As they gazed down they saw one man after another came up to their front door, try the handle, look up at the knocker and then walk away.
“Whatever can Elsie have done to prevent their knocking and ringing the house down?”
“She has put a notice on the knocker,” said Mrs. Maclean, in a low voice. “Three London newspaper men were here at seven, it seems, but she persuaded them to go away. They told her there would be a lot of men out by nine o’clock, so she tied a label on the knocker, with ‘Please do not knock or ring bell’ written on it. But she has one of the kitchen windows open, poor woman, though it’s a bitterly cold day, and she just parleys with them through it. We shall have a lot to thank Elsie for, Jock, when all this trouble’s over.”
“I’ll get up now,” he said, shivering not so much with cold as with horror at the thought of what did, indeed, lie before them.
“I’ve got your bath nice and hot.”
He took her hand and patted it. “Now you go down and tell Elsie that I’ll deal with these gentry as soon as I’m up.”
“I’ve arranged for your breakfast to be brought up here on a tray. You may as well wait till you’ve had that.”
“Perhaps I might,” he agreed.
“They’re all round about the house,” she went on, “their faces just glued to the windows trying to get a glimpse of Jean.”
The doctor had just finished his hasty breakfast when there came a knock at the bedroom door and Elsie appeared.