“Sit down. What can I do for you?” he asked.
“You can answer a question,” said Pelham.
“About yourself? You come to me as a patient?”
“In one sense, yes, in another, no. I am very much troubled, and I think it just possible that you may be able to relieve me.”
“Then yours is a mental case, but——”
“I have come to ask you a question,” interrupted Pelham, “and I am willing to pay the ordinary fee. Will you answer it?”
“Ask it and then I will tell you,” said the doctor.
“My question is this: You saw little Sir Piers Pelham during his last illness. You saw him, I am given to understand, in consultation with Dr. Tarbot of Harley Street?”
“That is so; but this, Sir Richard Pelham”—the doctor glanced at the young man’s card as he spoke—“this is unusual.”
“It is unusual, and so is my attitude,” replied Pelham. “What I have come to ask is this: Do you believe that the child’s death was owing to aortic disease?”