"Doctor, I want you to spend the night with Mortimer," said Koko.
"Impossible," said the bearded man. "I have an urgent case which will keep me up till four."
"What's to be done, then?"
"Get a trained nurse--I'll give you the address of a place in the West End where about two hundred of them live when they have no case on. Telephone the manageress, and say you want a nurse sent to No. 9 Derby Crescent to-night. I'll look in at breakfast-time."
He gave Koko the address of the nurses' home.
"Right!" said Koko. "Now, doctor, tell me candidly--has Mortimer got a chance?"
"Not a ghost of one," said the bearded man; "even if he pulled through he would be paralysed for the rest of his life, but he won't pull through. The mischief is in the spine--where he was kicked."
"I shot the fellow," said Koko, between his teeth.
"Did you? Well, I don't suppose he will be much loss. If the police were allowed to carry revolvers we shouldn't hear much more of this Hooliganism."
Koko paced restlessly up and down the surgery, and then turned abruptly to the bearded man.