were at the small paned windows.
A short man with a comfortable paunch, a white apron and a red lace came forward to greet them.
“Good-evening, Mr. Scanlon,” said he, cordially. “I’m pleased to see you, sir. I’d been told you’d given us up and gone off to the city.”
“Just for a breather, that’s all,” Scanlon informed him, as he and the crime specialist sat at a table near to the blazing hearth. It was still autumn, but there had been a dampness and a chill in the night air which made the snugness of the inn very comfortable.
The red-laced landlord smiled genially.
“I might have known that, even if the shooting is none too good, the bracing air would bring you back.”
Ashton-Kirk glanced about the public room. A small, cramped-looking man sat at a table with a draught board before him, studying a complex move of the pieces through a pair of thick lensed glasses. A polished crutch stood at one side ol his chair, and a heavy walking stick at the other. Deeply absorbed in the problem and its working out was another man, younger, but drawn looking, who coughed and applied a handkerchief to his lips with great frequency.
The hearty looking landlord caught the glances of the crime specialist, and smiled.
“My customers are a fragile lot,” said he in a low voice. “The inns get only that kind in the winter,” as though in explanation, “and some of them are worse than these. It’s the air that does it.”
“Makes them ill?” smiled Ashton-Kirk.
“Bless you, no!” The landlord placed a broad hand to his mouth to restrain the great responsive laugh which seemed struggling in his chest “The air does ’em good, so the doctors say. Well, anyway,” his humorous eyes twinkling, “it does me good by getting me over the slim season. If it wasn’t for them, I’d have to close up after September’s done.”
Scanlon ordered some cigars and coffee, and as the host moved away to procure these, he said:
“The doctors are a great lot, eh? Once they piled all the high colored drugs into you that you’d hold; and now they talk fresh air until you’d almost believe you could live on that alone. There’s one old codger who’s got a pet patient here—some sort of a rare and costly complaint, I believe—and he insists on fresh air at all stages of the game. The patient, it seems, likes an occasional change; but the doc is as deaf as a post to everything except the sighing of the wind.”
The coffee was served, together with some cigars.
“Both black and strong,” said Ashton-Kirk as he tested one after the other.
“The coffee, sir, as Mr. Scanlon knows, is made alter my own recipe,” stated the landlord. “I’d not recommend it to one of my invalid guests, sir, nor to a well one as a regular tipple. But it has the quality and the touch, if you know what I mean.”
“White is to move and win,” stated the cramped-looking man. He rubbed one side of his nose with a hand that shook, and there was complaint in the gaze with which he fixed the pieces. “But I can’t see how it’s going to do it.”
“White is to move, and win in four other moves,” said the drawn-looking man, coughing into the handkerchief.
“Which makes it all the more difficult,” said the other. His palsied hand fumbled purposelessly with the pieces; and the look of complaint deepened. The man with the handkerchief coughed once more, and looked mildly triumphant.
“They seem to be constantly engaged in these mad diversions,” said Scanlon, his eyes upon the two. “At times, when I’ve been here, I’ve seen the excitement rise to that degree that I’ve considered calling out the fire department.”
Just then there came a strident voice from another apartment.
“Who the devil is it?” it demanded. “I! matters of importance are to be interfered with in this way, it’s time that something was done-”
Here the man with the cough reached out and clapped to a door, shutting out the voice. The landlord looked discomfited.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Shaw,” said he. “I know it’s annoying to you; but Mr. Alva must be worse to-day, and so is very impatient”
The drawn-looking man coughed hollowly.
“I’m very sorry for the gentleman’s condition,” spoke he, huskily. “But he should remember that there are others here who are equally ill in their own way; and that his outbursts are not at all agreeable.”
The strident voice was lifted once more, this time muffled by the door; then another voice was heard remonstrating and apparently advising. Then there followed a soft rolling sound, the door opened once more and an invalid’s chair made its appearance, propelled by a squat, dark servant whose flat nose and coarse straight hair gave him the look of an Indian.
Beside the chair hopped a peppery little man with white hair and eye-glasses from which hung a wide black string.
“It makes no difference who he is,” declared the peppery little man, fixing the glasses more firmly upon his nose and speaking to the occupant of the chair. “The facts remain as I have said. But, Mr. Alva, there seems to be very little use in advising you. In spite of all I can say you’ll keep indoors. Suppose it is dark? The darkness can’t hurt you. Suppose it is damp? You can protect yourself against that Air is what you want—fresh air—billions of gallons of it”
The man in the chair was wasted and pale; his almost fleshless hands lay upon the chair arms— his limbs seemed shrunken to the bone.
Bat Scanlon looked at Ashton-Kirk and nodded.
“Whatever it is that’s got him has got him for good,” spoke he, in a low tone. “I never saw any man’s body so close to death without being dead.”
The eyes of Ashton-Kirk were fixed upon the sick man with singular interest
“And yet,” said he, in the same low pitched way, “his head is very much alive. It probably would not be too much to say that it is the most vital thing in the room.”
Scanlon looked at the invalid with fresh interest He saw a dark face, not at all that of a sick man, and a pair of burning, searching black eyes. There seemed to be something unusual about the upper part of the head, but the man was so muffled up, apparently about to be taken out, that the nature of this was not quite clear.
“Drugs,” stated the peppery little man, “are useless; time has no effect To reach a case of your kind, air must be supplied—clean air—air containing all the elements of life. If I am to make a well man of you where others have failed, you must do as I say.”
“He’s the fresh air crank I was telling you about a while ago,” Scanlon informed the crime specialist, softly.
“If I must go out,” spoke the invalid in a surprisingly strong voice, “wrap me up well. I feel the cold easily.”
The little doctor began arranging the blankets about the shrunken limbs; and while he was doing so, Ashton-Kirk arose.
“Let me assist you,” said he, with that calm assurance which is seldom denied.
Deftly he tucked in the coverlets upon the opposite side, and buttoned up the heavy coat. But when he reached for the muffling folds about the sick man’s head, all the sureness seemed to leave his fingers; Scanlon was astonished to see him bungle the matter most disgracefully; instead of accomplishing what he set out to do, he succeeded in knocking the covering off altogether.
“Pardon me,” he said, smoothly enough.
The invalid returned some commonplace answer; and the doctor set about repairing the result of the volunteer’s awkwardness.
“Your intentions are the best in the world,” smiled he, “but I can see that you have spent very little of your time about sick beds.”
Then