“Yes.”
“I shall want a good deal of ice to-night probably.”
“I will see to that. Is there anything else?”
“I may want some brandy later, and if so I want the best I can get. You used to have some—”
“Of the genuine old cognac that the French padre gave me. There is still one bottle left. It is at my office. I will send a messenger for it.”
“Right. See about the goat first, please.” Dr Pryce turned back to the house.
There he found the tear-stained Tiva waiting for him. In her hand she held a plant with small yellowish-white flowers. Dr Pryce had sent her to get it.
“See,” she said eagerly. “All right?”
“Yes, that’s all right,” said Dr Pryce, taking the plant. “You’re a good girl, though a fool in some respects. You can go back to Ioia now. And, remember, you do not enter Miss Auriol’s room, unless she rings that little bell by her bedside.”
In addition to doing much of the work that usually falls to the nurse, Dr Pryce had also to be his own manufacturing chemist. Two cases of drugs and apparatus, that he had brought with him, had been placed in a room near Hilda’s. Dr Pryce unpacked what he wanted. There was oxygen to be made and stored, and the dangerous virtue of those yellowish-white flowers to be extracted.