The Five Knots

by Fred M. White

He jumped to his feet with a start. For nearly two hours he had utterly forgotten his duty to the patient! He turned to the bed to see if Flower required anything, then a startled cry came from his lips. The bed was empty!

Wilfrid gazed at the sheets and pillows with a feeling of stupefaction. At first he thought some one must have stolen into the bedroom and kidnapped his patient. But the idea was abandoned as absurd. Wilfrid knew himself to be a light sleeper, and it would have been impossible for two men or more to enter the bedroom and carry off a heavy man like Flower. Besides, he would have offered some sort of resistance. He must face the matter calmly and find out without delay what had become of the patient. Most of his clothes no longer hung over the chair by the bedside where they had been thrown and even the slippers were gone.

Wilfrid dashed from the room and made a tour throughout the house. He had taken the precaution before the nurse left to see that every door and window was rigidly fastened, but though he ranged from the top to the bottom of the mansion there was not a bolt out of place or a single catch neglected.

Obviously, Flower must be somewhere on the premises. Quickly and quietly Wilfrid went from room to room starting with the top floor and working down to the basement. He came at length to the cellars and there he hesitated. It seemed almost a waste of time to scour those dingy chambers, but Flower was nowhere to be found upstairs, and if the man were roaming about in a state of delirium there was no telling where he might wander. From the kitchen Wilfrid procured a candle and set out on his errand. It was cold and damp down here, for the cellars were all beneath the house. White fungus grew on the walls and clammy moisture oozed from the ceilings. There were certain cell-like structures closely barred and locked, and these, Wilfrid concluded, contained wine. He emerged presently into a wider, drier space, at the end of which were three small, insignificant-looking doors approached by a short flight of steps. Wilfrid paused and held the candle above his head, for he could see a figure crouching on the top of one of the flights of stairs. He fancied he could hear the click of a key in the door.

Somebody was there, beyond all doubt. Wilfrid advanced cautiously until he ascertained that somebody was really there. Whoever it was took no heed of the approaching light. Wilfrid called out to Flower by name. He had found the missing man.

"Come away," he said. "What madness is this! You will catch your death of cold. What are you doing here?"

Flower turned a blank face on the questioner. He was only dressed in his trousers and shirt. His face was begrimed with dirt and cobwebs, and his white linen had assumed a dingy hue.

"Go away," he said sullenly. "What are you doing here? It is no business of yours. Now that Cotter is gone none shall share the secret. But I forgot—not even Cotter knows of this. I had sense enough to keep this to myself. Come and open the door for me. It will be worth your while."

Flower's manner had changed all at once to a fawning civility. His truculent manner had vanished. He was like one in deadly fear who welcomes a friend.

"I can't get the key in the lock," he whined. "Perhaps you can do it. The door hasn't been opened for eleven years, and the key has got rusty. You try it."