“Just alive,” the doctor said, looking up. “But a few minutes more——”
“A few minutes more,” the policeman echoed, “and there’d ’a’ been another inquest.”
“There may be yet,” said The Tundish in his pleasant conversational tones. He had unfastened her clothes and was slapping her bare chest with the wet towels, but there was no change in the livid upturned face. He poured ammonia on one of the towels and held it under her nose; there was no response to the treatment.
“We’ll have to try artificial respiration,” he said at length, “and, Mrs. Kenley, can you get me a hot bottle? The bottles are in the cupboard in the bathroom, and you’ll find a spirit lamp standing on the sideboard in the dining-room. Better not light the gas down here just yet!”
Janet handed her torch to me and ran indoors.
“I can take turns with you, sir,” the policeman offered helpfully. “I’ve had this job before.” He cast off his tunic and helmet as he spoke and rolled up his sleeves.
So the grim struggle went on in the moonlight. I watched and held the torch while they fought in turns for the drunken creature’s life. The half-hour struck and still they worked on. Was she going to slip away, I wondered, and take with her into the great unknown whatever it was that she knew of Stella’s death?
But at last I heard a gasping breath. The doctor stopped and wiped his brow. “Close call; now what about that hot bottle?”
Even as he spoke, Janet ran down the steps, her arms filled with blankets. We wrapped up the ungainly figure warmly; she was breathing now but still unconscious. The doctor still knelt by her side, holding her wrist.
“Better ring up the hospital, Constable, and ask for the ambulance. She’ll want more care than we can give her here. Drunkenness has not improved her chance of pulling through. The sooner she’s there the better.”