CHAPTER III
IN WHICH THINGS HAPPEN IN HALF MOON STREET
I
Hugh Drummond folded up the piece of paper he was studying and rose to his feet as the doctor came into the room. He then pushed a silver box of cigarettes across the table and waited.
"Your friend," said the doctor, "is in a very peculiar condition, Captain Drummond—very peculiar." He sat down and, putting the tips of his fingers together, gazed at Drummond in his most professional manner. He paused for a moment, as if expecting an awed agreement with this profound utterance, but the soldier was calmly lighting a cigarette. "Can you," resumed the doctor, "enlighten me at all as to what he has been doing during the last few days?"
Drummond shook his head. "Haven't an earthly, doctor."
"There is, for instance, that very unpleasant wound in his thumb," pursued the other. "The top joint is crushed to a pulp."
"I noticed that last night," answered Hugh non-committally. "Looks as if it had been mixed up between a hammer and an anvil, don't it?"
"But you have no idea how it occurred?"
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