He turned abruptly and beckoned to his housekeeper, who came, her hands in her apron. He pointed silently outside; she glanced, and nodded. He whispered: “Look ye, I’m not to ’ome. I’ve gone out for a bit of fresh air.”
She nodded again, curiously. Mr. Wilkins whisked himself out of the room just as the knocker resounded furiously on the door. He entered his own room, closed the door, then, as an afterthought, he locked it. He sat down on the bed.
Well, it was all over. He had done with Johnnie. He had given Johnnie what he wanted. Johnnie had not been the man to keep it. Johnnie had always been the fool. Now, Johnnie, no doubt, had lost his hatred. He was not the chap for Mr. Wilkins any longer, even if what had happened last night had not occurred. He had washed his hands of Johnnie. A stupid violent devil. The future would go on without Johnnie. It would go on with the little lass, with Tony Bollister. Mr. Wilkins frowned reflectively. A hard ’un, yes. Not one to be led easily. Liked money like the rest of ’em; but there would be things he wouldn’t do. No chap for Mr. Wilkins’ money. Nevertheless, there was the little lass to protect. Mr. Wilkins began to smile. A tender look overspread his rosy face, suffusing it with a brighter colour. It might be interesting to be an honest man for a change, to satisfy a curiosity he had always had: whether an honest man could succeed in the world.
Mr. Wilkins doubted it very much. An honest man in a den of thieves was invariably stripped to the eyebrows, and a good thing. An honest man was a fool. He deserved the last crust of charity thrown to him. The wages of sin was a rich old age. The wages of honesty was the workhouse. Still, the experiment might be exciting. He, Mr. Wilkins, would try it. He would be Anthony’s right hand man. Later, the young ass would be convinced by experience that honesty was a virtue no one but the dying and the dead could afford, but in the meantime it would have its elements of novelty, and the ageless Mr. Wilkins loved novelty.
“Mr. Wilkins,” he said aloud, slapping himself on his casklike chest, “from this day henceforth, you’re an honest man. Honest Bob: that’s wot they’ll call you.”
He heard a confusion of footsteps on the polished stairs, but no voices. He rose and pressed his ear against the wall, and listened.
The physicians, recognizing the formidable Mr. Turnbull, hastened forward to greet him with important and solemn faces. If they were highly astonished and diverted at the mysterious presence of Miss Turnbull in this house, and in a dangerous condition of illness, they tactfully refrained from referring to it. They bowed to him and his lady with great ceremony, and immediately launched into a learned discussion of the young lady’s disease, symptoms and condition, interrupting each other impatiently as they did so.
“In cases of lung fever, sir,” said Dr. Walker, portentously.
“Pneumonia, my dear doctor,” urged Dr. Gorman, with a bow to his colleague, and a faintly smug smile.
Dr. Walker drew himself up with hauteur, and fingered his pince-nez. “I hold no brief for modern and pretentious terminology in medicine,” he replied, scathingly, but still with the utmost politeness. “I have never considered it necessary to confuse, with the idea of impressing, the layman, employing Greek and Roman obscurities. It is rather a cheap attempt to subdue the layman, force him to accord the medical profession a kind of spurious respect in lieu of real respect for our knowledge. Lung fever, my dear colleague,” he added, with a wintry smile, “is as bad under any other name, and the layman, upon hearing it, has a definite picture of the syndrome, its symptoms, its probable mortalities, its chances for recovery. What does he see when he hears the affected word: ‘Pneumonia?’ A mysterious malady, with which he is not familiar, and which terrifies him as though it were some strange and unfamiliar d