matic pistol up at my place, and I'll teach you how to use it."
The professor came forward with a small glass tube in his hand. It was sealed at one end, and appeared to contain nothing but cotton-wool.
"Pistols are out-of-date, Miss Pinson," he said—"relics of the last century. Now, this"—he held up the little tube—"is a weapon that any lady might handle. If you pull out the cork, you will find that the head of a needle is stuck in it. The point is guarded with another small cylinder of cork. A single scratch from that point will cause death."
We looked at him, Audrey Pinson with horror in her eyes; and I must confess that I shivered just a little. This seemed an ugly kind of death, and yet, of course, it was much neater and less violent than bloodshed.
"Of course," Turton continued, "you would only use it in an emergency, but it is the sort of thing you could always carry with you. I have a little metal case for it, so that you could never have an accident."
For a few moments there was silence, and then Audrey Pinson held out her hand. Turton went back to his cabinet and returned with a small, metal cylinder.
"There you are," he said, with a laugh. "You can carry it in that pretty little bag of yours; takes up no more room than a thimble-case."
Audrey Pinson placed it in her bag, and then she suddenly laughed.
"What queer ideas people do get into their heads!" she said. "Well, I must be going home."
I walked back with her to the door in the wall of Brent Lodge. I made her talk about herself—her past, her future plans. But, when we had said good-by, I gave her a word of advice:
"There may be nothing in all this nonsense of Turton's," I said, "but you must keep your eyes open. I will be at Turton's cottage every morning now, at twelve o'clock. If you are not there, we shall come and look for you."
She opened the door with a latchkey, smiled at me, and disappeared.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear the cluck, cluck cluck of a very self-satisfied fowl.
CHAPTER FIVE
OF COURSE, Saltby laughed at us. He was rather a jolly young fellow, hard-working and hard-headed.
"Poor old Turton!" he said to me, when I told him of Brike and the black fowl. "His head is stuffed with that kind of rubbish—lumber, I call it. For all his medical knowledge and his M. D. of two universities, I don't believe he could prescribe for a patient with measles."
And when I spoke of the little glass tube, Saltby was furious.
"That's going too far!" he shouted. "Turton's an old lunatic; he ought to be locked up. Of course, it's curare or something like that."
And he was all for going round to Brent Lodge and taking this little metal cylinder away from Audrey Pinson.
I quieted him down a bit, and at last he admitted that there was no knowing what a nigger might be up to, and that, perhaps—well, if only the girl could be trusted not to scratch her own finger with the rotten needle—
I turned the conversation to Audrey Pinson herself, and he said he'd like to meet her, if it was only to tell her to clear out of Brent Lodge and go home to civilized folk.
"I can't believe she's only down here to try and get old Arum to leave her his money," he said, the next day, after we had met Audrey Pinson in the village. "She doesn't look that sort at all. for you, you old rogue, I believe you want her to stay! You like to just sit and look at her."
As the days passed by, I began to think that Saltby was right. I did not wish Audrey Pinson to leave Harthaven. Every day I looked forward to meeting her in the village, and then one morning I told her that she had better go—that there was no need whatever for her to stay on at Brent Lodge and try to get on good terms with her uncle.
"He has already made his will," I said, "and he has left you everything but two thousand pounds. The will is in the safe in my library."
And then, as she turned and looked at me, I felt as though I had struck her a blow.
"You think that of me?" she said, rather piteously.
"Well, you told me——"
"Yes, yes; my aunt insisted on it! But my uncle told me all about his will the first time we met. He only wanted to look at me and see what I was like; then he said I could either go or stay, which-ever I liked."
"I'm sorry!" I muttered. "But why do you stay?"
She colored a little at that question, and then she said sharply:
"I think I ought to be there to protect him!" and walked hurriedly away from me down the street.
And I was fool enough to wonder whether she really meant what she said. She could hardly imagine that she was able to protect her uncle from Brike. Why, it was a very remote chance that Brike threatened any harm to his employer. Even old Turton's nonsense did not make out Brike to be a criminal.
The next day Audrey Pinson told us that her unele was very ill—that he had had a bad heart-attack, and had remained unconscious for over an hour.
"Saltby must go round at once," I said. "You are in a position to insist."
"Yes, perhaps," she replied, "but only if my uncle were unable to give any orders. You cannot force a man to see a doctor against his will. My uncle definitely refused to see one just before I left the house."
I turned to, Turton with a look of inquiry.
"Saltby must go round when the poor chap is unconscious," he said; "incapable of resistance. Miss Pinson, the next time your uncle has one of these attacks, you must leave the house at once, and go to Dr. Saltby. You know where he lives, don't you?"
"Yes—that pretty little house near the lodge gates. His name is on the door."
"Saltby will probably not be at home," said Turton. "I am a qualified doctor, if degrees have anything to do with it. But, of course, I have no surgery or medicines. Still, if Saltby is not at home, I might be able to help you, Miss Pinson. And in any case I should like to go with Saltby, if I may."
Audrey Pinson raised no objections. I do not think she had any great confidence in Turton as a doctor, but she liked the old man.
"And you can come, too," she said to me. "You can wait downstairs."
I shook my head.
"Ah, well, Miss Pinson," I replied, "I live some way off. There will be no time to waste. Of course, if I am here in the village, I will come. But to get a doctor quickly is the important thing."
I walked back with her to Brent Lodge. She asked me to come in, and I saw Brike pottering about the garden. I went up to him and asked for information.
"Oh, he's better, sir," was the reply, "and no doctor can do him good. I pray for him, sir—night and day. I will see that he does not die."
"Look here," I said, for I thought it best to be quite plain with the fellow, "if Mr. Arum dies, and it's proved that you've kept a doctor from him, you'll be tried for manslaughter."
Brike was unconcerned by the threat. He was neither angry nor afraid.
"I shall do nothing to prevent the doctor from coming to see my master," he replied, with quiet dignity. "Let the young lady send for any doctor she
