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Suddenly the telephone at Monsieur Coulagne’s elbow rang, and after listening, he exclaimed:

“The men are already posted round the hotel. So all we have to do is to await his return.”

Hence I went forth with Rivero and the Commissary. Led by the latter, we approached the Place de l’Esplanade through a labyrinth of narrow back streets until, on gaining the hotel, we saw idling in the vicinity a number of men who were apparently quite disinterested.

We entered the hotel boldly, and drawing back to the end of the lounge, after a whispered word with the concierge, we waited.

For a full hour we remained there in eager impatience, until suddenly a figure whom I recognized as Doctor Moroni showed in the doorway.

He was alone!

He ascended to his room, where he remained for about ten minutes. Then, descending, he went to the bureau and inquired for the bill of his friend and himself, announcing his intention of departing for Paris by the train which left in half an hour!

Rivero, who had been standing near him unrecognized, crossed quickly to where with the Commissary I sat well back from observation, and gasped:

“They’ve gone! He is also leaving! Evidently they suspected they were under observation!”

“Ah! Despujol is a very wary bird,” replied Monsieur Coulagne, rising and walking out into the Place, where he whispered some hurried words to a stout, well-dressed man who was sauntering by, and who was his chief inspector.

In a few moments more than half the lurking police agents had disappeared to make inquiries at the railway station and in various quarters, and when he rejoined us – Moroni having returned upstairs – he said:

“Despujol cannot yet have gone very far. I have given orders for all railway stations within two hundred kilomètres to be warned. Let us return to my bureau and await reports.”

“And what about Moroni?” I asked.

“He will be followed. I have already seen to that,” was the reply.

Back at the Prefecture Monsieur Coulagne was soon speaking rapidly over the telephone. Then we waited for news of the fugitive. None came until about two hours afterwards the result of inquiries was told to us by an inspector.

It seemed that on the previous day a large open car, driven by a chauffeur, put into Carli’s Garage, a big establishment in the Boulevard des Arènes. The chauffeur asked for a receipt for the car, saying that he had to go by train to Marseilles, and that his master would probably call for the car on the following day, and produce the receipt. He asked that it should be filled up with petrol in readiness for his master. About two hours before the police made inquiry three gentlemen entered the garage, the descriptions of whom tallied with those of De Gex, Despujol and Moroni. De Gex produced the receipt for the car. He paid for the petrol, and he and Despujol drove away bidding farewell to Moroni! Despujol drove the car.

“Ah!” exclaimed Rivero. “Despujol would not risk the train. He always arranges a secret means of escape. In this case he prepared it on the day before. Without a doubt he knew that watch was being kept.”

“Or was it that De Gex knew that I was here?” I suggested.

“Well, in any case,” remarked the Commissary of Police, “the pair have got clear away, and though we will do our best, it will no doubt be extremely difficult to rediscover them. They will change the number-plates on the car, and perhaps repaint it! Who knows? Despujol is one of the most desperate characters in all Europe!”

“And Oswald De Gex is equally dangerous!” I declared, for I was still no nearer the truth.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
GABRIELLE AT HOME

I had been back in London a little over a week when I read in the paper one morning a paragraph which possessed for me a peculiar interest. It ran as follows:

“The notorious Spanish bandit Rodriquez Despujol, who has for several years terrorized Murcia and Andalusia and has committed several murders, is dead. The police have been searching for him everywhere, but so elusive was he that he always evaded them. The celebrated Spanish detective Señor Rivero learnt a short time ago that the wanted man had been seen at Nîmes, where he cleverly contrived to escape by car.

“Certain clues came into the hands of the police, and by these Señor Rivero was able to trace the fugitive to Denia, not far from Valencia. He was hiding in a small cottage in an orange-grove just outside the town. The place was surrounded by police, but Despujol, discovering this, opened fire upon them from one of the windows and also threw a hand grenade among them, with result that two carabineers were killed and four others injured, among the latter being Señor Rivero himself. A desperate fight ensued, but in the end the bandit received a bullet in the head which proved fatal.

“A large quantity of stolen property of all sorts has been discovered in rooms which the criminal occupied in Montauban, in France. Despujol’s latest exploit was an attempt to administer in secret a very deadly poison to an Englishman who was visiting Madrid. It was that attempted crime which aroused Señor Rivero’s activities which have had the effect of ridding Spain of one of its most notorious assassins.”

