CHAPTER IV
LEGAL COMPLICATIONS AND A JACKAL
My meditations brought me by a circuitous route, and ten minutes late,
to the end of Fetter Lane, where, exchanging my rather abstracted air
for the alert manner of a busy practitioner, I strode forward briskly
and darted into the surgery with knitted brows, as though just released
from an anxious case. But there was only one patient waiting, and she
saluted me as I entered with a snort of defiance.
"Here you are, then?" said she.
"You are perfectly correct, Miss Oman," I replied; "in fact, you have
put the case in a nutshell. What can I have the pleasure of doing for
you?"
"Nothing," was the answer. "My medical adviser is a lady; but I've
brought a note from Mr. Bellingham. Here it is," and she thrust the
envelope into my hand.
I glanced through the note and learned that my patient had had a couple
of bad nights and a very harassing day. "Could I have something to give
me a night's rest?" it concluded.
I reflected a few moments. One is not very ready to prescribe sleeping
draughts for unknown patients, but still, insomnia is a very distressing
condition.
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