"You mean to stand by me in this, don't you?" he asked Mr. Burkham.
"With all my heart and soul."
"Good. Then you must go to Dr. Jedd instantly. Tell him all you know—Tom Halliday's death; the symptoms of Charlotte's decline, as you have heard them from me—everything; and let him hold himself in readiness to start for Hastings directly he hears from or sees me. I am going to a man who of all men can tell me how to deal with Philip Sheldon. I shall try to be in Burlington Row in an hour from this time; but in any case you will wait there till I come. I suppose, in a desperate case like this, Dr. Jedd will put aside all less urgent work?"
"No doubt of that."
"I trust to you to secure his sympathy," said Valentine.
He was in the darksome entrance-hall by this time. Mr. Burkham followed, and opened the door for him.
"Have no fear of me," he said. "Good bye."
The two men shook hands with a grip significant as masonic sign-manual. It meant on the one part hearty co-operation, on the other implicit confidence. In the next moment Valentine sprang into the cab.
"King's Road—entrance to Gray's Inn, and drive like mad!" he shouted to the driver. The hansom rattled across the stones, dashed round corners, struck consternation to scudding children in pinafores, all but annihilated more than one perambulator, and in less than ten minutes after leaving Mr. Burkham's door, ground against the kerbstone before the little gate of Gray's Inn.
"God grant that George Sheldon may be at home!" Valentine said to himself, as he hurried towards that gentleman's office. George Sheldon was at home. In this fight against time, Mr. Hawkehurst had so far found the odds in his favour.