I read the report twice. So the defiant Despujol was dead, and poor Rivero had sustained injuries! Nothing was said of the powerful financier’s friendship with the bandit.

When I showed it to Hambledon, he remarked:

“At least you’ve been the means not only of putting an end to Despujol’s ignoble career, but also of restoring a quantity of very valuable property to its owners.”

“True, but it brings us no nearer a solution of the affair at Stretton Street,” was my reply.

Gabrielle’s mother had returned to London, and that evening I called upon her by appointment. I found her a grey-haired refined woman with a pale anxious face and deep-set eyes.

When I mentioned Gabrielle, who was in the adjoining room, she sighed and exclaimed:

“Ah! Mr. Garfield. It is a great trial to me. Poor child! I cannot think what happened to her. Nobody can tell, she least of all. Doctor Moroni has been very good, for he is greatly interested in her case. They have told me that you called some time ago and evinced an interest in her.”

“Yes, Mrs. Tennison,” I said. “I feel a very deep interest in your daughter because – well, to tell you the truth, I, too, after a strange adventure here in London one night completely lost my sense of identity, and when I came to a knowledge of things about me I was in a hospital in France, having been found unconscious at the roadside many days after my adventure in London.”

“How very curious!” Mrs. Tennison remarked, instantly interested. “Gabrielle was found at the roadside. Do you think, then, that there is any connexion between your case and hers?”

“Yes, Mrs. Tennison,” I replied promptly. “It is for that reason I am in active search of the truth – in the interests of your daughter, as well as of those of my own.”

“What do you suspect, Mr. Garfield?” asked Gabrielle’s mother, as we sat in that cosily-furnished little room where on the table in the centre stood an old punch-bowl filled with sweet-smelling La France roses.

“I suspect many things. In some, my suspicions have proved correct. In others, I am still entirely in the dark. One important point, however, I have established, namely, the means by which this curious, mysterious effect has been produced upon the minds of both your daughter and myself. When one knows the disease then it is not difficult to search for the cure. I know how the effect was produced, and further, I know the name of the medical man who has effected cures in similar cases.”

“You do?” she exclaimed eagerly. “Well, Gabrielle has seen a dozen specialists, all of whom have been puzzled.”

“Professor Gourbeil, of Lyons, has been able to gain complete cures in two cases. Orosin, a newly discovered poison, is the drug that was used, and the Professor has a wider knowledge of the effect of that highly dangerous substance than any person living. You should arrange to take your daughter to him.”

The pale-faced widow shook her head, and in a mournful tone, replied:

“Ah! I am afraid it would be useless. Doctor Moroni took her to several specialists, but they all failed to restore her brain to its normal activity.”

“Professor Gourbeil is the only man who has ever been able to completely cure a person to whom orosin has been administered – and that has been in two cases only.”

“So the chance is very remote, even if she saw him,” exclaimed the widow despairingly.

“I think, Mrs. Tennison, that Gabrielle should see him in any case,” I said.

“I agree. The poor girl’s condition is most pitiable. At times she seems absolutely normal, and talks of things about her in quite a reasonable manner. But she never seems able to concentrate her thoughts. They always wander swiftly from one subject to another. I have noticed, too, that her vision is affected. Sometimes she will declare that a vivid red is blue. When we look into shop windows together she will refer to a yellow dress as mauve, a pink as white. At times she cannot distinguish colours. Yet now and then her vision becomes quite normal.”

“I have had some difficulty, Mrs. Tennison, in that way myself,” I said. “When I first left St. Malo, after recovering consciousness of the present, I one day saw a grass field and it appeared to be bright blue. Again, an omnibus in London which I knew to be blue was a peculiar dull red. So my symptoms were the same as your daughter’s.”

“It seems proved that both of you are fellow-victims of some desperate plot, Mr. Garfield,” said the widow. “But what could have been its motive?”

“That I am striving with all my might to establish,” I answered. “If I can only obtain from your daughter the true facts concerning her adventures on that fatal night last November, then it will materially assist me towards fixing the guilt upon the person I suspect. In this I beg your aid, Mrs. Tennison,” I said. “I have only just returned from several weeks abroad, during which I have gained considerable knowledge which in the end will, I hope, lead me to the solution of the problem.”

