpet-like sound of stentorian power, and he started away as if he had received a blow.
"Only a confounded steam tug," he muttered, with his face glistening with perspiration; and taking down the bottle he removed the stopper, half filled the phial, replaced the stopper and bottle, safely corked the phial, and, trembling violently now, placed the stolen liquid in his breast, just as he heard a step outside.
Quick as his trembling hands would allow him to act, he struck a light, re-lit his cigar, and sank back in his chair with a sigh of relief as the steps came nearer and nearer; still he suffered an agony of apprehension lest the doctor on his entrance should notice his agitation.
"So easy to plan and act," thought Glyddyr, as he listened, "but so hard to retain one's nerve."
Another five minutes would have enabled him to recover himself, but the steps were already at the door; and as he drew in a long breath and lay back, closing his eyes, his cigar between his fingers hanging over the arm of his chair, and his head on one side in a very bad imitation of one asleep, the steps pa.s.sed on.
A false alarm.
Glyddyr breathed more freely. He had time to glance round and see that he had done nothing to betray himself; the bottle was replaced, he had spilled nothing, and the phial was safe in his pocket.
He sank back again with a sigh, the cold perspiration ceased to ooze from his temples, and his pulse throbbed with less violence, as he smoked slowly, beginning now to look ahead as he felt the little phial.
He had his plan about ready as the step for which he listened was now heard approaching, and directly after the doctor entered the room.
"Five hundred apologies, Mr Glyddyr. You see what a slave a doctor is--everybody's slave. No matter where he is or how he feels, if somebody has an ache or a pain, the doctor must go--yes, even," he added bitterly, "if it is to face death in the form of some deadly fever; and generally, in addition to his pay, he hears that he is not clever because he could not perform impossibilities."
"Not an enviable life, doctor."
"Disgusting, sir, at times. Bah! what am I talking about? Don't smoke that cigar; take another. No? Going?"
"Yes; I'll get on board the yacht," said Glyddyr. "I feel all the better for your prescription."
"That's right. Well, I shall see you again this evening."