“The doctor should be in in a moment, and you can ask him. No, I don’t think she’s dying. My sister had the same sort of thing, and she’s dancing at the moment—”
“Same sort of—what thing, then? What?”
A gaffe, a faux pas, a bloomer! He scowled up at me, blackly intent....
“Ptomaine poisoning,” I said.
“Oh, God!” he said. “Oh, God! What? Poison....”
He stared at the letter which I had put into his hand. He turned it about, and seemed to think profoundly. “You see,” he muttered, “it’s all wrong, this. All wrong. What?”
I wasn’t cast for a moralist. What I said, very uncomfortably, was: “Well....”
“All this messing about,” Napier scowled at the letter. Then he looked at me, darkly, helplessly.
“Get let in for things,” he said.
“Difficult,” I said. “I know....”