Flager stared at him for several seconds. Words rose to his lips, but somehow he did not utter them.
"Nothing," he said at length. "I've been away for the week-end, that's all. What the devil's all this fuss about?"
"But your back, Sir Melvin!" protested the doctor. "You look as if you'd had a terrible beating—"
"I had a slight accident," snapped Flager. "And what the devil has it got to do with you, sir, anyway? Who the devil sent for all of you?"
His valet swallowed.
"I did, Sir Melvin," he stammered. "When I couldn't wake you up all day yesterday — and you disappeared from the theatre without a word to anybody, and didn't come back for two days—"
"And why the devil shouldn't I disappear for two days?" barked Flager weakly. "I'll disappear for a month if I feel like it. Do I pay you to pry into my movements? And can't I sleep all day if I want to without waking up to find a lot of quacks and policemen infesting my room like vultures? Get out of my house, the whole damned lot of you! Get out, d'you hear?"
Somebody opened the door, and the congregation drifted out, shaking its heads and muttering, to the accompaniment of continued exhortations in Flager's rasping voice.
His secretary was the last to go, and Flager called him back.
"Get Nyson on the telephone," he ordered. "I'll speak to him myself."