Grady turned away with a curse as four or five men ran in from the street—­the men from headquarters, I told myself.  I could hear him talking to them in sharp, low tones, and then they departed as suddenly as they had come.  The reserves also hurried away, and I concluded that Grady was trying to throw a net about the territory in which the fugitive was probably concealed; but my interest in that manoeuvre was overshadowed, for the time being, by my anxiety for Simmonds.  I picked up his right hand and looked at it; then I drew a deep breath of relief, for it was uninjured.

“Has anyone sent for a doctor?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” one of the bank attaches answered.  “We telephoned for one at once—­here he is, now!” he added, as a little black-bearded man entered, carry the inevitably-identifying medicine case.

The newcomer glanced at the body, waved us back, fell on one knee, stripped away the clothing from the breast and applied his ear to the heart.  Then he looked into the staring eyes, drew down the lids, watched them snap up again, and then hastily opened his case.

“Let’s have some water,” he said.

“Then he’s not dead?” I questioned, as one of the clerks sprang to obey.

“Dead?  No; but he’s had a taste or whiff of something that has stopped the heart action.”

With a queer, creepy feeling over my scalp, I remembered the little flask half-full of blood-red liquid which Crochard carried in his pocket.

But he had not meant murder this time; I remembered that Godfrey had said he never killed an adversary.  The doctor worked briskly away, and, at the end of a few minutes, Simmonds’s eyes suddenly closed, he drew a long breath, and sat erect.  Then his eyes opened, and he sat swaying unsteadily and staring amazedly about him.

“Best lie down again,” said the doctor soothingly.  “You’re a little wobbly yet, you know.”

“Where am I?” gasped Simmonds.  Then his eyes encountered mine.  “Lester!” he said.  “Where is he—­Piggott?  Not....”

He stopped short, looked once around at the gleaming marble of the bank, fumbled for something at his side, and fell senseless on the seat.

I have no recollection of how I got back to the Marathon.  I suppose I must have walked; but my first distinct remembrance is of finding myself sitting in my favourite chair, pipe in hand.  The pipe was lit, so I suppose I must have lighted it mechanically, and I found that I had also mechanically changed into my lounging-coat.  I glanced at my watch and saw that it was nearly four o’clock.

The top of my head was burning as though with fever, and I went into the bathroom and turned the cold water on it.  The shock did me a world of good, and by the time I had finished a vigorous toweling I felt immensely better.  So I returned to my chair and sat down to review the events of the evening; but I found that somehow my brain refused to work, and black circles began to whirl before my eyes again.