I then told her of my journey to Spain and afterwards to Nîmes. But I mentioned nothing concerning either Oswald De Gex or Despujol.

At that moment Gabrielle, unaware of my presence, entered. She was dressed in a simple grey frock with short sleeves and cut discreetly low, and looked very sweet. On seeing me she drew back, but next second she put out her slim white hand in greeting, and with a delightful smile, exclaimed:

“Why – why, Mr. Garfield! I – I remember you! You called upon me some weeks ago – did you not?”

“Yes, Miss Tennison, I did,” I replied as I sprang from my chair and bent over her hand. “So you recollect me – eh?”

“I do. They said that you would call upon me,” she replied, her beautiful face suddenly clouding.

“Who told you that?” I asked.

“Doctor Moroni. He warned me that you were my enemy.”

I drew a long breath, for I discerned the depth of the plot.

“Not your enemy, Miss Tennison,” I assured her. “But your friend – your friend who is trying his best to solve the problem of your – your illness.”

“Yes, Gabrielle, dear, Mr. Garfield is certainly your friend. I know that,” declared her mother kindly. “Doctor Moroni must have been mistaken. Why should he have warned you against meeting Mr. Garfield?”

I was silent for a moment, then I said:

“Of course, Mrs. Tennison, you have no previous knowledge of me. You are taking me entirely at my own estimation.”

“When I meet a young man who is open and frank as you are, I trust him,” she said quietly. “You know that woman’s intuition seldom errs.”

I laughed.

“Well,” I answered. “I am striving to solve the mystery of what occurred on the night of November the seventh – of what occurred to your daughter, as well as to myself.”

Mrs. Tennison endeavoured to obtain from me a description of my adventure, but I managed to evade her questions.

“I wonder why Doctor Moroni warned Gabrielle against you?” she remarked presently. “It is a mystery.”

“Yes, Mrs. Tennison, it is all a mystery – a complete mystery to me why Doctor Moroni, of all men, should take an interest in your daughter. He is certainly not a man to be trusted, and I, in turn, warn you against him.”

“Why? He has been so good to Gabrielle.”

“The reason of my warning is that he is her enemy as well as mine,” I said, glancing at the beautiful girl, whose countenance had, alas! now grown inanimate again.

“But I do not understand,” Mrs. Tennison exclaimed. “Why should the doctor be Gabrielle’s enemy?”

“Ah! That I cannot tell – except that he fears lest she should recover and reveal the truth – a serious truth which would implicate him.”

“Do you think he had any hand in the mysterious affair?”

“I certainly do,” was my reply, and then I told her of my journey to Italy, and of my discovery of her daughter with Moroni in Florence.

“But how did you know my daughter?” she asked.

“Because on that fatal night I saw her in a house in London.”

“You saw her! Where?”

“In the house of a mutual enemy.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Tennison,” I exclaimed quietly. “At present I cannot reveal to you more than I have done. Please excuse me. When I have fully verified my suspicions I will explain all that occurred to me – all that is within my knowledge. Until then, please remain in patience.”

“I never dreamed that Gabrielle had a single enemy in the world. I cannot understand it,” she exclaimed.

“Neither can I, but the fact remains. The greatest care should be exercised regarding your daughter. Why did she meet that Frenchman in Kensington Gardens?”

“I have only just heard about it,” was her mother’s reply. “It appears that Doctor Moroni introduced them. She had only seen him once before.”

Then, turning to the girl, her mother asked:

“What did he say to you?”

“He brought me an urgent and secret message from Doctor Moroni, telling me that there was a plot against my life,” she replied in a slow, mechanical voice. “The doctor sent word to me that Mr. Garfield would probably call and endeavour to be friendly with me, but that he was my enemy, and I should have no dealings with him.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed. “So that was the second warning given you, Miss Tennison! It is more than ever plain that they fear lest, by meeting, we shall discover the plot and its instigators. What else did he say?”

“He told me that Doctor Moroni was still in Florence, but that he would be coming to London again very soon, and that he would call. He urged me at the same time to tell nobody that he had seen me, or that he had warned me against you – not even my mother.”

“All that is in no way surprising,” I remarked, “for I happen to know that Monsieur Suzor and the doctor are on terms of closest friendship – a partnership for evil.”

