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DEPARTURE
In the morning Dr. Raste, unusually interested in the psychological aspect of the Earlforward affair, arrived at about ten o'clock in a taxicab, prepared and well-braced to make good his word to Violet. He remembered vividly his own rather cocksure phrase: "We'll get him away all right to-morrow." He was tired and overstrung, and therefore inclined to be violent and hasty in endeavour. He had his private apprehensions. He asked the driver to wait, meaning to have Henry captive and downstairs in quite a few minutes. His tactic was to take the patient by storm. He had disorganized his day's work in order to deal with the matter, and for the maintenance of self-respect he was bound to deal with it effectively. Further, he had arranged by telephone for a bed at the hospital.
The front of the shop dashed him. The shop had not been opened. The milk-can had not been brought within. There it stood, shockingly out of place at ten A.M., proof enough that something very strange had happened or was happening at T. T. Riceyman's. He tried to open the door; it was locked. Then he noisily shook the door, and he decided to adopt the more customary course of knocking. He knocked and knocked. Little Mr. Belrose, the proprietor of the confectioner's opposite, emerged to watch the proceedings with interest, and two other people from the houses farther along the steps also observed. Evidently Riceyman Steps was agog for strange and thrilling events. Dr. Raste grew self-conscious under the gaze of Clerkenwell. No view of the interior of the shop could be had through the book-filled windows, and only a narrow slit of a view between the door-blind and the frame of the door. Dr. Raste peered through this and swore in a whisper. At length he saw Elsie approaching.
"Isn't it about time you took your milk in?" he greeted her calmly, presenting her with the can when she opened the door. Elsie accepted the can in silence; the doctor entered the shop; Elsie shut and bolted the door. The morning's letters lay unheeded on the unswept floor at her feet. The doctor had the sensation of being imprisoned with her in the sombre and chilly shop. A feeling of calamity weighed upon him. The stairs in the thick gloom at the back of the shop seemed to be leading upwards to terrible affairs. He thought of the taximeter ticking away threepences.
"Well?" he inquired impatiently of the still silent Elsie. "Well? How's he getting on?"
Elsie answered:
"Missis must have been took bad in the night, sir. When I came down this morning, she was lying on the sofa in the parlour, and I thought she was dead. Yes, I did, sir. She was that cold you wouldn't believe. Not a stitch on her but her night-things. And she was in a state, too!"
"I hope you got her back to bed at once," said the doctor.