"Ha! ha! ha! I believe you'd really forgot already she'd gone;"
and then, with a quick flash of surprise and intelligent, detective
shrewdness, "You knew she was going, doctor? She did not skip her little
bill, did she? Of course not. Her husband was in such a deuce of a hurry
to catch the early train, the night-clerk said he was ringing his bell
the blessed night for fear they'd get left. Front! take water to 273.
You hadn't been gone five minutes last night, when he came skipping down
here with your check and order, and we just had to make things hum to
get cash enough together to meet it for her; but we made it, and so they
got off all right."
"Have you got my check here yet?" asked I, in in a tone that arrested
the attention of the other clerk, who looked up in surprise.
"Good heavens! no. Do you think we're made of ready money, just because
you are? That check was in the bank and part of the cash in that desk
the first thing after banking hours," said he, opening out the register
and reaching for a bunch of pens behind him. "You see it cleaned us out
last night. I couldn't change two dollars for a man this morning. I told
Campbell last night that you must think hotels were run queer, to
expect us to cash a five-thousand dollar check on five minutes' notice.
Couldn't 'a' done it at all if 't hadn't been pay-night for servants and
the rest of us. We all had to wait till to-day. But the old man'll tell
you. Here he comes."
"Why, hello! doctor, old boy," said Beesley, coming up from behind and
clapping me vigorously on the shoulder. "Didn't expect to see the light
of your countenance around here again so soon. Thought we owed it all
to your professional ardor for that charming patient of yours up in 13.
They got off all right, but if any other man but you had sent that order
and check down here for us to cash last night I'd have told him to
make tracks. Of course, I understood that they were called away
suddenly--unexpectedly, and all that. He told me all about it, and that
you did not finish the trade till the last minute; but--"
"_Trade?_" gasped I, in spite of my determination to hear all before
disclosing anything. "Trade?"
"Oh, come off. Don't be so consumedly skittish about the use of English,
I suppose you want me to say that the 'transaction between you was not
concluded,' etc., etc. Oh, you're a droll one, doctor." He appeared
to notice a change on my face, which he evidently misconstrued, and he
added, gayly. "Oh, it was all right, my boy, as long as it was you--glad
to do you a good turn any day; but what a queer idea for that little
woman to marry such a man! How did it happen? I'd like to know the
history! Every time I saw him come swelling around I made up mind to ask
you about them, and then I always forgot it when I saw you. When he told
me you had been his wife's guardian I thought some of kicking you the
next good chance I got, for allowing the match, and for not telling me
you had such a pretty ward. You always were a deep rascal--go off!" He
rattled on.
Several times I had decided to speak, but as often restrained myself. My
blank face and unsettled manner appeared to touch his sense of humor.
He concluded that it was good acting. I decided to confirm the mistake,
until I had time to think it all over. Finally, I said, as carelessly as
I could:
"How long had this--a--husband been here? That is--when did he get
back?"
"Been here! get back! Been here all the time; smoked more good cigars
and surrounded more wine than any other one man in the house. Oh, he was
a Jim-dandy of a fellow for a hotel!" Then, with sudden suspicion: "Why?
Had he told you he'd go away before? Oh! I--see! _That_ was the trade?
Paid him to skip, hey? M--m--m--yes! I think I begin to catch on." He
could hardly restrain his mirth, and winked at me in sheer ecstasy.
I went slowly out. When I arrived at the house I directed the servant to
say to anyone who might call that the doctor was not at home. I went
to my room and wrote to Dr. Griswold, asking him for information about
Florence Campbell, the fair patient he had sent me. "Who was she? What
did he know of her? Where were her friends?" I told him nothing of this
last development, but asked for an immediately reply, adding--"for an
important reason."
Three days later a telegram was handed to me as I drove up to my office.
It was this:
"Never heard of her. Why? Griswold?"
I did not sleep that night. For the first time my faith in Florence
Campbell wavered. Up to that time I had blamed her husband for
everything. I had woven around her a web of plausible circumstances
which made her the unwilling victim of a designing villain--an expert
forger, no doubt, who used her, without her own knowledge, as a decoy--a
man of whom she was both ashamed and afraid, but from whom she could not
escape.
But how was all that to be reconciled with this revelation? Griswold did
not know her. How about his introduction and that "sulph. 12"? I looked
through my desk for Griswold's note. It was certainly his handwriting;
but I noticed, for the first time, that it did not mention her name.
Perhaps this was a loop-hole through which I might bring my fair
patient--in whom I was beginning to fear I had taken too deep an
interest--without discredit to herself.
Might she not have changed her name since Griswold treated her? I
determined to give her the benefit of this doubt until I could be sure
that it had no foundation.
I felt relieved by this respite, and, heartily ashamed of the unjust
suspicion of the moment before, I gave no hint of it in the letter I now
wrote Griswold, describing the lady, and in which I enclosed his letter
of introduction to me.
The next few days I went about my practice in a dream, and it was no
doubt due to fortuitous circumstances rather than to my skill that
several of my patients still live to tell the tale of their suffering
and of my phenomenal ability to cope with disease in all its malignant
power.