"I'm no doctor. But you can't very well mistake this stuff. If it is strychnine, injected straight into the bloodstream with a hypodermic, they may not be able to save her this time. Steady, now!"
A violent shudder, as though it were she herself who felt the symptoms, went through Ann's body. Time seemed to rush on while they tried to arrest it.
"I'm all right," she said steadily, and drew the dressing robe closer about her with a hard, bright look in her eyes. "What do we do?"
"Do you know Dr. Nithsdale's telephone number?"
"Nine-seven-o-one. He's our doctor."
"I'll go down and phone him. You run up and rout out Mrs. Propper and Daisy. Tell them to prepare… no, blast it, an emetic's no good if the poison wasn't taken through the mouth!" His head was whirling. "I wish to heaven I knew what to do in the meantime. I don't know what we ought to do. Anyway, rout them out. Hurry!"
"I'll do it," said Ann calmly. "And I'll never speak to you again as long as I live."
There was no time to argue over this. Muttering
"nine-seven-o-one, nine-seven-o-one," convinced that he would forget it by the time he reached the phone, he raced downstairs.
Where was the telephone anyway? Stop they always spoke of it as being in the back drawing room. He was not anxious to face that gruesome object sitting so comfortably, with the Tatler across its lap and the bloodstain down its ear to the collar. But it had to be done.