XII
"What's my brother doing here?" asked Graham.
"What d'you s'pose? Better go and ask 'im yourself."
"Where is he?"
"In bed, if you must know." The girl answered sharply. She found her caller supercilious. She followed him into the bedroom, telling herself that this was a nice way to be treated for all the trouble that she had taken.
Graham bent over the bed. "Good God!" he said. "What's the matter with him?"
"Drink!" said the girl drily.
"Drink! He never drinks."
"Then 'e must 'ave fallen off the water-wagon into a barrel of alcohol and opened 'is mouth too wide. Also 'e's got a fever."
Graham turned on the girl. "How did he get here?"
"In a cab. You don't s'pose I carried 'im, d'you?"
"Where'd you find him?"
"I didn't find 'im. Some one gave 'im to me as a present—a nice present, I must say."
"Don't lie to me!" cried Graham. "And don't be impudent."
"Impudent!" cried Nellie Pope, shrilly. "Here, you'd better watch what you're saying. I don't stand any cheek, I don't, neither from you nor anybody else, and I'm not in the habit of lying. I tell you I was made a present of 'im. I was told to take 'im 'ome by a young fellow on Forty-eighth Street, who 'ad called up a cab."
"Forty-eighth Street,—are you sure?"
"Well, if I don't know the streets, who does? The young fellow was a gent. He didn't talk, he gave orders. He was tall and slight and he 'ad kinky hair. Quite a nut. English, he was, any one could tell that."
"Good God!" thought Graham—"Kenyon." He sat down on the bed as though he had received a blow in the middle of his back. Only an hour before he had telephoned to Kenyon to say good-bye and wish him a pleasant crossing, and all that he said about Peter was that they had seen each other the night before. "No doubt he's all right," he had said, in answer to Graham's anxious question. What did it all mean? What foul thing had Kenyon done?
Graham had been up all night waiting for his brother. He had good news for him. He had pulled himself together and gone to see Ranken Townsend during the time that Peter had been walking the streets. To the artist he had made a clean breast of everything, so that he might, once for all, set Peter right in the eyes of his future father-in-law. That was the least that he could do. He had carried away from the studio in his pocket a short, generous and impulsive letter from the artist, asking Peter's forgiveness for not having accepted his word of honor. Armed with this, Graham had waited while hour after hour slipped by, growing more and more anxious as Peter did not appear. At breakfast he told his mother—in case she should discover that Peter had not returned—that he had stayed the night in Kenyon's rooms, as they had much to talk about and one or two things to arrange. He had been in the house when Kenyon had rung up, apologizing for being unable to come round, and thanking Mrs. Guthrie for her kindness and hospitality.
And there lay Peter inanimate and stupefied. In the name of all that was horrible, what had happened? Graham got up and faced the girl again. "You mustn't mind my being abrupt and rude," he said. "I'm awfully sorry. But this is my brother, my best pal, and I've been terribly anxious about him, and you don't know—nobody knows—what it means to me to see him like this."
"Ah! Now you're talking," said Nellie Pope. "Treat me nicely and there's nothing I won't do for you. If you ask me—and if I don't know a bit more about life than you do I ought to—I have a shrewd idea that your brother was made drunk,—that is, doped. 'E was quite gone when 'e was put into the cab, and from the way that kinky-headed chap laughed as we drove off together,—I mean me and your brother,—I should think that 'e 'ad it in for him, but of course I don't know hanything about that. Perhaps you do."
Graham shook his head. "No," he said; "I don't know anything about it either. But what are we going to do with him, that's the point? He's ill, that's obvious, and a doctor ought to see him at once."
"That's what I think," said the girl, "and I don't think 'e ought to be moved, 'e's so frightfully 'ot. 'E might catch pneumonia, or something. What I think you'd better do is to call up a doctor at once, get him to give your brother a dose and give me directions as to what to do. 'E can stay 'ere until 'e's all right again, and I'll nurse 'im."
"Yes, but why should you——?"
"Oh, bless you, that's all right. I'm glad to have something to do. Time hangs heavy. Besides, the poor boy is just like a baby. I like 'im and you needn't be afraid that I shall try to get anything out of 'im, because I shan't."
Graham snatched eagerly at the proffered assistance. He was intensely grateful. "Have you a telephone here?" he asked.
Nellie Pope laughed. "What d'you take me for?" she said. "I'm not a chorus lady. When I want to use the 'phone I pop round to the drug store and have a nickel's worth. That's how I got on to you."
Graham caught up his hat and left the apartment quickly. One of his college friends was a doctor and had just started to practice. He would ask him to come and see Peter. He agreed with the girl that it would be running a great risk to move Peter, and he was all against taking him home in his present condition. It would only lead to more lies and would certainly throw his mother into a dreadful state of anxiety.
While he was gone, Nellie Pope set to work to tidy up the bedroom. She put her boots away in a closet, got out a clean bedspread, rubbed the powder off her mirror and arranged her dressing-table. This doctor, whoever he was, should find her apartment as tidy as she could make it. It was a matter of pride with her. She still had some of that left. One thing, however, she was determined about. The doctor must not be allowed to look too closely at her.