"So you are determined to go in this way—back to your—case?"
At the scorn of her last words Sommers threw up his head haughtily.
"Yes, back to my case."
CHAPTER XVII
Mrs. Ducharme opened the door of the cottage in response to Sommers's knock. Attired in a black house dress, with her dark hair smoothly brushed back from round, fat features, she was a peaceful figure. Sommers thought there was some truth in her contention that "Ducharme ought to get a decent-looking woman, anyway."
"How is Mr. Preston?" he asked.
Mrs. Ducharme shook her head mournfully.
"Bad, allus awful bad—and pitiful. Calling for stuff in a voice fit to break your heart."
"Mind you don't let him get any," the doctor counselled, preparing to go upstairs.
"Better not go up there jest yet," the woman whispered. "He did get away from us yesterdy and had a terrible time over there." She hitched her shoulders in the direction of Stoney Island Avenue. "We ain't found out till he'd been gone 'most two hours, and, my! such goings on; we had to git two perlicemen."