Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (Lord John Grey #2)(12)

Mr. Holmes hesitated.

“You aren’t going to do anything…messy, are you? We’ve only just had that settee reupholstered.”

Longstreet gave the steward a humorless grin.

“I’m going to bleed him, yes—but I’ll endeavor not to stain your damask. Bowl!”

Grey, being nearest and not given to squeamishness, helped to lift the man—who was both tall and stout—and remove his outer clothes. The man’s eyelids flickered for a moment, and his lips moved, but he relapsed back into unconsciousness, not stirring even when Longstreet took hold of his bared arm and cut into the flesh below the elbow.

Blood pattered into the bowl, and one of the onlookers went quickly outside, whence the sound of vomiting was heard through the still-open door. Mr. Holmes cast a look of despair at the blood spattering the carpet, and went out to render aid.

“I don’t suppose you carry ammoniac salts on your person, do you?” Longstreet asked Grey, frowning at the unconscious man. “I hoped the flow of blood might revive him, but…”

“My brother does. A moment.” Hal had disappeared into the cardroom with most of the other members, who had ceased to be interested in the subject of their wager, now that it was won or lost. Grey went in and returned almost at once with Hal’s enameled snuffbox, which, when opened, proved to contain not snuff but a small corked vial containing sal volatile.

Dr. Longstreet accepted this with a nod of thanks, pulled the cork, and passed the bottle closely beneath the man’s nostrils.

“Why does your brother—Melton is your brother, I perceive? The resemblance is marked—why does he carry salts?”

“I believe his wife is subject to fits of fainting,” Grey said casually. In fact, Hal himself now and then suffered odd spells of dizziness. Having fainted once on the parade ground on a hot day, he had resolved never to appear at such a disadvantage again, and had taken to carrying salts—though to the best of Grey’s knowledge, his brother had never actually resorted to them. He was reasonably sure that Hal would prefer this precaution not to be public knowledge, however.

“Ah!” The doctor made a sound of satisfaction; the patient’s face had suddenly convulsed.

Matters thereafter were so intent as to allow no further conversation. With continued application of salts, cloths wrung out in warm water and applied to the limbs, and—as returning consciousness allowed—judicious infusions of brandy, the gentleman was gradually returned to a state of consciousness, though he remained unable to speak, and merely frowned in a puzzled way when spoken to.

“I believe he has suffered an apoplexy,” Longstreet remarked, surveying his patient with interest. “Common in subjects of a choleric disposition. Observe the burst small vessels in the cheeks—and most particularly the nose.”

“Indeed.” Grey peered at the man. “Will he recover his powers of speech, do you suppose?”

Longstreet shrugged, but appeared in good humor. The man had survived, after all. What more could be asked of a doctor?

“With good nursing, it’s possible. Do we know who he is?”

Grey had gone through the pockets of the man’s greatcoat and discovered among the contents an open letter, addressed to a Dr. Henryk van Humperdinck, at 44 Great Ormond Street.

The gentleman gave some signs of response when addressed by this name, and so a message was sent to Great Ormond Street, and the patient carried off to one of the bedrooms upstairs, under the direction of the long-suffering Mr. Holmes, until his connexions should be located and informed.

“Did you have any money on him?” the doctor asked jovially, wiping his hands on a towel. “I hope I have not beggared you by saving his life. Or your brother, for that matter.”

“No,” Grey assured him. “I should have won, had I been in time to place a bet. And my brother is not a betting man.”

“No?” Longstreet sounded surprised.

“No. He wagers at whist, but only, he says, because he has faith in his skill, not his luck.”

Longstreet gave him a queer look.

“Not a betting man?” he repeated, and laughed in cynic fashion. Seeing Grey’s look of incomprehension, his own face changed, and he pursed his lips, as though considering whether to say something.

“You’ve never seen it?” he said at last, looking sideways at Grey beneath gray brows. “Truly?”

Receiving no reply, he strode across the room and picked up the betting book, which had been left on a side table, following Mr. Holmes’s careful record of the settling of the wager on Dr. Humperdinck’s state of animation.

Longstreet flipped back through the pages, long-fingered and swift, finally discovering what he wanted with a small grunt of satisfaction.

“Here.” He handed the book to Grey, pointing out an entry that stood alone at the head of a page, otherwise blank, save the signatures of witnesses to the wager in the margin.

The Earl of Melton states that the Duke of Pardloe was not a traitor. He stakes twenty thousand pounds on the truth of this. All comers welcome.

Below this was Hal’s formal signature, big and black. Grey felt as though he had suddenly forgot how to breathe.

On the opposite page were three entries, the first written in small, evenly controlled letters, as though in deliberate contrast to the passion of Hal’s wager: