CHAPTER XXXVII

HE DRIVES A SAP

One morning, after Captain Royal had been at the Hotel two months, Ernie missed the familiar soft thud of his feet as he came up the stairs three at a time after his bathe.

Ernie looked at his watch.

It was half-past seven; and the Captain was regular as the seasons. He wondered what was up. The strange dis-ease which possessed him, whenever his thoughts turned to Royal, was on him strong.

Then Ruth came out of the Captain's room. Her face, always grave, was graver than usual. The note of restraint Ernie had marked in it of late, whenever he met her, had given place to one of anxiety.

"What's up?" he asked.

"He's not getting up," she answered. "He's not well. Looks to me like the hot-chills."

The sick man heard the voices outside.

"Caspar!" he called.

"Sir."

Ernie entered. Captain Royal lay in bed, a touch of colour in his cheeks, his skin dry, his hair bristling, his eyes suffused.

"I've got a touch of fever," he said. "And my head's stupid. You don't remember the prescription they used to give us in India. Quinine and--what?"

Ernie was far too vague to be of any help, and was testily dismissed. He left the sick-room. The Captain's helplessness roused the woman in him and disarmed the jealous male.

"It's nothing much," he told Ruth. "Only a go of malaria. He used to get it in India. Don't you worry."

Later in the morning Madame visited the sick man, and summed him up with those fine shrewd eyes of hers that let so little escape them.

The Captain was clearly running a temperature.

Madame put her plump be-ringed hand on his lean one, and then rang.

Ruth came.

"Have you a thermometer, Ruth?"

Ruth had--a legacy from Miss Caryll's days. In a moment she re-appeared with it, washed it, and put it into the Captain's mouth. Then she plucked it out, and took it to the window. It marked 102.

"What is it?" asked the sick man.

"It's a little up," answered Ruth, shaking the thermometer down.

"What is it?" repeated the other.

Ruth had not nursed Miss Caryll for two years in vain.

"It's a shade over normal," she said. "Hap it'll be a bit higher this evening."

Outside she told Madame.

"I shall send for Mr. Trupp," that lady said, and telephoned at once.

The great man came, grumbling and grousing. What did he--who loved to describe his surgery as carpentry, and himself as a mechanic--know of Indian fevers?

Madame took him herself to the Captain's room. Ruth brought a jug of hot water.

"You must just stop in bed till it's burned itself out," said the Doctor, wiping his hands and coughing.

The sick man cursed.

"You won't want a nurse," said Madame. "Ruth'll do everything you want."

Mr. Trupp looked up and for the first time noticed the girl by the wash-stand. He seemed put out and glanced at Madame.

"I didn't know you were on this floor, Ruth," he said, and added to the Captain--"Ruth nursed a patient of mine for two years in this very Hotel, didn't you, Ruth? She can take a temperature, feel a pulse, and keep a chart with the best of em, and you'll be all right in a day or two."

Ruth, who loved Mr. Trupp, as she loved no one else on earth, blushed and smiled.

"That's settled then," said the Captain from his bed.

Outside in the corridor Mr. Trupp, busy winding his comforter about his neck, saw Ernie and shook hands with him.

"Well, Ernie," he said gruffly. "I forgot you were here. How _you_ getting on?"

"Nicely, thank you, sir," answered Ernie, forgetful for the moment of all his trouble. "Nothing much amiss with the Captain, I hope, sir?"

"D'you know him?" asked Mr. Trupp.

"Why, sir!" cried Ernie, aggrieved. "He was our adjutant. And a fine officer too. Mr. George'll tell you all about him, though they was in different Battalions. He's well be-known all over India because of his cricket."

"O, he's a Hammer-man too, is he?" said Mr. Trupp, interested. "Quite a collection of you here. D'you know Colonel Lewknor?"

"Know him, sir!" cried Ernie. "The Colonel!--The best officer and nicest gentleman we had. Is he down here?"

"Yes, he's taking a house in Holywell, I believe.... Take my bag down to the car, will you?--You'll find Alf outside. I must just wait and speak to the Manageress."

Ernie willingly obeyed.

Outside was the familiar chocolate-coloured car; and a little way off was Alf standing in the grass exchanging confidences with some one in the boothole in the basement.

He saw Ernie and broke off his conversation at once to come lurching towards his brother, licking his lips, and on his colourless face the familiar leer.

"Say, Ern!" he began confidentially.

Ernie, paying no heed, opened the door of the car, and put the bag inside.

"That was a pretty pick-up you got hold of top of the bus that time," Alf continued quietly.

Ern faced his brother.

"What's this then?" he asked, rather white.

"That tart top o the bus that night."

Ernie was breathing deep as he shut the door of the car elaborately.

"I thought you was a churchman then," he said. "Took the sacraments, marched in processions and carried the bag, from what I hear of it."

Alf looked round warily. Then he came boring in upon the other, as though determined to penetrate his secret.

"What if I do!" he said. "'Taint Sunday to-day, is it?--'Taint Sunday _all_ the time."

Some one buried in the boot-hole laughed.

"What's that got to do with it?" Ernie asked. "D'you keep a dirty tongue all the week, and put on a clean one o Sunday with yer change o clothes?"

"Who was she?" persisted Alf, his eyes like the waters of a canal at night glittering in the murk of some desolate industrial quarter.

Ernie folded his arms. He said nothing; but the lightning flickered about his face.

"I know who she was then," continued Alf, his great head weaving from side to side. "She was one of the totties from the Third Floor--where you work." He thrust his head forward, and his eyes were cruel. "_D'you_ think she's for you?--Earning twenty-two a week, aren't you?--and what the German Jews toss you. Why, I doubt if she'd fall to ME--and I'm a master-man."

Jeering laughter from the bowels of the earth punctuated his words.

Just then Mr. Trupp came through the great swing-doors. He stopped for a word with the hall-porter.

"You settled down here, Ernie?" he asked.

"Pretty fair, sir, thank you," Ernie answered without enthusiasm.

Mr. Trupp entered the car. He seemed perturbed.

"Well, if you want to make a change at any time, let me know," he said. "I only suggested this as a make-shift for you, till we could fix you up in something better, you know."

The Doctor drove home in surly mood.

It was not till the evening that his wife arrived at the root of the trouble.

"You remember Miss Caryll's maid?" he said.

"Ruth Boam?" cried Mrs. Trupp. "That charming girl who used to bring us over strawberries from the Dower-house at Aldwoldston."

Mr. Trupp stirred his coffee.

"She's on the Third Floor at the Hohenzollern."

Mrs. Trupp put down her work.

"Temporarily," continued the other, "But she oughtn't to be there at all, a good girl like that. I told Madame as much."

"I should think you did!" cried Mrs. Trupp, flashing out like a sword from a scabbard. "It's a crime!"

"Madame's not a criminal," replied her husband quietly. "She's kind. But she's one of the people who carries her kindness altogether too far."