“Masters, the fight I’ve had with this Cerberus to see you!”
“Rules ... must have rules, you know....” A decidedly undecided man. Soft-speaking but not plausible, a combination peculiarly English. A man of nerves. Shifty without suavity ... and then, suddenly, apt to bite your head off like a very captain of men: “And how did you know Mrs. Storm was ill? Here?”
“Oh,” I said. “Well....” And I thought of many things. Of Conrad Masters, of “Should a doctor tell?” of Cherry-Marvel, that confidant at third-hand, of Mrs. Conrad Masters. A dashing lady, that.
“Who but Cherry-Marvel told me!” said I.
“God in Heaven, that man!”
But Iris swept out of my mind her doctor’s problematical indiscretions to his dashing wife....
“Ill,” he muttered. “Decidedly ill.... mm....”
“I heard,” I said desperately, “that she’d had a sort of operation—”
“There’s been no operation!” snapped that captain of men. “Simply maddens a man, the way these things get about....”
“Well, I’m only repeating what I heard, Masters. And you can’t hope for secrecy once our friend gets hold of anything—”