"I understand, Dr. Cumberly," he said, and his voice was caressing as
a woman's. "Pardieu! I understand. To wait is agony; but you, who are
a physician, know that to wait sometimes is necessary. Have courage, my
friend, have courage!"
XXXVII
THE WHISTLE
Luke Soames, buttoning up his black coat, stood in the darkness,
listening.
His constitutional distaste for leaping blindfolded had been over-ridden
by circumstance. He felt himself to be a puppet of Fate, and he drifted
with the tide because he lacked the strength to swim against it. That
will-o'-the-wisp sense of security which had cheered him when first he
had realized how much he owed to the protective wings of Mr. King had
been rudely extinguished upon the very day of its birth; he had learnt
that Mr. King was a sinister protector; and almost hourly he lived again
through the events of that night when, all unwittingly, he had become a
witness of strange happenings in the catacombs.
Soames had counted himself a lost man that night; the only point which
he had considered debatable was whether he should be strangled or
poisoned. That his employers were determined upon his death, he was
assured; yet he had lived through the night, had learnt from his watch
that the morning was arrived.
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