Having thus delivered herself she retreated toward the kitchen and I ascended the stairs, at the head of which I found Miss Bellingham awaiting me with her right hand encased in what looked like a white boxing-glove.
"I'm glad you have come," she said. "Phyllis—Miss Oman, you know—has kindly bound up my hand, but I should like you to see that it is all right."
We went into the sitting-room, where I laid out my paraphernalia on the table while I inquired into the particulars of the accident.
"It is most unfortunate that it should have happened just now," she said, as I wrestled with one of those remarkable feminine knots that, while they seem to defy the utmost efforts of human ingenuity to untie, yet have a singular habit of untying themselves at inopportune moments.
"Why just now in particular?" I asked.
"Because I have some specially important work to do. A very learned lady who is writing an historical book has commissioned me to collect all the literature relating to the Tell-el-Amarna letters—the cuneiform tablets, you know, of Amenhotep the Fourth."
"Well," I said soothingly, "I expect your hand will soon be well."
"Yes, but that won't do. The work has to be done immediately. I have to send in completed notes not later than this day week, and it will be quite impossible. I am dreadfully disappointed."
By this time I had unwound the voluminous wrappings and exposed the injury—a deep gash in the palm that must have narrowly missed a good-sized artery. Obviously the hand would be useless for fully a week.
"I suppose," she said, "you couldn't patch it up so that I could write with it?"