“Well, I was called out about eleven last night, just as I was going up to bed, by an old labourer who drove into Sibberton in a light cart, and who told me that a woman was lying seriously ill at a farmhouse which he described as beyond Cherry Lap. It was out of my district, but he told me that he had been into Thrapston, but one doctor was out at a case and the other was away, therefore he had driven over to me. From what he said the case seemed serious, therefore I mounted my horse and rode along at his side in the moonlight. The night was lovely. We went by Geddington Chase, through Brigstock, and out on the Oundle Road, a good eleven miles in all, when he turned up a narrow drift for nearly half-a-mile where stood a small lonely farmhouse on the edge of a spinney. The place was in darkness, but as soon as I had dismounted the door opened, and there appeared a big powerful-looking man, holding a candle in his hand, and behind him was the figure of an old woman, who made a remark to him in a low voice. Then I heard a man somewhere speaking in some foreign language.”
“A foreign language?” I remarked, quickly interested.
“Yes. That’s what first aroused my suspicion,” he said. “I was taken upstairs, and in a rather poorly-furnished room found a person in bed. The light had been purposely placed so that I could not see the features distinctly, and so dark was the corner where the patient lay that at first I could distinguish nothing.
“My daughter here has—well, she’s met with a slight accident,” the sinister-looking fellow explained, standing behind me, and then as he shifted the paraffin lamp a little there was revealed a young woman, dark-haired and rather good-looking, lying pale and insensible. Upon the pillow was a quantity of blood, which had, I saw, flowed from an ugly gaping wound on the left side of the neck—distinctly a knife-wound.
”‘Accident!’ I exclaimed, looking at the man. ‘Why, she couldn’t have inflicted such a wound as that herself. Who did it?’ ‘Never mind, doctor, who did it,’ the fellow growled surlily. ‘You sew it up or something. This ain’t the time for chin—the girl may die.’ He was a rough customer, and I did not at all like the look of him. I was, indeed, sorry that I had entered there, for both he and the woman also in the room were a very mysterious pair. Therefore I got the latter to bring some warm water, and after a little time succeeded in sewing the wound and properly bandaging it. Just as I had finished, the young woman gradually recovered consciousness. ‘Where am I?’ she inquired in a faint, rather refined voice. ‘Hold your jaw!’ roughly replied the fellow. ‘If you don’t it’ll be the worse for you!’ ‘But, where’s George?’ she demanded. ‘Oh, don’t bother about him,’ was the gruff injunction. ‘Ah!’ she shrieked suddenly, raising herself in her bed and glaring at him wildly. ‘I know the truth! I remember now! You caught him by the throat and you strangled him?—you coward! You believe that Dick Keene doesn’t know about the Sibberton affair, but he does. They’ve seen him, and told him everything—how—’ The man turned to her with his fist raised menacingly saying, ‘Lie quiet! you silly fool! If you don’t, you’ll be sorry for it! No more gab now!’ Then turning to me he said with a short harsh laugh, ‘The girl’s a bit off her head, doctor. Come, let’s go downstairs!’ And he hurried me out lest she should make any more allegations.
“My first inclination was to remain and question her, yet it seemed clear that I was among a very queer lot, and that discretion was the best course. Therefore I followed the man down, although my patient shrieked aloud for me to return.”
“By Jove!” I exclaimed, aroused to activity by mention of the man Keene. “That was a strange adventure—very strange!”
“Yes,” he continued. “The fellow evinced the greatest anxiety that I should leave, pressed into my hand half-a-sovereign as a fee, and again assured me that the girl’s mind was wandering. Again and again she called after me ‘Doctor! doctor!’ but in a room beyond I again heard men’s voices, speaking low in a foreign language, therefore I hesitated, and presently mounted my mare and rode away. Now,” he added, taking another long pinch of snuff, “what do you make out of it, Woodhouse?”
“Seems very much as though there’s been another tragedy,” I remarked. “I wonder who the injured girl is?” I added, utterly amazed at his narrative.
“I wonder,” he added, “and who is this man Keene who knows all about the Sibberton affair? Could she have been referring to the tragedy in the park, do you think?”