“Nothing at all,” said Clayton, blankly.
“No more did I, sir. I wasn’t looking after John Brown, a stableman; but Lionel Redgrave, Esq. But that wasn’t all. I’ve seen this case—I’ve been to the bedside, and then I didn’t think anything of it. I was so clever.”
“But does that relate to him?”
“To be sure it does, sir. I tell you it’s easy enough, now one can see through it; but I couldn’t put that and that together before. Name never struck me a bit, when it ought to have been the very key to it all. He was knocked down, and run over by a cab, when out on his larks. Got his hair cut short, and his mustacher shaved off. There’s his clothes too, up-stairs—reg’lar stableman’s suit—masquerading things—such togs for a gent like him to wear! Poor chap, it was a bad case, though, for he was nearly killed. Well, of course, they brought him here, and asked him his name, when, just being able to speak, he says the very last thing that was in his poor head, before the sense was knocked out of it, and all its works were brought to a stand still. ‘What’s your name?’ they says; and as I said before, he answers the very last thing as was in his head before he was stopped short, and that was the name of the place he had been to—Brownjohn Street; and, saying it, no doubt, very feebly, they didn’t hear any more than the Brownjohn, so they put him down as Brown, and his Christian name after it, as is their custom, John—Brown, John; and here he’s lain insensible to this day. But come on up, sir.”
Following an attendant, Harry and the sergeant were ushered into a long, whitewashed ward, where, on either side, in their iron bedsteads, lay sufferers from the many accidents constantly occurring in the London streets. Here was a man who had fallen from a scaffold; there one who had had his arm crushed by machinery, and, all around, suffering enough to affect the stoutest heart. The sergeant, though, had no eye for these, and swiftly leading the way down the centre, he conducted Harry to where, weak, pale, and helpless, on his bed of suffering, lay Lionel Redgrave,—his hair shaven from his temples, and the large surgical bandages about his head adding greatly to the cadaverous expression of his countenance.
There was not the slightest doubt of his having suffered severely—it was written too plainly on his face; but he seemed now to be perfectly sensible, and as Clayton approached, he tried feebly to hold out his hand, whispering as he did so, the one word—
“Harry!”
Sir Francis sat holding the other hand, anxiously watching his son’s face, and hardly reassured by the house-surgeon’s declaration that, with anything like care, the young man was now out of danger.
“Don’t speak to him, Clayton,” said Sir Francis. “Don’t talk, my dear boy. Pray remember your condition.”
“All right,” was the reply, but in very feeble tones. “Seems as if I had been to sleep, and only just woke up. Confounded Hansom!—over me in a moment—Martin’s Lane—remember no more.”