“What’s the trouble here?” Carey asked in the sympathetic-professional voice by which he controlled sick rooms.
“Lord, Doc, is that you?” Darley Champers followed the words with a groan.
“You are in a fix,” Carey replied as he lifted Champers to his feet.
Blood was on his face and clothes and the floor, and Champers himself was almost too weak to stand. 271
“Get me out of here as quick as you can, Doc,” he said in a thick voice.
At the same moment Rosie Gimpke appeared from the kitchen.
“Slip him out queek now. I hold the dining room door tight,” she urged, rushing back to the kitchen.
Carey moved quickly and had Darley Champers safely out and into his own office before Rosie had need to relax her grip on the dining room door-knob.
“I guess you’ve saved me,” Champers said faintly as the doctor examined his wounds.
“Not as bad as that,” Dr. Carey replied cheerfully. “An ugly scalp wound and loss of blood, but you’ll come back all right.”