“One minute. I’m a medical student—bit thick, constable—been at a party—but I know what I’m doing. Yes, this man’s dead—shot, I think. But my father? Here, come back. That poor girl must be half wild.”
He ran back into the surgery.
“Here, Rich, my girl, this is a terrible business. Yes, yes,” he added, slowly examining what his sister had done, and then drawing in his breath, as he passed his hand over the smooth bald head. “How did it happen?”
“I—I don’t know,” gasped the girl, wildly; and now that the burden was partly shifted from her shoulders, her feminine nature began to reassert itself, and she uttered a low wail.
“But—here, constable, how did this come about?”
The man explained in a few words, all the time gazing searchingly at the inquirer, but shaking his head to himself, as if feeling that the suspicions he harboured were wrong.
“And now, sir, I must have some one in,” said the man in conclusion.
“Yes; of course, of course. But my father? We cannot leave him like that. To take him up to his bedroom would not be wise, and we cannot—here, Rich, I say, where are you? Constable, help me carry out this sofa.”
John Whyley followed, and the comfortable couch was carried from its neighbourhood by the ghastly figure lying beyond the table, into the surgery, placed close to the wall, and the wounded man carefully placed upon it in an easier position.
“Now, sir, just one look round,” said the constable, as Richmond knelt down, weeping silently by her father’s side, “and then I’m off. Got this, sir.”