“How?”

“As I have already explained, Miss Tennison, I have not yet fully solved the enigma, though I have learned a number of facts which, though they increase the mystery, yet they give some clue to the solution of the enigma.”

“But their evil design?” asked her mother.

“Their evil design is against us both, hence your daughter’s interests have become my own,” I replied. “My sole object is to bring to justice those who have, for their own ends – no doubt for financial gain – been guilty of the astounding plot against your daughter. You may believe Doctor Moroni and his friend Suzor as you will, Mrs. Tennison, but I shall not withdraw from my present attitude. That they fear me is conclusively proved.”

“I quite see your point,” said the quiet-voiced, refined lady.

“Then I do urge you to have a care of Miss Gabrielle,” I exclaimed. “If it is known, as it may be, that I have been here, an effort will surely be made to close the mouth of one or other of us. These men are desperate. I have already proved them so. Therefore we must take every precaution against surprise.”

“Why not go to the police?” suggested Mrs. Tennison.

“Because the whole circumstances are so strange that, if I related them at Scotland Yard, I should not be believed,” was my reply. “No. I, with my friend Mr. Hambledon, must carry on our inquiries alone. If we are sufficiently wary and active we may, I hope, gather sufficient evidence to elucidate the mystery of your daughter’s present mental condition, and also the reason why a similar attempt was made upon myself.”

“Well, Mr. Garfield,” exclaimed the charming, elderly lady with a sigh, “I only hope you will be successful in your quest after the truth. This blow upon me is, I confess, a most terrible one. It is so distressing to see my poor child in such an uncertain state of mentality. Sometimes, as I have told you, she is quite normal, though she has no knowledge of what occurred to her. And at other times she is painfully vague and often erratic in her actions.”

“She must consult Professor Gourbeil, the great alienist, at Lyons. He has a wide knowledge of the symptoms and effects of orosin.”

The poor lady sighed, and with tired, sad eyes looked upon her daughter, who had sunk into a chair with her pointed chin resting upon her palms.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Garfield, I am not rich,” she said in a low earnest tone. “I will give most willingly all I possess in order that my poor child be restored to her normal senses. But I have very little in these post-war days, when everything is so dear, and taxation strangles one, in face of what they told us during the war that they were making England a place fit for heroes to live in! It seems to me that they are now making it fit for Germans and aliens to live in.”

“My dear Mrs. Tennison, our discussion does not concern politics,” I said, anxious for the future of the graceful girl whom I had grown to love so dearly, even though her brain was unbalanced. At first I regarded it as strange that being fellow-victims of Oswald De Gex and his desperate, unscrupulous accomplices – who included the assassin Despujol – I had been drawn towards her by some unknown and invisible attraction. But when I analysed my feelings and surveyed the situation calmly I saw that it was not more extraordinary than in any other circumstances when a man, seeing a woman who fulfills all his high ideals, falls desperately in love with her and worships at her shrine.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
THE DEATH-DRUG

It was July.

The London season, later in these modern days, was already on the wane. The Derby and Ascot had been won, in glorious weather. There had been splendid cricket at Lord’s, fine polo at Hurlingham, and Henley Week had just passed. London Society was preparing for the country, the Continental Spas, and the sea, leaving the metropolis to the American cousins who were each week invading London’s big hotels.

I was back at Francis and Goldsmith’s hard at work as I had been before my strange adventure, while Harry was busy at his legal work in the police courts.

From our windows looking across the Thames between the trees on the towing path we had a wide view of the river with the chimneys of the factories on the opposite bank. On the right was Putney, the starting place of the University Boat Race, and on the left the great reservoirs and the bend of the river behind which lay Mortlake, the finish of the boat-race course. Each morning, when I rose and dressed, I looked out upon the wide and somewhat uninteresting vista, racking my brains how to further proceed with my campaign against the great intriguer who could, by his immense wealth, juggle with dynasties.

With Mrs. Tennison I had become on very friendly terms. Fearing to reveal myself as having taken that bundle of Bank of England notes as a bribe, I held back from her what had actually happened to me on that fateful night. But I had become a frequent guest at Longridge Road, and often spent many delightful hours with Gabrielle, who at times seemed quite in her normal senses.

