“Patient?” suggested Roberts.
“Oui, oui!” exclaimed the other. “One patient! He was to come——”
But the man did not finish his sentence. At that moment there came the sound of rolling carriage-wheels, and Dr. Anselme made a sudden start for the door and flung it open just as the carriage stopped and a man bounded up the steps of the porch. The little doctor, still half convulsed with laughter, dragged him into the house and began an excited conversation with him. In a moment or two the latter turned to Roberts. He began to speak in fluent English, keeping from giving way to laughter by a violent effort.
“Sir,” he said, “my brother wishes me to explain—I have arrived just in time.”
“For heaven’s sake!” cried Roberts in relief. “Talk on, and tell me what is the matter!”
“It is a most extraordinary blunder,” said the newcomer. “You have escaped a dangerous surgical operation by the merest chance!”
Roberts placed his hand on his bald head, and everyone in the hallway gave a roar of laughter.
“Yes,” said the other, “that is it. My brother is a well-known specialist in mental diseases and has this sanitarium in the mountains. No doubt you were surprised to find such a large house so far away from any city. We were expecting a patient, an American, by the same train on which you arrived. He was suffering from an injury to the skull, which made him liable to periodic attacks of insanity, and he was coming up here to be treated.”
“The very man I saw on the train!” cried Roberts. “A tall, dark-haired person?”
“We do not know in the least what he looks like,” was the reply, “for had we known we should not have made the horrible blunder we did.”