Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction; Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction
“She’ll do,” was his verdict in answer to Fayre’s inquiry. “But she
won’t weather many more attacks like this. Each one is a fresh drain
on her vitality. Blast that dinner-party!”
“You think that did it?”
“Sure. A stuffy dining-room and the effort of talking to a lot of
stodgy people would be quite enough.” Fayre looked him squarely in the
eyes.
“Is she going to get any stronger?” he asked. “I’m one of the oldest
friends they’ve got and I’d like to know how things really are.”
Gregg shrugged his shoulders.
“The machine’s worn out,” he said. “We can patch it, of course, but
every time we do, it becomes a bit weaker. Heart’s always the devil,
you know. I wish I could speak differently,” he went on with a touch
of real feeling in his voice. “She’s one of the best and pluckiest
patients I’ve ever had.”
“Can nothing be done?”
Gregg shook his head.
“She couldn’t be in the hands of a better man than Sir Victor, if
that’s what you mean. No one in Europe can beat him in his own line. I
know, because I worked under him at St. Swithin’s. He’ll do all that’s
humanly possible. I must get back to the hospital. You can get me
there or at home for the next few hours, but you probably won’t need
me. With rest and care she should do all right now. I’ll drop in again
this evening.”
He hurried away, leaving Fayre to make the most of the small comfort
he had given him.
He proved right. By that evening Sybil Kean was noticeably better and
Fayre was able to fix his mind once more on his own, or rather
Leslie’s, affairs. As far as the tracing of the car was concerned,
that was best left in Grey’s hands and, in default of a better job, he
decided to turn his attention to Gregg. The doctor had mentioned St.
Swithin’s and, for some reason he could not place, the name roused an
illusive echo in his mind. For a long time he searched his memory in
vain and it was not till he was in the act of getting into bed that he
suddenly traced the connection. One Henderson, a man he had known well
in his student days in London, had been at St. Swithin’s. He did not
know Gregg’s age, but, from the look of him, they must have been
contemporaries, more or less. It would do no harm to look the man up
and ask him a few questions. In any case, he had been one of the many
people he had meant to run to earth on his return to England and now,
provided he was not in the Antipodes, would be as good a time as any.
He made up his mind to get hold of a medical directory and write to
Henderson at the first opportunity.
Chapter X
Next morning the report of Lady Kean was reassuring and Fayre felt at
liberty to devote himself to his own business.
Immediately after breakfast he betook himself to the library in the
vain hope of finding a medical directory. A brief survey of the rows
of calf-bound volumes convinced him that his search was vain and he
was obliged to fall back on the telephone-book. Here, rather, to his
surprise, he found what he was looking for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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