There was no use in expounding professional etiquette to Cynthia.  Mary had to decide the point for herself, and quickly; the old man might be seriously ill.  Beaumaroy had said at the Naylors’ that his attacks were sometimes alarming.

Suddenly she recollected that he had also seemed to hint that they were more alarming than Irechester appeared to appreciate; she had not taken much notice of that hint at the time, but now it recurred to her very distinctly.  There was no suggestion of the sort in Beaumaroy’s letter.  Beaumaroy had written a letter that could be shown to Irechester!  Was that dishonesty, or only a pardonable diplomacy?

“I suppose I must go, and explain to Dr. Irechester afterwards.”  She rang the bell, to recall the maid, and gave her answer.  “Say I will be round as soon as possible.  Is the messenger walking?”

“He’s got a bicycle, Miss.”

“All right.  I shall be there almost as soon as he is.”

She seemed to have no alternative, just as Beaumaroy had none.  Yet while she put on her mackintosh, it was very wet and misty, got out her car, and lit her lamps, her face was still fretful and her mind disturbed.  For now, as she looked back on it, Beaumaroy’s conversation with her at Old Place seemed just a prelude to this summons, and meant to prepare her for it.  Perhaps that too was pardonable diplomacy, and no reference to it could be expected in a letter which she was at liberty to show to Dr. Irechester.  She wondered, uncomfortably, how Irechester would take it.

CHAPTER V

A FAMILIAR IMPLEMENT

As Mary brought her car to a stand at the gate of the little front garden of Tower Cottage, she saw, through the mist, Beaumaroy’s corrugated face; he was standing in the doorway, and the light in the passage revealed it.  It seemed to her to wear a triumphant impish look, but this vanished as he advanced to meet her, relieved her of the neat black handbag which she always carried with her on her visits, and suggested gravely that she should at once go upstairs and see her patient.

“He’s quieter now,” he said.  “The mere news that you were coming had a soothing effect.  Let me show you the way.”  He led her upstairs and into a small room on the first floor, nakedly furnished with necessities, but with a cheery fire blazing in the grate.

Old Mr. Saffron lay in bed, propped up by pillows.  His silver hair strayed from under a nightcap; he wore a light blue bedroom jacket; its color matched that of his restless eyes; his arms were under the clothes from the elbows down.  He was rather flushed, but did not look seriously ill, and greeted Doctor Mary with dignified composure.

“I’ll see Dr. Arkroyd alone, Hector.”  Beaumaroy gave the slightest little jerk of his head, and the old man added quickly, “I am sure of myself, quite sure.”

The phrase sounded rather an odd one to Mary, but Beaumaroy accepted the assurance with a nod:  “All right, I’ll wait downstairs, sir.  I hope you’ll bring me a good account of him, Doctor.”  So he left Mary to make her examination; going downstairs, he shook his head once, pursed up his lips, and then smiled doubtfully, as a man may do when he has made up his mind to take a chance.