Page:The Death-Doctor.djvu/305

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
I MAKE A LITTLE PRESENT
293

too strong to permit of any double-dealing on his part.

I placed the cheque in my pocket, highly satisfied with my morning's work. I was to release a patient, and a good fellow, from an ugly situation, and rid society of a person who was extremely undesirable—a man who had blackmailed many of his City friends on previous occasions.

Strange, my dear friend, how money tumbles unexpectedly into my hands just at the very moment that I require it! But there, I suppose if one is unscrupulous, and not cursed by too delicate a conscience, one can always earn a decent income in my profession.

Outside Swiss Cottage station I took a taxi across to Kensington, and on arriving home had a quiet cigar. Over it I tried to formulate a plan. That same afternoon I put an inquiry through to the Information Bureau which I sometimes patronized, and three days later learned that Llewellyn Henson Davies was a well-known City man who had dabbled in finance for years, and who lived in chambers in King Street, St. James'. He was a bachelor, very quiet, staid, and highly respectable—a member of Brooks's, and on Sundays he attended St. James', Piccadilly, regularly.