There was a desk and reading lamp for night work near
the fireplace, an electric kettle for making tea at night, a silver
biscuit tin; all the apparatus for the lonely intent industry of the
small hours. There was a bookcase of bluebooks, books of reference and
suchlike material, and some files. Over the mantelpiece was an enlarged
photograph of Lady Hardy and a plain office calendar. The desk was
littered with the galley proofs of the Minority Report upon which Sir
Richmond had been working up to the moment of his hasty retreat to bed.
And lying among the proofs, as though it had been taken out and looked
at quite recently was the photograph of a girl. For a moment Dr.
Martineau's mind hung in doubt and then he knew it for the young
American of Stonehenge. How that affair had ended he did not know. And
now it was not his business to know.
These various observations printed themselves on Dr. Martineau's mind
after his first cursory examination of his patient and while he cast
about for anything that would give this large industrious apartment a
little more of the restfulness and comfort of a sick room. "I must
get in a night nurse at once," he said. "We must find a small table
somewhere to put near the bed.
"I am afraid you are very ill," he said, returning to the bedside.
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