The purple shadow on Petrie’s brow had encroached no further—indeed, as I thought, was already dispersing!
Dr. Cartier replaced his watch and raised clasped hands.
“He is doing well,” said Sir Denis. “‘654’ is the remedy...but what, exactly is ‘654’?”
“We must know!” cried Dr. Cartier emotionally. “Thanks to the good God, he will revive from the coma and tell us. We must know! There is no more that I or any man can do now. But Sister Therese is a treasure among nurses, and if there should be a development, she will call me immediately. I shall be here in three minutes. But tomorrow? What can we do? We must know!”
“I agree,” said Sir Denis quietly. “Don’t worry any more about it. I think you are about to win a great victory. I hope, as I have told you, to recover a copy of the formula for ‘654’— and as Dr. Petrie’s safety is of such vital importance, you have no objections to offer to my plan?”
“But none!” Cartier replied. “Except that this seems unnecessary.”
“I never take needless risks,” said Sir Denis drily.
But when Cartier was gone:
“I am going into Nice,” Sir Denis said, “now, to put a phone call through to London.”
“What!”
“There’s a definite connection. Sterling, between the appearance in Petrie’s laboratory of a new species of tropical fly at the same time as an unfamiliar tropical plant—the latter bloodstained!”
“So much is obvious.”
“The connecting link is the Burmese dacoit whom I heard and you and Mme Dubonnet saw. He was the servant of a dreadful master.”
A question burned on my tongue, but:
“Sister Therese is all that Carter claims for her—I have interviewed the sister. She will attend to the patient from time to time. But I’m going to ask you to do something, Sterling, for me and for Petrie.”
“Anything you like. Just say the word.”
“You see. Sterling, since Petrie left London and came here, he had kept in close touch with Sir Manston Rorke, of the School of Tropical Medicine—one of the three big names, although I doubt if he knows more than Petrie. Some days ago. Sir Manston called me up. He had formed a remarkable opinion.”
“What about?”
“About the French epidemic. Two cases, showing identical symptoms, occurred in the London dock area, and he had had news of several in New York and of one in Sydney, Australia. Having personally examined the London cases (both of which terminated fatally) he had come to the conclusion that this disease was not an ordinary plague. Briefly, he believed that it was being induced artificially!”
“Good heavens, Sir Denis! I begin to believe he was right.”
Nayland Smith nodded.
“I invited him to suggest a motive, and he wavered between a mad scientist and a Red plot to decimate unfriendly nations! In my opinion, he wasn’t far short of the truth; but here’s the big point: I have reason to believe that Petrie submitted to Sir Manston the formula for ‘654’—and I’m going to Nice to call him up.”
“God grant he has it,” I said, glancing at the bed where the sick man lay.
“Amen to that. But in the meantime. Sterling—I may be away two hours or more—it’s vitally important that Petrie should not be alone for one moment.”
“I quite follow.”
“So I want you to stand by here until I get back. What I mean is this—I want you to sit tight beside his bed.”
“I understand. You may count on me.”
He stared at me fixedly. There was something almost hypnotic in that penetrating look.
“Sterling,” he said, “you are dealing with an enemy more cunning and more brilliant than any man you have ever met East or West. Until I return you are not to allow a soul to touch Petrie—except Sister Therese or Cartier.”
I was startled by his vehemence.
“It may be difficult,” I suggested.
“I agree that it may be difficult; but it has to be done. Can I rely upon you?”
“Absolutely”
“I’m going to dash away now, to put a call through to Manston Rorke. I only pray that he is in London and that I can locate him.”
He raised his hand in a sort of salute to the insensible man, turned, and went out.
chapter seventh
IVORY FINGERS
I thought of many things during the long vigil that followed. The isolation ward harboured six patients, but Petrie had been given accommodation in a tiny private room at one end. The corresponding room at the other end was the sanctum of Sister Therese.
It was a lonely spot, and very silent. I heard the sister moving about in the adjoining ward, and presently she entered quietly, a fragile little woman, her pale face looking childishly small framed in the stiff white headdress of her order. Deftly and all but noiselessly she went about her duties; and, watching her, I wondered, as I had often wondered before, from whence came the unquestioning faith which upheld such as Sister Therese and in which they found adequate reward for a life of service.
“You are not afraid of infection, M. Sterling?” she asked, her voice very low and gentle.
“Not at all, Sister. In my job I have to risk it.”
“What do you do?”
“Hunt for new species of plants for the Botanical Society— and orchids for the market.”
“But how fascinating! As a matter of fact, there is no danger of infection at this stage.”
“So I am told by Dr. Cartier.”
“It is new to us, this disease. But it is tragic that Dr. Petrie should fall a victim. However, as you see——”
She pointed.
“The stigmata?”
Sister Therese shuddered.
“It is so irreligious! But Dr. Cartier, I know, calls this mark the black stigmata. Yes—it does not increase. Dr. Petrie may conquer. He is a wonderful man. You will moisten his poor lips from time to time? I am praying that he may be spared to us. Good-night, M. Sterling. Ring for me if he moves.”
She withdrew in her gentle, silent way, leaving me to my thoughts. And by some queer mental alchemy these became transmuted into thoughts of Fleurette. I found myself contemplating in a sort of cold horror the idea of Fleurette infected with this foul plague—her delicate beauty marred, her strong young body contorted by the work of some loathsome, unclassified bacillus.
And then I fell to thinking about those who had contracted this thing, and to considering what Nayland Smith had told me. What association was there to explain a common enmity between London dock labourers and Dr. Petrie?
I stared at him as the thought crossed my mind. One of the strangest symptoms of this horror which threatened France was the period of complete coma preceding the end. Petrie looked like a dead man.
A searching wind, coming down from the Alps, had begun to blow at sunset. The pines, some of which almost overhung the lonely building, hushed and whispered insidiously. I construed their whispering into a repetition of the words “Fleurette—Derceto....”
If dear old Petrie survived the crisis, I told myself, tomorrow should find me once more on the beach ofSte Claire de la Roche. I might have misjudged Fleurette. But even if she were the mistress of Mahdi Bey, she was very young and so not past praying for.
I had just formed this resolution when a new sound intruded upon the silence of the sickroom.
There was only one window—high in the wall which marked the end of the place. As I sat near the foot of Petrie’s bed, this window was above on my left.
And the sound, a faint scraping, seemed to come from there.
I listened to the hushing of the pines, thinking that the wind had grown higher and that some outstretched branch must be touching the wall. But the wind seemed to have decreased, and the whisper, “Fleurette—Derceto,” had become a scarcely audible sigh.