Katerfelto smiled. "Fools," he replied, "are my special study. As the worm feeds the blackbird, so the fool feeds the philosopher. You are no fool notwithstanding, and yet I know all about you. There was a supper-party t'other night—a jest—an altercation—a duel—without witnesses—without witnesses, mark you. When a man is killed under those circumstances, the law sometimes brings it in—murder!"
John Garnet turned pale. The truth of his host's surmises affected him no less than the consideration of the danger he had incurred. It did not strike him that Katerfelto's guesses, however shrewd, were the mere offspring of analogy and observation. A wounded man at midnight inferred an after-supper brawl, while the fact of his staggering into Deadman's Alley faint from loss of blood, alone and unassisted, argued the absence of seconds, one of whom would doubtless have conveyed his principal to a place of safety, while the identity of that principal must long since have become the talk of this town.
"You know everything," he murmured. "Everything—I wish you could tell me whether the poor fellow I ran through the brisket is alive."
For reasons of his own the charlatan was anxious to impress his patient with a conviction of his powerful character and superior intelligence.
"Not so," said he, with an air of extreme frankness. "I have no knowledge, for I have taken no trouble to learn. If I can spare the time to-night, when the moon goes down, I will set those to work who shall bring me all the information I require in less than forty-eight hours."
John Garnet, though scarcely a model Christian, was a good Catholic. He crossed himself and faltered a feeble protest against the employment of evil spirits or unorthodox powers of the air.
"I had rather not get well at all," said he, "than be cured by magic or witchcraft! I would leave the house this minute if I believed you were more than a doctor! I'll wager a fair stake and risk my life any day, but I won't sit down to play for my soul!"
"Your soul!" echoed Katerfelto, with his characteristic laugh. "My young friend, what should I do with your soul if I won it? My concern is with men's bodies, their energies, their courage, and their intellect. I shall set you on your legs in a week, and you can carry your soul about with you, if you have one, wherever you like. In the meantime keep quiet, take your medicine, drugs of the veriest earth—earthy; eat your food and drink your posset, prepared by no fairy hands, but those of a woman, real flesh and blood, with a human temper, worse, I daresay, than that of many average fiends, and so get well. In a few days I will talk to you again on matters of business to our mutual advantage. Meantime I relegate you once more to the care of Waif."
His spirits rose at once, and he bade the charlatan good-night with an excess of cordiality not lost on that shrewd observer, who was as good as his word, for his voice could be heard in the passage bidding Waif hasten her house-work and watch by the patient till he slept, a mandate the gipsy-girl obeyed to the letter, returning without delay to her former post, but taking up a station in the obscurity where John Garnet could not see her face. Neither did she vouchsafe a syllable of greeting or explanation, so that the patient felt uncomfortably hurt and perplexed.