sir, then she says,
half-choking like, 'Chalmers, where's Mr. Roger? Has the doctor
bandaged his hand yet?'"

"Did she ask you that straight off?" demanded Roger, frowning in deep
thought.

"Yes, sir, she did. I believed as you did that she was quite off her
head. I told her you were in this room with Miss Clifford, and that I
thought the doctor was with you, though I wasn't sure. She went as
white as a sheet, sir; I was afraid she was going to drop down, but she
didn't. She took another sort of spurt, as you may say, and was up
those steps so fast she left me behind. I heard her say, 'He's trying
to kill him; he's going to give him lock-jaw, and everybody'll believe
it's an accident.'"

"Lock-jaw!"

Complete bewilderment was in Roger's face as he repeated the word in a
whisper.

"Yes, sir, I was as astonished as you. It seemed as though she must be
raving, but then when she said..."

He was interrupted by a sudden peal at the doorbell, loud and long,
supplemented by violent blows of the brass knocker. Both men jumped at
the sound, then exchanged glances of puzzled apprehension. Who at this
particular moment was in such a hurry to enter?

"Beg pardon, sir, I'd better see who that is, I expect."

"Yes, yes, Chalmers, you can finish telling me afterwards."

Revolving in his mind the astounding information he had just received,
Roger reentered the sitting-room. The ghastly audacity of the idea
that Sartorius had a moment ago been on the very point of introducing
the germs of lock-jaw--tetanus to give it its proper name--into the
wound on his hand seemed on the face of it beyond the bounds of
possibility. Why, what man would dare to do such a thing? The risk of
it! ... Yet was there so great a risk? Hadn't the doctor repeatedly
warned him of the danger he was running? Why, if there was nothing in
it, did he examine him so carefully just now, paying special attention
to his face and jaw? It had certainly given the impression that he
suspected the beginning of certain tell-tale symptoms. Had he done it
in order that later the eye-witnesses could recall every detail and
make it appear like a purely accidental seizure? Then that bit of
white something which Sartorius had dropped into the fire. It might
have been of no importance, yet again...

He looked curiously at the ragged cut on his thumb and barely repressed
a shudder. If such a thing was true, by what a narrow margin had he
escaped a hor