‘The laconicum will keep till morning,’ said George. ‘As for Mr Hambro’s actual condition, Doctor Braby can inform you better than I can.’
‘Mr Hambro,’ said the doctor firmly, ‘is suffering from an extreme degree of exhaustion, physical and mental, and however minor his physical injuries may be, they certainly don’t help his general condition. At this moment I’d say his nervous collapse has passed into more or less normal sleep, and since his immediate need is for recuperation, I’ve left him under fairly strong sedation, so that he shall certainly sleep overnight without a break, and probably longer. I realise it’s important to get a statement from him—for it seems from his head injury that he certainly was attacked—but from my point of view it’s even more important that he should get the long period of total rest which he requires. I’m afraid police enquiries will have to wait until he’s fit to deal with them.’
‘And will he be fit?’ asked Bill. ‘I mean eventually? Will he remember, after all this?’
‘Remember? Look, we’re dealing with a perfectly sound and strong young man, who at this moment happens to be gravely weakened by circumstances strictly temporary. There’s no question of serious concussion. Nothing whatever to impair his memory, unless a nervous block occurs, and frankly, I think that very unlikely. Yes, he’ll remember. Whether he saw anything of relevance, whether he can identify his assailant, of course, is another matter. But whatever he did record, he’ll remember. We may have to wait a day,’ he said indifferently, ‘to find out what he has to tell, but he’ll be perfectly capable of telling it when he does surface.’
He came down the rest of the staircase, passed by Lesley with a sympathetic smile and a general goodnight, and walked out to his car.
‘I think,’ said George, ‘we should all leave you now to get what rest you can. I’m assured that Mr Hambro will be all right until morning, and I’ll be in in good time tomorrow to see him.’
‘Do you think we should sit up with him?’ asked Lesley. ‘We would, you know, we’d split the watch. I mean, if he should wake up, and feel lost? After an ordeal like that… and in the dark…’
George shook his head. ‘He won’t wake up. The doctor’s sunk him for twelve hours or so, I assure you. Sleep is what he needs, and what he’s going to get for a while. We shall have to wait. It’s only sense, you know.’
He walked out, too, closing the door gently after him. He was not at all surprised to find, before he reached his car, that Charlotte was there in the darkness beside him, though she certainly had not got there by way of the same door.
‘You can’t do it,’ she said in a rapid, indignant whisper in his ear. ‘You can’t just go away and leave him like this. You’ve just made it clear that he hasn’t said a word yet, but may have plenty to say when he does wake up. Everybody knows it, you’ve made sure of that. And then you go away and leave him to it!’
‘What would you like?’ asked George as softly. ‘A couple of constables with notebooks sitting by his bed?’ He looked at her closely and smiled. ‘So you don’t accept Paviour’s evidence against himself? If the would-be murderer is in hospital at Comerbourne, seriously ill, what is there left to worry about?’
‘I don’t know! It did look like that. It does look like that. All I really know is that Gus is in there asleep, the one person who may be able to identify the man who tried to kill him, and everybody knows he hasn’t spoken yet, but tomorrow he will. Supposing it wasn’t Mr Paviour, after all? People do have heart attacks. I know what I did, I know I meant it, but after all perhaps he was just the most vulnerable. Then there’s somebody still around with an interest in seeing that Gus never speaks. That he doesn’t live to speak! If it was urgent to kill him last night, it’s twice as urgent now.’
The brief and unprotesting silence shook and enlightened her. Dimly as she could see his face, she knew he was looking at her with respect, with affection, certainly with a very gentle and grave measure of amusement.
‘That’s what you want!’ she whispered. ‘You’ve got him all pegged out for bait, like a goat for tigers, waiting for someone to have another attempt.’
‘In which case,’ said George mildly, ‘you may be sure I don’t intend the event to go unwitnessed—or uninterrupted.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Charlotte, charmed into meekness.
‘Well, if you insist—it isn’t strictly necessary, but it would help. When you’re sure everyone else is in bed, you can go quietly down and slip the catch on the back door.’
‘I will.’ The door at the foot of those well-carpeted back stairs that led to the room where Gus Hambro was asleep; the room, she remembered, with a spacious walk-in wardrobe. ‘And what after that?’
‘After that,’ said George, ‘go to bed. And go to sleep.’
‘I should have to have a lot of faith in you,’ she said, ‘to do that.’
‘Well?’ said George. ‘You have a lot of faith in me, haven’t you?’
George drove as far as the nearest telephone box that worked, and made two calls, the first being to Barnes, who was standing by for orders, the second to the ward sister in the Comerbourne General Hospital. He was lucky; the night sister on duty was an old friend, and though she was slightly disapproving, she knew him well enough to consent to bend her conscience very delicately to oblige him.
Then he went home to bed.
Barnes let himself in gently by the back door when the house was in complete darkness and silence, eased the catch into place after him without a sound, and made himself reasonably comfortable inside the wardrobe that opened out of Gus’s bedroom. Not too comfortable, for fear of drowsiness. He left the door unlatched, but only a hairline open, to admit sound or light should there be either, and adjusted his own line of vision to cover any approach to the bed where the patient still slept, not so much peacefully as rapturously.
He spent a disappointing, even a puzzling night. Nothing whatever was heard or seen to break the serenity. Nothing whatever happened.
Lesley arose very early, to catch the night sister before she handed over duty. She was allowed to ring through to the ward instead of merely making routine enquiries through the office, the case being new and this the first and crucial call.
‘Mr Paviour is still unconscious,’ said the ward sister, in the carefully bracing voice of one trying to make dismal news sound better than it is, ‘but I wouldn’t say he’s lost ground at all. His breathing is very slightly easier, perhaps, but of course he’s very weak. I’m afraid his condition must have been developing for some time without producing warning symptoms. The degeneration is marked. But there’s no need to be too discouraged.’
‘You mean he isn’t really any better?’ said Lesley, irritated and demanding. Why must nurses say so much and mean so little?
‘Well… his condition is much the same. I wouldn’t say he’s worse…’
That did convey something, more than it said.
‘Do you think…’ Lesley hesitated. ‘Should I visit this afternoon? If he’s unconscious, it can’t help him…’
‘Well, I don’t think he’s going to know you, of course… I’m afraid he probably won’t have regained consciousness. But don’t feel discouraged from coming on that account. I think that you’ll be glad to feel that you did everything possible… In fact, you could arrange to visit briefly at any time that’s convenient to you, if you ask at the office. In the circumstances…’
‘Thank you,’ said Lesley, in a small, thoughtful voice, and put down the receiver in its rest.
There was no point now in going back to bed. The morning was bright, clear and still. From the window she could see the river glittering in the first slanting light, like frost-fire. She went down and made coffee, and sat over it for a long time, staring out at the dawn, and going over the telephone conversation word by word, sorting out the grain from the chaff. ‘In the circumstances…’ Visiting hours at the General were generous but fixed; the circumstances that permitted visiting at any time did not need spelling out. But the sister could be wrong, even doctors can be wrong. People confidently expected to die did sometimes turn their backs on probability and decide to come back again, against all the odds. Still… ward sisters are very experienced in the prognostication of death. Especially night sisters.