“But you surely don’t anticipate that I’m poisoned?” I gasped.
“Certainly you are poisoned. Your wound would neither account for your long insensibility nor for the strange, livid marks upon your body. Look at the backs of your hands!”
I looked as he directed and was horrified to find upon each small, dark, copper-coloured marks, which also covered my wrists and arms.
“Don’t be too alarmed, Greenwood,” the good-humoured doctor laughed, “you’ve turned the corner, and you’re not going to die yet. You’ve had a narrow squeak of it, and certainly the weapon with which you were struck was as deadly as any that could be devised, but, fortunately, you had a thick overcoat on, besides other heavy clothing, vests and things, all of which removed the greater part of the venomous substance before it could enter the flesh. And a lucky thing it was for you, I can tell you. Had you been attacked like this in summer, you’d have stood no chance.”
“But who did it?” I exclaimed, bewildered, my eyes riveted upon those ugly marks upon my skin, the evidence that some deadly poison was at work within my system.
“Somebody who owed you a very first-class grudge, I should fancy,” laughed the surgeon, who had been my friend for many years and who used sometimes to come out hunting with the Fitzwilliams. “But cheer up, old chap, you’ll have to live on milk and beef-tea for a day or two, have your wound dressed and keep very quiet, and you’ll soon be bobbing about again.”
“That’s all very well,” I replied, impatiently, “but I’ve got a host of things to do, some private matters to attend to.”
“Then you’ll have to let them slide for a day or two, that’s very certain.”
“Yes,” urged Reggie, “you must really keep quiet, Gilbert. I’m only thankful that it isn’t so serious as we at first expected. When the cabman brought you home and Glave tore out for Walker, I really thought you’d die before he arrived. I couldn’t feel any palpitation of your heart, and you were cold as ice.”
“I wonder who was the brute who struck me!” I cried. “Great Jacob! if I’d have caught the fellow, I’d have wrung his precious neck there and then.”