CHAPTER XXIII.

WITH THE DOCTORS.

Barbara received Mrs. Tarbot’s letter by the first post in the morning. She read the contents and determined to act on Clara’s counsel at once. Pelham was just getting up when his wife appeared.

“Dear, how bad you look!” said Barbara, giving him a glance of mingled apprehension and affection.

“Matters get worse and worse with me, Bab,” he replied. “I sometimes scarcely know what I am doing.”

“It is all nerves, dear,” she answered.

“If so, do you know a cure?”

“Common sense,” she replied.

“What do you mean, Barbara?”

“What I say. You are very anxious. If your mind were set at rest your nervous fears would vanish.”

“Ah, but that’s just it. I can’t set my mind at rest. You don’t know what happened last night.”

He then related his interview with Mrs. Pelham and his further interview with Tarbot. Barbara listened attentively.

“I know what I would do,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“You are not satisfied with the death certificate?”

“No.”

“You suspect Dr. Tarbot?”

“Heaven help me, Barbara, I do. I cannot help it. The man is a scoundrel. I cannot look at him without being assured on that point.”

“I don’t like him,” said Barbara; “but never, no, never for a single moment, can I think of him as you do. The dear little fellow came by his death through natural causes—of that I am firmly convinced, but if I were you, Dick——”

“Yes?” he asked.

“I would go and see the two great consultants who were called in when little Piers was so ill.”

Pelham gazed at her anxiously.

“That is a capital idea,” he said, and his brow cleared.

“You will act on it, Dick—will you not?”

“I will think about it,” he replied.

“The two great consultants,” she called after him, as he left the room. “You’ll visit them both. Ask them if their verdict coincides with that of Luke Tarbot, and then go to the chemist, Dick, and get a copy of the prescription for yourself.”

“Good, good!” he answered. “You’re a wife in a thousand, Bab.” He kissed her affectionately.

Pelham felt too much excited to eat any breakfast. He went into the Park and wandered about until it was late enough to visit Sir Richard Spears. When at ten o’clock he presented himself at the house of the great specialist his eyes were gleaming brightly, but the rest of his face looked haggard. He asked if the doctor was in. The servant replied in the affirmative. Pelham then inquired if he might see him.

“Have you an appointment, sir?” asked the man.

“No; but, all the same, it is most urgent that I should see him as soon as possible.” As Pelham spoke he produced his card. The man looked at it.

“I will inquire if the doctor can see you, sir. You are early, and it maybe possible that he can give you an interview before his other patients arrive.”

The man took Pelham’s card into the doctor’s inner sanctum. He soon reappeared and motioned Pelham to follow him.

Sir Richard Spears had keen eyes. As patient after patient appeared before him he was wont to give each a quick glance, after which he scarcely troubled to watch their faces again. In that glance, as a rule, he found out what was the matter with each of those who came to ask him for relief.

“A highly disordered nervous condition,” was his comment with regard to Pelham.

“Sit down. What can I do for you?” he asked.

“You can answer a question,” said Pelham.

“About yourself? You come to me as a patient?”

“In one sense, yes, in another, no. I am very much troubled, and I think it just possible that you may be able to relieve me.”

“Then yours is a mental case, but——”

“I have come to ask you a question,” interrupted Pelham, “and I am willing to pay the ordinary fee. Will you answer it?”

“Ask it and then I will tell you,” said the doctor.

“My question is this: You saw little Sir Piers Pelham during his last illness. You saw him, I am given to understand, in consultation with Dr. Tarbot of Harley Street?”

“That is so; but this, Sir Richard Pelham”—the doctor glanced at the young man’s card as he spoke—“this is unusual.”

“It is unusual, and so is my attitude,” replied Pelham. “What I have come to ask is this: Do you believe that the child’s death was owing to aortic disease?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Pelham’s brow cleared. He gave a short, quick sigh of relief.

“Why do you ask me?”

“Because I have had my doubts. I have known Piers from a child: he never showed the slightest symptom of heart disease.”

“That fact has nothing to do with it. Aortic disease may come on suddenly and—end abruptly. In the case of your young friend it did so. I am glad to be able to relieve your mind. Yours is a somewhat strange inquiry, but I have thought it best to answer it.”

“What is your fee?” asked Pelham.

“Nothing, because I have done nothing for you. Good-by. By the way, you don’t look too well yourself. You ought to have change and rest.”

“I shall be better now,” replied Pelham. He left the house. From Sir Richard Spears he went to Dr. Williamson. He was also fortunate enough to see him, and to put to him the same question. The same reply was vouchsafed. The boy had died from aortic disease. Aortic disease as a rule ended suddenly.

Dick’s relief was now so manifest in his face that he could almost laugh aloud. From Dr. Williamson he went straight to the chemist from whom he had obtained the medicine which had been given to little Sir Piers on the night of his death. The chemist was willing to give him a copy of the prescription. Dick knew nothing whatever about medicine, but having got the copy, he asked the man what each ingredient meant. In some surprise the chemist answered him.

“This is a very harmless prescription,” he said. “It would have little effect one way or the other.”

“But the child for whom it was meant,” said Dick, his suspicions returning in a flash, “required a strong stimulant immediately.”

The chemist shrugged his shoulders.

“I am not prepared to enter into that question,” he answered. “This prescription is harmless—a little sal volatile, a small dose of digitalis, etc., etc.”

“Thank you,” replied Dick.

“I am a fool for my pains,” he said to himself. “Tarbot is an honest man, and the child died from natural causes. I am a fool for my pains.”

He rushed home and burst into the room where Barbara was sitting. His face was now like sunshine.

“You will have no cause to be miserable again,” he said. “I have taken your advice. My suspicions have vanished into thin air.”

“Thank God for His mercy!” said the young wife.