CHAPTER TWO. THE THIRD FINGER.

The house was one of no mean order, and a glance at the rows of books showed them to be well chosen--evidently the valued treasures of a studious man. Upon the writing-table was an electric reading-lamp with green shade, and a fine, pale photograph of a handsome woman in a heavy silver frame. In the stationery rack upon the table the note-paper bore an embossed cipher surmounted by a coronet.

After a few moments the door re-opened, and there entered a very thin, pale-faced, slightly-built man of perhaps sixty, carefully dressed in clothes of rather antique cut. He threw out his chest in walking, and carried himself with stiff, unbending hauteur. His dark eyes were small and sharp, and his clean-shaven face rendered his aquiline features the more pronounced.

"Good morning," he said, greeting me in a thin, squeaky voice. "I am very glad my servant found you at home."

"And I, too, am glad to be of service, if possible," I responded.

He motioned me to be seated, at the same time taking a chair behind his writing-table. Was it, I wondered, by design or by accident that in the position he had assumed his face remained in the deep shadow, while my countenance was within the broad ray of sunlight that came in between the blind and the window-sash? There was something curious in his attitude, but what it was I could not determine.

"I called you in today, doctor," he explained, resting his thin, almost waxen hands upon the table, "not so much for medical advice as to have a chat with you."

"But the patient?" I observed. "Had I not better see her first, and chat afterwards?"

"No," he responded. "It is necessary that we should first understand one another perfectly."

I glanced at him, but his face was only a grey blotch in the deep shadow. Of its expression I could observe nothing. Who, I wondered, was this man?

"Then the patient is better, I presume?"

"Better, but still in a precarious condition," he replied, in a snapping voice. Then, after a moment's pause, he added, in a more conciliatory tone, "I don't know, doctor, whether you will agree with me, but I have a theory that, just as every medical man and lawyer has his fee, so has every man his price!"

 Prev. P 6/205 next