“I doubt whether she will require my services again.” He paused for a moment at the doorway. “That woman, sir, is of iron.”
“I shouldn’t wonder, Doctor. At any rate, she is pretty thoroughly encased in metal. I’ll send Cassidy along with you to pass you and the nurses by O’Brian down at the door. No one can leave the house, you see, without permission.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Doctor, and thanks for all your assistance. Cassidy, come back after you’ve seen the doctor out, and stay in the corridor. I’ll call when I need you.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door closed, and Lieutenant Valcour was alone. With a persistence that was becoming annoying, the same curious feeling of lurking danger crept out at him from the room’s stillnesses. His nerves were usually as steady as the quality reputed to be enjoyed by a rock, and the strange little jumpings they were going in for were getting that fabulous animal known as his goat.
He went over to the chair before the flat-topped desk and sat down. There was that drawer filled with disordered papers to be gone through. He removed the drawer and emptied it of its contents by the simple expedient of turning it upside down onto the top of the desk.
There were, mixed up among bills and receipts, a surprising number of letters from women. He read each one of them carefully and felt a little sorrier, at the conclusion of each, for the future of the race—not so much because of any danger to its morals as to its mentality.
He made a little group of each batch of notes from the same woman. One pile topped the list with the number of ten. These were signed