Part 2 (1/2)
The doctor had smiled at an expression that he could not but take to himself. His smile sweetened under the kindlier tone which succeeded that one unmeasured word.
”I am not sorry I waited for the introduction which time has given me, Mr. Vinson.”
”You wanted me to a.s.sist the good work, I take it?”
”By your countenance and influence--if you could.”
”I must see something of it first. I must inspect this home of yours, Doctor Dollar.”
The steel eyes of the Vinsons could seldom have cut deeper at a glance, or been met by a pair more candid and unafraid. And yet there was just that cruel suspicion of a cast, to prejudice both the candor and the courage of the finer face.
”It is open to your inspection day or night,” said Doctor Dollar.
”Even at this hour? Even to-night?”
The Home Secretary sounded as keen as he looked; but on the other side there was now just enough hesitation to correspond with that one slight flaw in the finer eyes.
”This minute, by all means,” said the doctor, with resolute cordiality.
”There's always somebody up, and the patients can be seen without being disturbed.”
”Then,” said the Home Secretary, ”it's a chance at a time when every moment of the day is full. Let us strike, doctor, while the iron is as hot as I can a.s.sure you that you have made it.”
II
That deplorable pa.s.sion for adventure, which had turned the hope of the last Opposition into a guerrilla warrior in South Africa, but which the Home Secretary of England might have subdued before accepting his portfolio, was by no means a dead volcano as Topham Vinson sallied forth with his extraordinary companion. It was to be noticed that he took with him a thick stick instead of an umbrella, though the deserted streets had become moist with a midnight drizzle. What he expected can only be surmised. But the odds are that it did not include the shriek of a police-whistle in the sedate region of Wigmore Street, and the instantaneous bolting of Doctor Dollar round the first corner to the left!
Now, the Secretary of State was one of those men who keep up their games out of a cold-blooded regard for the figure; he considered himself as fit at forty as any man in England, and he gave chase with his usual confidence. But the long-legged doctor would have left him behind with the lamp-posts, but for the fact that he was really tearing toward the sound, not flying from it as his pursuer was so ready to suppose. In a matter of seconds they had both fetched up at a brilliantly lighted house, where a more than usually obese policeman was alternately pounding on the door and splitting the sober welkin with his whistle.
”Stop that infernal row!” cried Doctor Dollar, with incensed authority.
”Out of the way with you--this is my house!”
And the Home Secretary arrived on the scene of an imminent a.s.sault on his police, just in time to divert the outraged officer's attention by asking what had happened, while the doctor found his key.
”Lord only knows!” said the policeman, kicking some broken gla.s.s on one side. ”Murder, it sounds like; there's somebody been loosing off----”
And even as he spoke somebody loosed off again! The terrific report was followed by screams within and a fresh shower of gla.s.s from the fanlight. But by this time Doctor Dollar had his latch-key in the lock.
If the door had opened outward, a tangled trio would have fallen into the street; as it was, it hardly would open for the man in white who was struggling with a woman (in red flannel) and a boy (in next to nothing) on the mat.
Dollar exclaimed ”Barton!” in blank amazement. But it was not the unlucky Barton who had run amuck. ”They won't let me at him! They'll get the lot of us shot dead!” he spluttered, with ungrateful objurgations; and then the newcomers grasped the situation. On the stairs, at the end of the narrow pa.s.sage, they beheld an enormous revolver, against a background of pink sleeping-suit, with a ferocious eye looking down the barrel.
The crime doctor slipped in front of the Hogarthian group, and stood between everybody and the armed man--shaking his head with an expression that n.o.body else could see.
”Ozzie, I'm surprised at you!” they heard him say with severity. ”I thought you were a better sportsman than to go playing the fool the one night I'm out. If you want to frighten people, do it where you don't damage their property; if you mean murder, I'm your mark, my lad! Aim at my waistcoat b.u.t.tons and perhaps you'll get me in the mouth; that's better; now blaze away!”
But the pink-striped miscreant was not lowering his barrel to improve his aim. He lowered it altogether. And his other wild eye was open now, and both were blinking with unlovely woe.
”I--I didn't mean any harm,” he faltered. ”It was only a rag--and I'll pay for the door.”
”It'll be a great rag, won't it, if you fire bang into your own foot?