“I’m full of ideas,” said the soldier. “In fact, if it’s any help to you in your diagnosis, that wound was caused by the application of an unpleasant mediaeval instrument known as a thumbscrew.”
The worthy doctor looked at him in amazement. “A thumbscrew! You must be joking, Captain Drummond.”
“Very far from it,” answered Hugh briefly. “If you want to know, it was touch and go whether the other thumb didn’t share the same fate.” He blew out a cloud of smoke, and smiled inwardly as he noticed the look of scandalised horror on his companion’s face. “It isn’t his thumb that concerns me,” he continued; “it’s his general condition. What’s the matter with him?”
The doctor pursed his lips and looked wise, while Drummond wondered that no one had ever passed a law allowing men of his type to be murdered on sight.
“His heart seems sound,” he answered after a weighty pause, “and I found nothing wrong with him constitutionally. In fact, I may say, Captain Drummond, he is in every respect a most healthy man. Except—er—except for this peculiar condition.”
Drummond exploded. “Damnation take it, man, what on earth do you suppose I asked you to come round for? It’s of no interest to me to hear that his liver is working properly.” Then he controlled himself. “I beg your pardon, doctor: I had rather a trying evening last night. Can you give me any idea as to what has caused this peculiar condition?”
His companion accepted the apology with an acid bow. “Some form of drug,” he answered.
Drummond heaved a sigh of relief. “Now we’re getting on,” he cried. “Have you any idea what drug?”
“It is, at the moment, hard to say,” returned the other. “It seems to have produced a dazed condition mentally, without having affected him physically. In a day or two, perhaps, I might be able to—er—arrive at some conclusion....”
“Which, at present, you have not. Right; now we know where we are.” A pained expression flitted over the doctor’s face: this young man was very direct. “To continue,” Hugh went on, “as you don’t know what the drug is, presumably you don’t know either how long it will take for the effect to wear off.”