Yet, at others, she became vague and spoke in awed tones about what she had seen – “all red, green and gold.” And often I sat at home smoking and wondering what she had seen that had so impressed her. Often, too, I discussed it with Mrs. Tennison and with Harry Hambledon, but neither of us could suggest any solution of the mystery.

Mrs. Tennison, on account of the slump in securities owing to the war, was, I knew, in rather straitened circumstances. When I again suggested a visit to the great specialist in Lyons she shook her head, and told me frankly that she could not afford it. De Gex had, it seemed, sought his victims among those who had been ruined by the war.

She had, however, told me that her brother, a shipping agent living in Liverpool, who was Gabrielle’s godfather, was deeply interested in her.

I suggested that she should write to him and urge that, as a last resort, Gabrielle should consult Professor Gourbeil. The latter had been successful in restoring to their normal mental condition patients who had been infected with orosin, that most dangerous and puzzling of the discoveries of modern toxicologists.

Mrs. Tennison had acted upon my advice. Had I been in a financial position to pay Gabrielle’s expenses to Lyons I would have done so most willingly. But my journey to Spain had depleted my resources, and though I had those Bank of England notes still reposing in a drawer at home, I dared not change one of them lest by such action I should have accepted and profited upon the bribe which De Gex had so cleverly pressed upon me.

In the first week of July Mrs. Tennison wrote to me, and that evening I went over to see her after leaving the office in Westminster.

It was a hot dry night when London lay beneath its haze of sun-reddened dust after a heat spell, parched and choked.

Gabrielle was out at the house of one of her school friends, hence, we sat alone together in the cool drawing-room – a room which was essentially that of a woman of taste and refinement.

A few seconds after I had entered, a tall, grey-haired man came in, whereupon Mrs. Tennison introduced him as her brother Charles from Liverpool.

The man glanced at me sharply, and then, smiling pleasantly, took my hand.

“I have come up to see my sister regarding poor Gabrielle,” he said, when we were seated. “I understand that you have experienced similar symptoms to hers, and have recovered.”

“I have not completely recovered,” I replied. “Often I have little recurrences of lapse of memory for periods from a few moments to a quarter of an hour.”

“My sister has told me that you believe that poor Gabrielle and yourself are fellow-victims of some plot.”

“I am certain of it, Mr. Maxwell,” I replied. “And I have already devoted considerable time and more money than I could really afford in an attempt to solve the mystery of it all.”

“Can you explain the whole circumstances?” he asked. “I am deeply interested in my unfortunate niece.”

“I can relate to you a few of the facts if you wish to hear them,” was my reply. I certainly had no intention of telling him all that I knew, or of the death and cremation of the mysterious Gabrielle Engledue – whoever she might have been.

So I explained practically what I had told his sister. I also described how Professor Vega at Madrid had told me of the two cures effected by Professor Gourbeil, of Lyons.

“My sister tells me that you suggest Gabrielle should consult him,” Mr. Maxwell said. “But she has consulted so many specialists. Doctor Moroni has been most kind to her. He took her to doctors in Paris and in Italy, but they could do nothing.”

“Well, I think that as Professor Gourbeil has cured two persons of the deadly effects of the drug Miss Tennison should see him,” I remarked.

“I quite agree. It is for that reason I have come to London,” he said. “I understand that you, Mr. Garfield, take a personal interest in my niece, therefore I want to ask you a favour – namely, that if I pay the expenses would you accompany my sister and her daughter to Lyons?”

“Willingly. But I will pay my own expenses, please,” was my prompt reply.

At first he would not hear of it, until I declined to go unless I went independently, and then we arranged for our departure.

Four days later we descended at the big busy Perrache station at Lyons from the lumbering rapide which had brought us from Paris, and entered the Terminus Hôtel which adjoins the platform. Later, from the concierge, we found that Professor Gourbeil of the Facultés des Sciences et de Médecine, lived in the Avenue Felix Faure, and I succeeded over the telephone in making an appointment with him for the following day at noon.

This I kept, going to him alone in order to explain matters.

I found him to be a short, florid-faced man with a shock of white hair and a short white beard. His house was a rather large one standing back in a well-kept garden full of flowers, and the room in which he received me was shaded and cool.

I told him of Professor Vega’s recommendation, whereupon he exclaimed in French:

“Ah! I know Professor Vega. We met last year at our conference in Paris – a very brilliant man!”

