"Have you been quarrelling?"
"Quarrelling, no! One doesn't quarrel with a dying man," he answered.
"A dying man!" I repeated.
He nodded.
"He was on the verge of a collapse just now," he said. "I honestly fear
that he will not live many more hours. Yet, though I could fill in his
death certificate plausibly enough, if you were to ask me honestly to-day
what was the matter with him, I could not tell you. Do you mind if I wire
for a friend of mine to come down and see him?"
"By all means," I answered; "you mean a specialist, I suppose?"
"Yes!"
"On the heart?" I asked.
"No! a toxicologist!" Rust remarked dryly.
I glanced into his face. He was in deadly earnest.
"You believe--"
"What the devil is one to believe?" the doctor exclaimed irritably. "The
man is sound, but he is dying. If I told you that I understood his
symptoms, I should be a liar. I can think only of one thing. You yourself
gave me the idea."
"Wire by all means," I said.
"I shall go to the village," Rust said, "and return immediately. Don't
let him be left alone.
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