"Is there nothing to be done—in the way of making it easier for him?"
Dr Stone made a face expressive of their helplessness and shrugged his shoulders; then mentioned a few simple details.
"He will never know," he explained. "Even when he seems conscious he will feel no pain and remember nothing of the accident. The clock will be mercifully set back." He smiled whimsically. "Forgive me if it never strikes." He turned to go. "The nearest call office is the kiosk in Aldwych," he remarked. "I am 7406 Covent Garden." No paper being visible he wrote the number on the wall. "After 10.30 as a general thing," he added.
So the baronet was left alone with the still figure that counterfeited death so well, the man who would be dead before the dawn. He stepped quietly to the bed and looked down on him. The lower half of the face was free from swathing, and the lean throat and grizzled beard struck Sir John with a momentary surprise. It was the face of an elderly man; he had expected to find one not more than middle-aged as the companion of the young woman in the other room.
There was a single chair against the wall, and he sat down. There was nothing else to do but to sit and wait, to listen to the sounds of voluminous life that rose from the street beneath, the careful creaking movements in the room beyond. From the shallow wainscotting near the bed came at intervals the steady ticking of a death-watch. It was nothing, as every one knew, but the note of an insect calling for its mate, but it thrilled and grew large in the stillness of the chamber ominously.
A low tap on the door came as a relief. He found the woman standing there.
"Is there anything different?" she asked, hanging on to the door. "I kept on thinking I heard noises."
"No, there is no change," he replied. "Will you come in?"
She shrank back at the suggestion. "Gord 'elp us, no!" she cried. "It's bad enough out there."
"What are you afraid of?" he asked kindly.