The Loot of Cities: Being the Adventures of a Millionaire in Search of Joy (a Fantasia); and Other Stories
John Stuart Mill · en
I do not mind admitting that I was deeply impressed by what I will call
the romantic quality of the situation. I thought of old Spanton, who
had begun with something less than nothing and died virtually the owner
of three daily papers and twenty-five weeklies and monthlies. I thought
of Spantons, Ltd., and their colossal offices spreading half round
Salisbury Square. Why, I even had a copy of the extra special edition
of the _Evening Gazette_ in my pocket! Do any of you fellows remember
Spanton starting the _Evening Gazette_? He sold three hundred thousand
the first day. And now old Spanton was dead--you know he died of drink,
and there was nothing left of the Spanton blood except this girl
lying there on the bed, and the man in Australia. And all the Spanton
editors, and the Spanton sub-editors, and the Spanton artists, and the
Spanton reporters and compositors, and the Spanton rotary presses, and
the Spanton paper mills, and the Spanton cyclists, were slaving and
toiling to put eighty thousand a year into this girl’s purse. And there
she was, feeble and depressed, and solitary, except for Miss Russell,
and the man in Australia perhaps hoping she would die; and there was
Miss Russell, worrying and fussing and apprehending and fearing. And
the entire hotel oblivious of the romantic, I could almost say the
pathetic, situation. And then I thought of Miss Spanton’s future,
burdened with those three millions, and I wondered if those three
millions would buy her happiness.
“Here is the medicine, doctor,” said Miss Russell, entering the
drawing-room hurriedly, and handing me the bottle with the chemist’s
label on it. I went with her into the bedroom. The beautiful
Adelaide Spanton was already better, and she admitted as much when
I administered the medicine--two minims of a one per cent. solution
of trinitrin, otherwise nitro-glycerine, the usual remedy for
pseudo-angina.
Miss Russell took the bottle from my hand, corked it and placed it on
the dressing-table. Shortly afterwards I left the hotel. The lawyer had
been right in supposing that Miss Russell would ask me to stay, but I
was unable to do so. I promised, however, to return in an hour, all the
while insisting that there was not the slightest danger for the patient.
IV.
It was 10.30 when I came back.
“Second floor!” I said carelessly to the lift boy, and he whirled me
upwards; the Grand Babylon lifts travel very fast.
“Here you are, sir,” he murmured respectfully, and I stepped out.
“Is this the second floor?” I asked suddenly.
“Beg pardon! I thought you said seventh, sir.”
“It’s time you were in bed, my lad!” was my retort, and I was just
re-entering the lift when I caught sight of Miss Russell in the
corridor. I called to her, thinking she would perhaps descend with
me, but she did not hear, and so I followed her down the corridor,
wondering what was her business on the seventh floor. She opened a door
and disappeared into a room.