The product of twenty years of war. The reeking loom that converted such as he into food for guns had stopped suddenly. There would be no demand for heroes for a long, long time, and somehow the fact that the fellow had all his limbs about him made him even more pathetic. The doctor had almost forgotten Cosmo. He did not notice Spire coming down the stairs, and he started at the sound of the words, "I beg your pardon, sir," uttered almost in his ears. The elderly valet was very much shaken. He said in a low murmur, "I am nearly out of my mind, sir. My master . . ."
"I know," interrupted the doctor. He pounced upon Spire like a bird of prey. "Come, what do you know about it?"
This reception roused Spire's dislike of that sour and off-hand person like no medical man he had ever seen and certainly no gentleman. On the principle, "like master like man," Spire was more sensitive to manner than to any trait of personality. He pulled himself together and steadied his voice. "I know nothing, sir, except that you were the last person seen speaking to Mr. Latham."
"You don't think I have got him in my pocket, do you?" asked Doctor Martel, noting the hostile stare. "Don't you attend your master when he retires for the night?"
"I got dismissed early last night. I am sorry to say I sat downstairs after supper very late, listening to tales about one thing and another. I . . . I went to sleep there," added Spire with a sort of desperation.
"Listening to tales," repeated the doctor jeeringly. "Pretty tales they must have been, too. Zillers is no company for a respectable English servant. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Well, and then?"
"I went up, sir, and . . ."
"In the middle of the night," suggested the doctor.
"It was pretty late. I . . ."
He faltered at the remembrance. The waking up in the cold dark kitchen, the cold dark staircase, the light shining through the keyhole of Mr. Cosmo's bedroom, the first vague feeling that there was something wrong, the empty room. And most awful of all, the bed not slept in, and the candles in the candelabras burning low. He remembered his horror, incredulity, his collapse into an armchair where he sat till broad daylight in a pitiable state of mental agitation.