‘You will be sure to tell your master that I came,’ said Mr. Knight frigidly, departing.
At 22, Argyll Street he was informed that Dr. Christopher had likewise been called away, and had left a recommendation that urgent cases, if any, should apply to Dr. Quain Short, 15, Bury Street. His anger was naturally increased by the absence of this second doctor, but it was far more increased by the fact that Dr. Quain Short happened to live in Bury Street. At that moment the enigma of the universe was wrapped up for him in the question, Why should he have been compelled to walk all the way from Bury Street to Argyll Street merely in order to walk all the way back again? And he became a trinity consisting of Disgusted, Indignant, and One Who Would Like to Know, the middle term predominating. When he discovered that No. 15, Bury Street, was exactly opposite No. 8, Bury Street, his feelings were such as break bell-wires.
‘Dr. Quain Short is at the Alhambra Theatre this evening with the family,’ a middle-aged and formidable housekeeper announced in reply to Mr. Knight’s query. ‘In case of urgency he is to be fetched. His box is No. 3.’
‘The Alhambra Theatre! Where is that?’ gasped Mr. Knight.
It should be explained that he held the stage in abhorrence, and, further, that the Alhambra had then only been opened for a very brief period.
‘Two out, and the third at the theatre!’ Mr. Knight mused grimly, hastening through Seven Dials. ‘At the theatre, of all places!’
A letter to the Times about the medical profession was just shaping itself in his mind as he arrived at the Alhambra and saw that a piece entitled King Carrot filled the bill.
‘King Karrot!‘ he muttered scornfully, emphasizing the dangerously explosive consonants in a manner which expressed with complete adequacy, not only his indignation against the entire medical profession, but his utter and profound contempt for the fatuities of the modern stage.
The politeness of the officials and the prompt appearance of Dr. Quain Short did something to mollify the draper’s manager of ten years’ standing, though he was not pleased when the doctor insisted on going first to his surgery for certain requisites. It was half-past eleven when he returned home; Dr. Quain Short was supposed to be hard behind.
‘How long you’ve been!’ said a voice on the second flight of stairs, ‘It’s all over. A boy. And dear Susan is doing splendidly. Mrs. Puddiphatt says she never saw such a----‘
From the attic floor came the sound of a child crying shrilly and lustily:
‘Aunt Annie! Aunt Annie! Aunt Annie!’
‘Run up and quieten him!’ Mr. Knight commanded. ‘It’s like him to begin making a noise just now. I’ll take a look at Susan—and my firstborn.’
CHAPTER II
TOM
In the attic a child of seven years was sitting up in a cot placed by the side of his dear Aunt Annie’s bed. He had an extremely intelligent, inquisitorial, and agnostical face, and a fair, curled head of hair, which he scratched with one hand as Aunt Annie entered the room and held the candle on high in order to survey him.
‘Well?’ inquired Aunt Annie firmly.
‘Well?’ said Tom Knight, determined not to commit himself, and waiting wanly for a chance, like a duellist.
‘What’s all this noise for? I told you I specially wanted you to go to sleep at once to-night.’
‘Yes,’ said Tom, staring at the counterpane and picking imaginary bits off it. ‘And you might have known I shouldn’t go to sleep after that!’
‘And here it’s nearly midnight!’ Aunt Annie proceeded. ‘What do you want?’
‘You—you’ve left the comb in my hair,’ said Tom. He nearly cried.
Every night Aunt Annie curled Tom’s hair.
‘Is it such a tiny boy that it couldn’t take it out itself?’ Aunt Annie said kindly, going to the cot and extracting the comb. ‘Now try to sleep.’ She kissed him.
‘And I’ve heard burglars,’ Tom continued, without moving.
‘Oh no, you’ve not,’ Aunt Annie pronounced sharply. ‘You can’t hear burglars every night, you know.’
‘I heard running about, and doors shutting and things.’
‘That was Uncle Henry and me. Will you promise to be a good boy if I tell you a secret?’
‘I shan’t promise,’ Tom replied. ‘But if it’s a good secret I’ll try—hard.’
‘Well, you’ve got a cousin, a little boy, ever so little! There! What do you think of that?’
‘I knew someone had got into the house!’ was Tom’s dispassionate remark. ‘What’s his name?’
‘He hasn’t any name yet, but he will have soon.’
‘Did he come up the stairs?’ Tom asked.
Aunt Annie laughed. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Then, he must have come through the window or down the chimney; and he wouldn’t come down the chimney ‘cause of the soot. So he came through the window. Whose little boy is he? Yours?’
‘No. Aunt Susan’s.’
‘I suppose she knows he’s come?’
‘Oh yes. She knows. And she’s very glad. Now go to sleep. And I’ll tell Aunt Susan you’ll be a good boy.’
‘You’d better not,’ Tom warned her. ‘I don’t feel sure. And I say, auntie, will there come any more little boys to-night?’
‘I don’t think so, dear.’ Aunt Annie smiled. She was half way through the door, and spoke into the passage.
‘But are you sure?’ Tom persisted.
‘Yes, I’m sure. Go to sleep.’
‘Doesn’t Aunt Susan want another one?’
‘No, she doesn’t. Go to sleep, I say.’
‘‘Cause, when I came, another little boy came just afterwards, and he died, that little boy did. And mamma, too. Father told me.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Aunt Annie, closing the door. ‘Bee-by.’
‘I didn’t promise,’ Tom murmured to his conscience. ‘But it’s a good secret,’ he added brazenly. He climbed over the edge of the cot, and let himself down gently till his feet touched the floor. He found his clothes, which Aunt Annie invariably placed on a chair in a certain changeless order, and he put some of them on, somehow. Then he softly opened the door and crept down the stairs to the second-floor. He was an adventurous and incalculable child, and he desired to see the baby.
Persons who called on Mr. Henry Knight in his private capacity rang at the side-door to the right of the shop, and were instructed by the shop-caretaker to mount two flights of stairs, having mounted which they would perceive in front of them a door, where they were to ring again. This door was usually closed, but to-night Tom found it ajar. He peeped out and downwards, and thought of the vast showroom below and the wonderful regions of the street. Then he drew in his head, and concealed himself behind the plush portiere. From his hiding-place he could watch the door of Uncle Henry’s and Aunt Susan’s bedroom, and he could also, whenever he felt inclined, glance down the stairway.
He waited, with the patience and the fatalism of infancy, for something to happen.
After an interval of time not mathematically to be computed, Tom heard a step on the stairs, and looked forth. A tall gentleman wearing a high hat and carrying a black bag was ascending. In a flash Tom recollected a talk with his dead father, in which that glorious and gay parent had explained to him that he, Tom, had been brought to his mother’s room by the doctor in a black bag.
Tom pulled open the door at the head of the stairs, went outside, and drew the door to behind him.
‘Are you the doctor?’ he demanded, staring intently at the bag to see whether anything wriggled within.
‘Yes, my man,’ said the doctor. It was Quain Short, wrenched from the Alhambra.
‘Well, they don’t want another one. They’ve got one,’ Tom asserted, still observing the bag.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes. Aunt Annie said particularly that they didn’t want another one.’
‘Who is it that has come? Do you know his name? Christopher—is that it?’