"You pique my curiosity," said Maxton, interested. "Is he psychic or clairvoyant—from your tone one would imagine that he had some supernatural power."
"He has," nodded Merville. "I discovered it some time ago. He lodges with a woman named Colebrook in a very poor part of the town. Mrs. Colebrook suffers from an unusual form of heart disease. She had a seizure one night and Sault came for me. You will remember, dear, when I was called out in the middle of the night—a year ago. The moment I examined the woman, who was unconscious, and in my opinion in extremis, I knew that nothing could be done. I applied the remedies which I had brought with me, and which I had thought, from his description of the seizure, would be necessary, but with no effect. Sault was terribly upset. The woman had two daughters, one bed-ridden. His grief at the thought that she would die without her daughter seeing her, was tragic. I think he was going upstairs to bring the girl down, when I said casually that if I could lend the patient strength to live for another hour, she would probably recover. What followed, seems to me even now as part of a fantastic dream."
Beryl's elbow was on the table, her chin in her palm and she was absorbed. Maxton lay back, his arm hanging over the back of his chair, weighing every word; Steppe, his hands clasped on the table, his head bent, skeptical.
"Sault bent down and took the inert hands of the woman in his—just held them. Remember this, that she was the color of this serviette, her lips gray. I wondered what he was doing—I don't know now. Only her face went gradually pink and her eyes opened."
"How long after he took her hands?" asked Maxton.
"Less than a minute I should think. As I say, she opened her eyes and looked around and then she nodded very slowly. 'What do you think of that, Dr. Merville?' she said."
"She knew you, of course?"
"She had never seen me in her life. I learned that afterwards. Sault dropped her hands and stood up. He was looking ghastly. Not a vestige of color. I said to him: 'Sault, what is the matter, and he answered in a cockney whine, that was 'h'less and ungrammatical—Sault never makes an error in that respect—'It's me 'eart, sir, I get them attacks at times—haneurism.'"
"Sault?"
Steppe's face was puckered into a grimace of incredulity.