Part 45 (2/2)
The doctor entertained his guests at the Holborn Restaurant. In his youth he had known the place when it was a dancing-hall; had visited it while undergoing various transformations during his recurrent trips to town, and, whenever he came to London, made a point of patronising it still. The meal was hardly a jovial one.
The host and Harry did all they could to keep the conversation on impersonal and frivolous lines, but Margaret would have none of it. She could scarcely be induced to open her lips to put food between them; talk she would not. The colloquial gifts for which she was famous seemed to have deserted her entirely; she was tongue-tied. When, in a dinner party of three, the lady, who is both young and charming, cannot be persuaded to speak, the meal is apt to prove but a qualified success. The doctor's little festive gathering turned out to be not quite so festive as it might have been.
As chance, or fate, had it, the two men's well-meant efforts to keep the conversation in exhilarating channels were doomed to meet with complete fiasco. After the meal was finished, as they strolled along Holborn, enjoying the fine evening, considering whether to take a cab, and if so, where to tell the cabman to take them to--for the doctor was firm in his conviction that this was an occasion on which they were bound to make a night of it--the issue was taken out of their hands in a wholly unexpected fas.h.i.+on. A gentleman, who did not seem to be so capable of seeing where he was going as he ought to have been, all but cannoned against Mr. Talfourd, drawing back to apologise just in time.
”Beg pardon! Why, it's Talfourd! Hollo, Talfourd! who's the lady? and who's----” The speaker was staring at the doctor.
”Hollo! I've seen you somewhere before!”
The doctor was returning him look for look.
”And I've seen you. You're Mr. Gregory Lamb, who lodged one time at David Blair's over the other side of Pitmuir, to whom I was foolish enough to loan a brace of sovereigns, for four-and-twenty hours, as I understood, but which you've never paid me back unto this day.”
Mr. Lamb was not at all abashed; he never was by reminders of that kind--they were legion.
”Why, of course, it's the doctor--the cranky old doctor. I remember you quite well. How are you, old chap? You haven't--you haven't a brace of sovereigns on you now?”
”I have not a brace which you are likely to be able to bag, Mr.
Lamb. I understand that you have married since I saw you last.”
”Since you saw me! I was married then.”
”Indeed? But I gathered that you had since married the widow of an old friend of mine--Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame.”
”Widow? She wasn't his widow; she never was his wife.”
”Pardon me, but she went through the Scotch form of marriage with him in my presence.”
”That was all her dashed impudence. She was my wife long before that; before she ever knew that he was in the world. Doctor, my wife's a devil of a woman, and she's been treating me in a devil of a way. If I were to tell you all that she's been doing, so far as I can understand, mind you--it's quite between ourselves--you'd go straight to a police station, and you'd ask for a warrant; but I'm her husband, so I can't. Listen to me--this is between ourselves--if you'll come to a place I know, and where they know me--most respectable place--and do me the pleasure of having a drink with me--and Talfourd, and the lady--never leave out a lady when it's a question of a little refreshment--I'll tell you what she's just been telling me, not five minutes ago. It'll surprise you. Good as confessed to committing murder; half expected her to murder me--give you my word it's a fact. Come and have a little something and I'll tell you all about it--between ourselves, you know.”
The doctor exchanged glances with Mr. Talfourd and with Margaret.
”It seems to me, Mr. Lamb, that you've had more than a little something already.”
”You're wrong, old chap--quite wrong; do a.s.sure you. It's ether--beastly ether.”
”Ether?”
”Ever heard of the stuff before? I never did. Seems she lives on it; takes it in quarts. She crammed some of it down my throat--fairly took me by the throat and crammed it down. I'm like a child in her hands--give you my word. She's a devil of a woman. Never tasted anything like it before; seems to have sent me stark staring mad. Don't know whether I'm standing on my head or heels. Let's go and have some Christian liquor, and I'll tell you all about it.”
Again the doctor exchanged glances with his companions.
”If you'll allow me to offer you a seat in my cab I'll take you to a friend who'll be able to give you some of the finest whisky in England, and there, at your leisure, you can tell us all about it.”
”My dear old chap, when they called you cranky I always said that there was more in you than they might think, and I stand to it to the present moment. I say----”
The doctor did not wait to hear what he said; he bundled him into a four-wheeled cab after Margaret and Harry. When the cab had started Margaret asked--
”Where are you taking us?”
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