“Do it yourself! I won’t touch her again!”
Carlson took his stethoscope from his pocket and bared the patient’s chest. The nightgown was coarse and cheap, but the form within it was rounded and beautiful. The sleeves of the garment had apparently been roughly hacked off with scissors.
Carlson’s examination of lungs and heart found absolutely nothing to account for the very high fever. Then he thought of appendicitis or peritonitis.
“Now, please let me examine the abdomen for a moment.”
She lay still while he delicately arranged the clothing. The light from the chandelier showed obliquely, so that the lower part of the abdomen was in the shadow cast by the rolled-down bedclothes. Carlson felt and carefully sounded, but she gave no sign of pain or involuntary resistance.
As his sensitive fingers passed over the place under which the appendix is located, he felt something that broke the smoothness of the perfect skin. It was a surgical scar. That fact alone should almost certainly rule out a present attack of appendicitis!
“So you have had appendicitis?”
“Yes.”
“It must have been a bad case—to judge from the size of the scar.”
She did not answer, and he drew the covering a little lower and brought the scar out of the shadow into full view. Then he started, and, involuntarily, a gasp escaped him.