And meanwhile Holles was moving mechanically and instinctively at speed up Sermon Lane in the direction of Paul’s. Why he should have chosen to go that way sooner than another he could not have told you. The streets were utterly deserted even at that early hour, for this was not a time in which folk chose to roam abroad at nights, and, moreover, the Lord Mayor’s enactments now compelled all taverns and houses of entertainment to close at nine o’clock.
Without hat or cloak, his empty scabbard dangling like a limp tail about his legs, he sped onward, a man half-distracted, with but a vague notion of his object and none of the direction in which its fulfilment would be likeliest. As he was approaching Carter Lane, a lantern came dancing like a will-o’-the-wisp round the corner to meet him, and presently the dark outline of the man who carried it grew visible. This man walked with the assistance of a staff which at closer quarters the lantern’s rays revealed to be red in colour. With a gasp of relief, Holles flung forward towards him.
“Keep your distance, sir! Keep your distance!” a voice warned him out of the gloom. “’Ware infection.”
But Holles went recklessly on until the long red wand was raised and pointed towards him to arrest his advance.
“Are you mad, sir?” the man cried sharply. Holles could make out now the pallid outline of his face, which the broad brim of his steeple-hat had hitherto kept almost entirely in shadow. “I am an examiner of infected houses.”
“It is as I hoped,” panted Holles ... “that yours might be some such office. I need a doctor, man, quickly, for one who is taken with the plague.”
The examiner’s manner became brisk at once.
“Where?” he demanded.
“Close at hand here, in Knight Ryder Street.”
“Why, then, Dr. Beamish, there at the corner, is your man. Come.”