Then, as briefly as I could, I explained how the deadly drug orosin had been surreptitiously administered to Gabrielle and myself, and its effects upon us both.

“Orosin!” exclaimed the old savant, raising his thin hands. “Ah! There is not much hope of the lady’s recovery. I have known of only two cases within my experience. The effect of orosin upon the human brain is mysterious and lasting. It produces a state of the brain-cells with which we cannot cope. A larger dose produces strong homicidal tendencies and inevitable death, and a still larger dose almost instantaneous death.”

I told him how we both had lost all sense of our surroundings for weeks, and how we were both found at the roadside, she in Hampshire and I in France.

“You were both victims of some plot; that is evident. Of course you have invoked the aid of the police?”

I did not reply. I certainly feared to seek the assistance of Scotland Yard.

He explained to me practically what Professor Vega had done regarding orosin and its terrible effect.

“There have been other cases of its administration,” said the great alienist. “Somebody must be preparing the drug and selling it for sinister purposes. Though it is so little known as yet that its manufacturer must be an expert toxicologist with special knowledge.”

“Have you seen many cases of its administration?” I asked eagerly.

“Yes. Quite a number,” was the old Professor’s reply. “I am in communication with Doctor Duroc, of the Salpêtrière in Paris, and together we are keeping a record of the cases where orosin is administered by some mysterious hand. Whose, we have no idea. We leave that to the Sûreté. But you say that your adventure and that of mademoiselle occurred in London?”

I repeated my story. Then I ventured to ask:

“Do you, Professor, know anything of a Doctor Moroni, of Florence?”

The white-bearded, shock-haired man reflected for a moment, and then moving in his chair, replied:

“I fancy I have heard his name. Moroni – Moroni? Yes, I am sure someone has mentioned him.”

“As a toxicologist?”

“Probably. I do not really remember. I believe I met him at one of the conferences in Paris or Geneva. He was with one of your English professors – one of your medico-legists whose name at the moment escapes my memory. He gave evidence in that curious case of alleged poison at the Old Bailey, in London, a year ago.”

“But is Doctor Moroni known as an expert in poison?”

“Not to my personal knowledge. Possibly he is, and I have heard his name in that connexion. Why do you ask?”

“Because he has had my friend Miss Tennison under his care. He has taken her to see several specialists in Italy.” Then in a sudden burst of confidence I told him of my great love for the girl who, like myself, had been attacked in secret. Further, I told him that the reason of my steady inquiry was in her interests, as well as in my own.

“My dear Monsieur Garfield, now that you are so frank with me I will do my utmost in the interests of both of you,” declared the dear old Professor, as he rose and crossed to the window. “What you have told me interests me intensely. I see by your travels to Spain and the South that you are leaving no stone unturned to arrive at a true solution of the problem – and I will help you. Orosin is the least known and most dangerous drug that has ever been discovered in our modern civilization. Used with evil intent it is unsuspected and wellnigh undiscoverable, for the symptoms often resemble those of certain diseases of the brain. The person to whom the drug is administered either exhibits an exhilaration akin to undue excess of alcohol, or else the functions of the brain are entirely distorted, with a complete loss of memory or a chronic aberration of the brain.”

“That is the case of my friend Miss Tennison,” I said.

“Very well. I will see her and endeavour to do what I can to restore her,” said the elegant old French savant. “But, remember, I hold out no hope. In all cases orosin destroys the brain. It seems to create a slow degeneracy of the cells which nobody yet can understand. We know the effect, but we cannot, up to the present, combat it. There are yet many things in human life of which the medical men are in as complete ignorance as those who study electricity and radio-frequencies. We try to do our best to the extent of our knowledge, my dear monsieur. And if you will bring Mademoiselle to me to-morrow at three o’clock I will try to make my diagnosis.”

I thanked him for his perfectly open declaration, and then I left. That he was the greatest living authority on the symptoms and effect of the mysterious drug orosin I felt confident. I only longed that he would take Gabrielle beneath his charge and endeavour to restore her brain to its normal function.

Punctually at three o’clock next day I called with my beloved and her mother at the house embowered in roses and geraniums up on the hill above the broad Rhône river.

We were ushered in by an old man-servant, silent and stately.

The Professor quickly appeared, his sharp eyes upon the patient.