The Breaking Point - Page 135/275

"I suppose so," he said, dully. "Is it near? I'll go myself and get a

room."

"That's my advice. I'll look in later, and if the stupor continues I'll

have in a consultant." He picked up his bag and stood looking down at

the bed. "Big fine-looking chap, isn't he?" he commented. "Married?"

"No."

"Well, we'll get the ambulance, and later on we'll go over him properly.

I'd call a maid to sit with him, if I were you." In the grip of a

situation that was too much for him, Bassett rang the bell. It was

answered by the elderly maid who took care of his own bedroom.

Months later, puzzling over the situation, Bassett was to wonder, and

not to know, whether chance or design brought the Thorwald woman to

the door that night. At the time, and for weeks, he laid it to tragic

chance, the same chance which had placed in Dick's hand the warning

letter that had brought him West. But as months went on, the part played

in the tragedy by that faded woman with her tired dispirited voice and

her ash colored hair streaked with gray, assumed other proportions,

loomed large and mysterious.

There were times when he wished that some prescience of danger had

made him throttle her then and there, so she could not have raised her

shrill, alarming voice! But he had no warning. All he saw was a woman

in a washed-out blue calico dress and a fresh white apron, raising

incurious eyes to his.

"I suppose it's all right if she sits in the hall?" Bassett inquired,

still fighting his losing fight. "She can go in if he stirs."

"Right-o," said the doctor, who had been to France and had brought home

some British phrases.

Bassett walked back from the hospital alone. The game was up and he knew

it. Sooner or later--In a way he tried to defend himself to himself.

He had done his best. Two or three days ago he would have been exultant

over the developments. After all, mince things as one would, Clark was a

murderer. Other men killed and paid the penalty. And the game was not up

entirely, at that. The providence which had watched over him for so long

might continue to. The hospital was new. (It was, ironically enough, the

Clark Memorial hospital.) There was still a chance.

He was conscious of something strange as he entered the lobby. The

constable was gone, and there was no clerk behind the desk. At the foot

of the stairs stood a group of guests and loungers, looking up, while a

bell-boy barred the way.