There was a chair close to the desk, and the tall figure collapsed into it. Stone stretched his arms out across the desk, dropped his head between them, and gave vent to a hoarse sob.
“Thank Heaven! Oh, thank Heaven!” he said, in a choked voice. “I’ve been in torment these last few months, but it was all for the best. You’ve saved me from myself, doctor, and I don’t know how to thank you!”
The hawklike face above him creased with satisfaction, and the thin lips curled back from the sharp teeth.
“I ask no thanks,” was the reply. “And allow me to remind you that I hold your check for a substantial sum. That is the best thanks to a man who needs all the money he can lay hands on in order to carry on costly experiments. I trust you will not regret having given it to me, although you did so under a misapprehension. You’ll remember, however, that I did not promise, at that time, to do away with Crawford. I merely promised that he would not trouble you after the twenty-seventh, and I have kept to the agreement. He will not trouble you, because all your differences will have vanished by that time—have vanished now, in fact. Later, of course, I felt compelled to fall in more nearly with your misguided desires, but that was nothing more than professional tact. If you had called yourself the King of Mexico, I would have humored you in that belief, and bowed down to you.”
“I understand, of course—now,” Stone replied gravely. “As for your fee, it’s by no means too much for what you’ve done. Your skill has given me back my sanity and my old friend. Say nothing more about it.”
Follansbee was not looking to drop the subject, however.
“I won’t after this,” he said, “but that reminds me that the check is for a rather large amount, and it has occurred to me that your bank may make some difficulty about cashing it. I won’t present it before Monday, the twenty-seventh, of course, but if you would write a note to the bank now, it might help matters.”
Gratitude and relief made James Stone less cautious than he might otherwise have been. “Certainly,” he said, without hesitation. “I’ll be glad to do so.”
“Thank you. I think I have some of your hotel stationery here in my pocket. Yes, here it is. I remember picking some up in the writing room the other day when I was waiting for you, and wished to make some notes.”
He produced several sheets of paper engraved with the name of the Hotel Windermere, and, selecting one of them, spread it out on the desk before his visitor.