Neither Sam nor Buller spoke for a moment. Then Sam opened the sitting-room door.
"Come in," he invited the other. "Let's take a look at your hand."
The tortured Buller thrust it forward where the lamplight could fall upon it. Sam shook his head.
"That's beyond me," he explained. "But I tell you what, I'm going for Dr. Driggs, anyhow. You get in the car and come along with me. Only, I better take that black dingus off your face, hadn't I?"
Buller made a clumsy effort to detach it himself, but his left hand alone could not manage it. Sam did it for him.
"Now, as soon as I get the car," he explained, "we can start."
While he was gone Buller paced the floor like a caged animal, writhing with pain, crying, cursing. Sam was gone but a few minutes. It seemed an eternity to the poor, waiting wretch. Then away they sped through the cool, calming darkness of the night.
In the extremity of his anguish, nothing really signified to Buller, yet again and again he found himself wondering if Slawson would "split" on him. As a matter of fact, Sam never opened his lips, beyond delivering his message to the doctor from Mr. Ronald, then turning Buller over to him for immediate attention.
The old physician scowled through his spectacles when he saw the wound.
"How did you manage this job?" he asked in his blunt, uncompromising way.