We must have been about six yards from the bull’s-eye area when I bent over her to see what had happened. And when I got her raincoat open I didn’t like the look of what I found. There was blood everywhere. A lot of it. From the shoulder downwards one side was already fairly soaking. And my application of first aid was probably exactly the sort of thing that the St. John’s Ambulance was founded to prevent.
But blood can be rather dramatically misleading. That is, if you’re not used to the sight of it. There usually appears to be more of it than there really is. I knew that much. My trouble, however, was that I couldn’t find out where it was all coming from. Whenever I started feeling about anywhere my fingers came away sticky. And I saw then that there was nothing for it but to start undressing her. And here I wished that I had listened a bit more carefully when the A.R.P. lectures had been on.
I used the quick, simple method, and I ripped the seams open. I’ve always carried one of those flat, razor-blade affairs about with me. They come in very handy for cutting string and sharpening pencils, and I’ve even used them for the purpose of elementary dissection. This time I went down the sleeve of the Burberry like an east-end slasher.
And then I slit about another six guineas’ worth of fine woolwork by opening out the sleeve of the jumper and working upwards.
The bullet had gone clean through the brachial artery all right, and the blood was fairly pumping out. But arterial bleeding isn’t all that difficult to stop. Even the very words out of the text-book came back to me: “The brachial artery if severed should be suppressed against the inner aspect of the humerus.” And with the help of my pocket handkerchief and using my fountain pen as a lever to make the knot a bit tighter, that’s how I suppressed it. It was good now for about ten minutes. After that anything might happen.
The whole time I was working I had a slightly jumpy feeling wondering where the next bullet was coming from. And when. The main thing that troubled me was thinking of what a waste it would all be if the dirty bastard out there in the mist suddenly decided to pump in another one just when I’d got everything tidy. And I was bound to admit that for the life of me I could not imagine why he didn’t. We were a number one stationary target, and he could have hit us with a catapult.
So far, I haven’t said a word about the patient. And this is always the highest tribute of which any doctor is capable. For the demure one hadn’t fainted, or done anything silly like that. And, after the first little gasp when the bullet had actually hit her, she hadn’t even cried out. She had just lain there, biting her lip. And like a sensible girl, she had kept her head turned away while the plumber got on with the job.
It must have been about three-quarters of a mile back to the Institute, and I carried her most of the way. But even quite a small person feels like Tessie O’Shea after about the first hundred yards. And it doesn’t make things any easier when you’re trying to hurry. She did give a little moan occasionally when I couldn’t avoid jogging her. But that was the fault of the fog mostly. Visibility had now closed in to about fifteen feet, and I had to keep on stopping just to see which way I was carrying her.
I was feeling safer every moment now. But apparently Una wasn’t. And now that it was all over, the effects of delayed shock were showing up text-book fashion. She was as cold as a dead bather. Also she was trembling. When she felt me pause for a moment and look round to see if we were being followed, she suddenly went all to pieces. Hitching her good arm round my neck as though she were trying to strangle me, she started whimpering. Not that I blamed her. No girl likes being shot at twice on one afternoon.
The Institute itself couldn’t have been more than three or four hundred yards away by now. And that was good enough for me. I let out a shout. And, a moment later, I heard an answering call from somewhere out in front of me. I wasn’t sorry. The way things were going, Una would find herself carrying me before we’d get much farther.
I must have been nervier than I realised. And I gave a jump like a scared kitten when a figure suddenly appeared out of the mist not more than ten or twelve feet away from me. But the effect was certainly weird enough to make anybody jump. That was because the figure was dressed all in white. It was like a ghost in an old-fashioned Christmas supplement. And, as it came, it flashed a light on us.
“You there? Where are you?” I heard the voice calling out again.
Then I recognised it. It was Gillett’s voice. And he was still wearing his long white overall. Evidently he had come straight out of the lab. to look for us. And, as he was naturally an efficient sort of chap, he had brought the Institute’s inspection lamp along with him.
“Christ! Where are you?” he said.
I liked Gillett best when he forgot to use his brown suède voice. There was not even a trace of it at this moment. He might have been a paper boy, the way he was yelling.
And I replied in the same kind.
“Follow your bloody nose,” I said. “I’ve had enough of this.”
“My God,” Gillett exclaimed when he saw us. But even at that moment he still remembered to do the decent thing.
“You might give another yell,” he said. “The whole Institute’s out looking for her.”
It was really Gillett’s vindication, that revolver shot. Ever since Gillett had come back with the story about having been fired at, I wasn’t the only person who hadn’t believed him.
Quite a lot of people would have been delighted to see Gillett caught out when spooning up a handful. And Gillett was quite intelligent enough to realise this. He seemed, therefore, genuinely glad to know that people believed him once more. It’s always rather nice to have your spotlessness recognised, but it’s a rather high price to pay when you very nearly have your fiancée murdered in the proving process.
And Gillett was certainly becoming more human. When he wasn’t over at the Clewes’s finding out how Una was getting on, he was down in the bar with me. And naturally there wasn’t very much that he could refuse me. Contrary to his whole nature, he sat there drinking level. Only of course I was having doubles.
Even without the drinks, however, I think that the events of the day had been just a bit too much even for him. He was wearing a dazed, rather dopey sort of look. And all that he wanted to do was to hear about the shooting over and over again.
That didn’t suit me. I had already told the Inspector. And Wilton. And left to myself, I would rather have forgotten it for the next couple of hours.
“You’re dead certain you didn’t catch a glimpse of him?” he asked.
I yawned.
“He could come into this bar now and I shouldn’t know it,” I replied.
Gillett edged his chair up closer towards mine.
“Is that just a manner of speaking?” he asked, dropping his voice almost to a whisper and giving his head a little backward jerk as he said, ”Or d’you mean anything special by it?”
I looked in the direction of his nod. There in the doorway Dr. Smith was standing. His small piggy eyes were narrowed up, and he was staring at us.
“The only one who didn’t turn out to help us look,” Gillett added, under his breath.
“Perhaps because he was there already,” I said.
But at that moment I wasn’t thinking about Dr. Smith. I was back on to Dr. Mann again. I had just remembered that he was the last person I had seen as I left the Institute. He had been walking, rather rapidly for him, in the direction of the Director’s office.
But it wouldn’t have been in the least difficult for him to double round the back and get on to the moor ahead of me.
That night I’d taken quite enough of the Institute’s gin to be able to dispense with the dormital. And I regretted it. The kind of sleep that you get after gin isn’t dreamless. They were the worst kind of dreams, too, with a wild and crazy logic that was horribly convincing. The one I liked least was the one in which Hilda confessed to me that it was she who had fired the shot.
“I’m sorry if I hurt her,” Hilda had said quietly, in her prim, rather precise way. “I only wanted to kill her outright. I shall try to do better next time. There’ll be a next time of course. That’s because no one suspects me. I’m quite sure the Inspector would never think of looking for a woman.”