"Of course, that was because the doctor was waiting behind the door to grab me. He stuck that awful needle of his in my arm, and after that I can't tell you anything. I didn't know any more until two days later, when I found myself lying on a bed in the laboratory."
A slight fit of trembling overtook her again. He took her two limp hands in his and kissed them, moved by a new and overpowering emotion. With startling vividness he realised the whole stupendous thing, what she had done, what she had risked and suffered. Even that stupid incident of what the servant-girl had told about seeing her with Holliday in his car became clear as day. Of course—and he had suspected her of a flirtation!
"Esther, my own Esther—you splendid, marvellous girl! To think that I never knew, that you might have died, and I should never have known what became of you! Do you know what I was thinking? I spent two days searching for you in every hotel and pension in Cannes…"
"I know," she said softly, her eyes suddenly misty.
"I can't take it in yet, Esther; it's too overwhelming."
He buried his head in the covers beside her. She put her hand upon his hair and caressed it with a clinging touch that sent a thrill through him. Like this they remained for long minutes, and the communion was to him the sweetest he had ever known. Strange that this complete ecstasy should come to him at the very moment when he was shocked to the depths of his being by the disclosure of the vile crime perpetrated in their midst.
After a little while Esther drifted off to sleep once more, leaving him to face again the problem of those two murderers, as he now knew them to be, still at large and still under the roof with him. What was to be done? Would they make any attempt to escape, or would they brazen it out till the last? He had a strong suspicion that they would both adopt this latter course. He foresaw a long and difficult trail, a defence skilfully engineered by Sartorius, whose reputation would stand him in good stead. In his imagination he pictured a French jury swayed by the beauty and emotional appeal of Thérèse. Why, they might easily win; it was perfectly possible. He had an Englishman's contempt for French jurisdiction. As for the doctor, he felt sure that that man would employ every diabolical means in his power to discredit Esther's statement, to blacken her character; he would impute false motives to her or make a convincing case against her sanity, perhaps both. The very notion made him boil with rage. The cold-blooded infamy of the plot to do away with his father was as nothing compared with the wanton brutality of the attempt on Esther's life. To think of this fresh and lovely body, so near to him now that he could feel the throbbing of her heart, dismembered, defiled in the work of annihilation, filled him with unspeakable horror. He had to take a firm grip on himself to keep from forcing his way into the neighbouring room and wreaking personal vengeance on the author of so bestial an outrage. The man's stolid calm, which had appeared a proof of innocence, now made him seem a monster of insensibility. Sartorius was not human; he was the python of Esther's dream, slow-blooded, impersonal, relentless….
The clock struck four. Some time after this he must have lost consciousness, for gradually his waking thoughts blurred imperceptibly into unreal, his head resting heavily on the bed beside the sleeping girl. He was roused by a touch on his shoulder and a voice saying tensely in his ear:
"Mr. Roger! Mr. Roger, sir!"
Dizzily he raised his head, blinking in the grey daylight that filled the room. Then he struggled to his feet, stiff and cramped.