‘You’ll get that made up at any chemist’s,’ he said. ‘Let me see you again in a week.’
Josh took his prescription and thanked the doctor; but before he went he told him a portion of another little story, and, carried away by his excitement, he even went so far as to let the doctor into the details of a little scheme of vengeance which he was brewing against a man whom the doctor in days gone by had once known exceedingly well.
The doctor was so interested in the story that he let Josh talk on for ever so long, utterly oblivions of the ladies and gentlemen drumming their heels in the waiting-room.
And when Josh was gone he didn’t send for a fresh patient at once, but sat for a few minutes buried in thought.
‘I wonder what to do for the best,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘I suspect Gurth would like to be in at the death, and it’s all up with Edward Marston. He need fear nothing in that quarter now. Yes, I think Gurth had better come.’
That morning, when all the patients were disposed of, Dr. Birnie started out on his round of visits.
But the first thing he did was to send a telegraphic message to America:
‘From Birnie, London, to Egerton, ———— Hotel, New York.—Come back. The game is yours. M. is trapped.’
Josh Heckett’s cough grew worse and worse. Bess and George were still with him, and very grateful they were for the means of avoiding pursuit. George never ventured out now, but Bess, thickly veiled, did all the marketing for the little household. She was a capital nurse too, and Josh, in his rough, uncouth way, was grateful. He had never known all his life what kindness was. Gertie he had looked upon as bound to do what he wanted, because he fed and kept her, and Gertie was only a child. But with Bess it was different. She and her husband had not only saved his life, they were going to be his chosen instruments in a deep-laid scheme of vengeance.