"Run along to Doctor Moving's and ask him to come here, Captain Street, at once," he said. "At once, do you understand? Mr. Dreyel is ill."
The boy nodded his tousled head, looked at the coin and was off like a shot. Wallion went back to the house. He was pale with excitement; his nostrils quivered and his eyes burned. He was fuming over with what he called his "clumsiness" but a hasty examination of the back door reassured him in some degree, for two or three scratches round the lock showed that it had been forced open by the intruder ... So it had been locked, and so far there had been no negligence. He lighted a cigar to soothe his nerves, the tension of which had prevented his being able to think clearly. Through loss of blood the wounded man was sinking into a kind of stupor, but when Wallion gave him a few drops of water he opened his eyes and muttered:
"Now I understand everything ... I see clearly ... Robertson and Toroni have been here ... King Solomon ... Oh, my God, and that after fifteen years!" He beat the air with his hands and cried with a deep, choking voice: "I saw him as he lifted the knife ... I saw him ... I saw..."
"All right, but you must be quiet now."
"No, I will speak out. He was greatly changed but I knew him again. It was Toroni."
"What? You yourself told me he was dead."
"No, Toroni ... No, thirteen Toroni ... what a long way off you are ... you don't hear me."
It was tragic and pitiful to see the big, strong man exert the last of his remaining strength in the effort to tell everything, for though the delirium of fever gripped him inch by inch, his lips continued to move and Wallion bent over him to catch his words, low as the beating of his pulse.
"The numbers ... the numbers ... it is from Robertson ... you must help ... many will be grateful to you ... if you can find King Solomon, the numbers ... take care ... I am falling ... take care, Toroni."
He stopped, but his eyes sought the other's with an expression so appealing, so helplessly pitiful that Wallion, deeply touched, pressed his hand.