When George Lauriston arrived with the doctor at the door of 36, Mary Street, the lights in the windows on the first floor had grown dimmer, and George, who would have opened the door as he had done before, and gone up stairs with the doctor without ceremony, found that the key had been turned and the bolts drawn. He rang the bell, and made the knocker sound with a loud rata-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat that echoed through the now quiet street. No notice whatever was taken of this, except by a gentleman who lodged on the third-floor front opposite, who threw open his window and wanted to know in a husky voice what the things unutterable they meant by kicking up such an adjective-left-to-the-imagination row in a respectable neighbourhood.
But No. 36, Mary Street remained as silent and unresponsive as ever.
After a pause Lauriston knocked again, regardless of the growing strength of the maledictions of the gentleman opposite. Then a shadow was seen against the curtains of one of the first-floor windows, and over the carved lattice-work a head looked out. George moved closer to the door, and left the doctor to speak.
“Who is it knocking?”
“It is I, Dr. Bannerman. I have been sent for to attend a young lady who has been severely burned, and if the door is not opened immediately I shall return to my house.”
“Are you alone?”
“Say yes. I’ll go,” said Lauriston in a low tone.
“Alone? Yes.”
The head disappeared, and Lauriston went a little distance down the street and crossed to the other side. He saw the door of No. 36 cautiously opened upon the chain, and then, after a few impatient words from the doctor, it was thrown wide by the man in the fez, and shut as the other entered. The young man walked up and down impatiently, never letting the house go out of sight until, after about half an hour, the doctor re-appeared, and the clank of the chain was heard as the door was bolted again behind him.
“Well!” said Lauriston eagerly.