The Blind Man's Eyes Part 9

"I did not say so."

"You mean he is alive, then?"

"Life is still present," Sinclair answered guardedly. "Whether he will live or ever regain consciousness is another question."

"One you can't answer?"

"The blow, as you can see,"--Sinclair touched the man's face with his deft finger-tips,--"fell mostly on the cheek and temple. The cheekbone is fractured. He is in a complete state of coma; and there may be some fracture of the skull. Of course, there is some concussion of the brain."

Any inference to be drawn from this as to the seriousness of the injuries was plainly beyond Connery. "How long ago was he struck?" he asked.

"Some hours."

"You can't tell more than that?"

"Longer ago than five hours, certainly."

"Since four o'clock, then, rather than before?"

"Since midnight, certainly; and longer ago than five o'clock this morning."

"Could he have revived half an hour ago--say within the hour--enough to have pressed the b.u.t.ton and rung the bell from his berth?"

Sinclair straightened and gazed at the conductor curiously. "No, certainly not," he replied. "That is completely impossible. Why did you ask?"

Connery avoided answer.

The doctor glanced down quickly at the form of the man in the berth; then again he confronted Connery. "Why did you ask that?" he persisted. "Did the bell from this berth ring recently?"

Connery shook his head, not in negation of the question, but in refusal to answer then. But Avery pushed forward. "What is that? What's that?" he demanded.

"Will you go on with your examination, Doctor?" Connery urged.

"You said the bell from this berth rang recently!" Avery accused Connery.

"I did not say that; he asked it," the conductor evaded.

"But is it true?"

"The pointer in the washroom, indicating a signal from this berth, was turned down a minute ago," Connery had to reply. "A few moments earlier, all pointers had been set in the position indicating no call."

"What!" Avery cried. "What was that?"

Connery repeated the statement.

"That was before you found the body?"

"That was why I went to the berth--yes," Connery replied; "that was before I found the body."

"Then you mean you did not find the body," Avery charged. "Some one, pa.s.sing through this car a minute or so before you, must have found him!"

Connery attended without replying.

"And evidently that man dared not report it and could not wait longer to know whether Mr.--Mr. Dorne, was really dead; so he rang the bell!"

"Ought we keep Dr. Sinclair any longer from the examination, sir?"

Connery now seized Avery's arm in appeal. "The first thing for us to know is whether Mr. Dorne is dying. Isn't--"

Connery checked himself; he had won his appeal. Eaton, standing quietly watchful, observed that Avery's eagerness to accuse now had been replaced by another interest which the conductor's words had recalled. Whether the man in the berth was to live or die--evidently that was momentously to affect Donald Avery one way or the other.

"Of course, by all means proceed with your examination, Doctor," Avery directed.

As Sinclair again bent over the body, Avery leaned over also; Eaton gazed down, and Connery--a little paler than before and with lips tightly set.

CHAPTER VII

"ISN'T THIS BASIL SANTOINE?"

The surgeon, having finished loosening the pajamas, pulled open and carefully removed the jacket part, leaving the upper part of the body of the man in the berth exposed. Conductor Connery turned to Avery.

"You have no objection to my taking a list of the articles in the berth?"

Avery seemed to oppose; then, apparently, he recognized that this was an obvious part of the conductor's duty. "None at all," he replied.

Connery gathered up the clothing, the gla.s.ses, the watch and purse, and laid them on the seat across the aisle. Sitting down, then, opposite them, he examined them and, taking everything from the pockets of the clothes, he began to catalogue them before Avery. In the coat he found only the card-case, which he noted without examining its contents, and in the trousers a pocket-knife and bunch of keys. He counted over the gold and banknotes in the purse and entered the amount upon his list.

"You know about what he had with him?" he asked.

"Very closely. That is correct. Nothing is missing," Avery answered.

The conductor opened the watch. "The crystal is missing."

Avery nodded. "Yes; it always--that is, it was missing yesterday."

Connery looked up at him, as though slightly puzzled by the manner of the reply; then, having finished his list, he rejoined the surgeon.

Sinclair was still bending over the naked torso. With Eaton's help, he had turned the body upon its back in order to look at its right side, which before had been hidden. It had been a strong, healthy body; Sinclair guessed its age at fifty. As a boy, the man might have been an athlete,--a college track-runner or oarsman,--and he had kept himself in condition through middle age. There was no mark or bruise upon the body, except that on the right side and just below the ribs there now showed a scar about an inch and a half long and of peculiar crescent shape. It was evidently a surgical scar and had completely healed.

Sinclair scrutinized this carefully and then looked up to Avery. "He was operated on recently?"

"About two years ago."

"For what?"

"It was some operation on the gall-bladder."