recover consciousness, there is also a chance that he might prefer not to make any statement at all. What would you do then, Lieutenant?”
“Fold my tents, Doctor, and fade away.”
Dr. Worth looked down a long straight nose for a minute at tips of low patent-leather shoes. “And if Endicott does not recover consciousness,” he said softly, “what will you do then?”
“You’ll be surprised at the number of things I will do then.”
Dr. Worth’s eyes, surfeited with patent leather, snapped up sharply. “I must impress on you that Mrs. Endicott is not to be disturbed,” he said.
“She won’t be, Doctor.”
“Nurse Vickers, who helped me into her room with her, is going to stay with Mrs. Endicott all night. Two day nurses will come in the morning: one for her, if necessary, and surely one for Endicott. I need scarcely impress upon you the seriousness of his condition.” Dr. Worth made a gesture of irritated bewilderment. “I wish I knew him more intimately—who his friends are, I mean.”
“He never talked with you about them?”
“Never. He seems an unusually reticent man, with an almost abnormally developed feeling for privacy concerning his intimate affairs.” Dr. Worth’s manner grew definitely severe. Mentally, he wagged a finger under Lieutenant Valcour’s nose. “He mustn’t have any further shock. There must be nothing, absolutely nothing that will shock him when, and if, he regains consciousness.” He directed his attention momentarily to the nurse. “Get those shades back on the lamps, please, Miss Murrow, and turn out the ceiling lights. And now, Lieutenant, to continue about Endicott. As she is under the influence of the narcotic I gave her, it is out of the question that his wife be here. I wish she could be. I want the first