At nine the next morning, I tested one drop of the culture under the microscope. Clear and limpid to the naked eye, it was alive with small objects of a most suspicious nature, when properly magnified. I knew those hungry forms. Still, I would not decide offhand on my own authority in a matter of such moment. Sebastian's character was at stake—the character of the man who led the profession. I called in Callaghan, who happened to be in the ward, and asked him to put his eye to the instrument for a moment. He was a splendid fellow for the use of high powers, and I had magnified the culture 300 diameters. “What do you call those?” I asked, breathless.
He scanned them carefully with his experienced eye. “Is it the microbes ye mean?” he answered. “An' what 'ud they be, then, if it wasn't the bacillus of pyaemia?”
“Blood-poisoning!” I ejaculated, horror-struck.
“Aye; blood-poisoning: that's the English of it.”
I assumed an air of indifference. “I made them that myself,” I rejoined, as if they were mere ordinary experimental germs; “but I wanted confirmation of my own opinion. You're sure of the bacillus?”
“An' haven't I been keeping swarms of those very same bacteria under close observation for Sebastian for seven weeks past? Why, I know them as well as I know me own mother.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That will do.” And I carried off the microscope, bacilli and all, into Hilda Wade's sitting-room. “Look yourself!” I cried to her.
She stared at them through the instrument with an unmoved face. “I thought so,” she answered shortly. “The bacillus of pyaemia. A most virulent type. Exactly what I expected.”
“You anticipated that result?”
“Absolutely. You see, blood-poisoning matures quickly, and kills almost to a certainty. Delirium supervenes so soon that the patient has no chance of explaining suspicions. Besides, it would all seem so very natural! Everybody would say: 'She got some slight wound, which microbes from some case she was attending contaminated.' You may be sure Sebastian thought out all that. He plans with consummate skill. He had designed everything.”