So I explained practically what I had told his sister. I also described how Professor Vega at Madrid had told me of the two cures effected by Professor Gourbeil, of Lyons.
“My sister tells me that you suggest Gabrielle should consult him,” Mr. Maxwell said. “But she has consulted so many specialists. Doctor Moroni has been most kind to her. He took her to doctors in Paris and in Italy, but they could do nothing.”
“Well, I think that as Professor Gourbeil has cured two persons of the deadly effects of the drug Miss Tennison should see him,” I remarked.
“I quite agree. It is for that reason I have come to London,” he said. “I understand that you, Mr. Garfield, take a personal interest in my niece, therefore I want to ask you a favour—namely, that if I pay the expenses would you accompany my sister and her daughter to Lyons?”
“Willingly. But I will pay my own expenses, please,” was my prompt reply.
At first he would not hear of it, until I declined to go unless I went independently, and then we arranged for our departure.
Four days later we descended at the big busy Perrache station at Lyons from the lumbering rapide which had brought us from Paris, and entered the Terminus Hôtel which adjoins the platform. Later, from the concierge, we found that Professor Gourbeil of the Facultés des Sciences et de Médecine, lived in the Avenue Felix Faure, and I succeeded over the telephone in making an appointment with him for the following day at noon.
This I kept, going to him alone in order to explain matters.
I found him to be a short, florid-faced man with a shock of white hair and a short white beard. His house was a rather large one standing back in a well-kept garden full of flowers, and the room in which he received me was shaded and cool.