When Mary rejoined him, she asked for pen and paper, wrote a prescription, and requested that Beaumaroy’s man should take it to the chemist’s.  He went out, to give it to the Sergeant, and, when he came back, found her seated in the big chair by the fire.

“The present little attack is nothing, Mr. Beaumaroy,” she said.  “Stomachic—­with a little fever; if he takes what I’ve prescribed, he ought to be all right in the morning.  But I suppose you know that there is valvular disease—­quite definite?  Didn’t Dr. Irechester tell you?”

“Yes; but he said there was no particular—­no immediate danger.”

“If he’s kept quiet and free from worry.  Didn’t he advise that?”

“Yes,” Beaumaroy admitted, “he did.  That’s the only thing you find wrong with him, Doctor?”

Beaumaroy was standing on the far side of the table, his finger-tips resting lightly on it.  He looked across at Mary with eyes candidly inquiring.

“I’ve found nothing else so far.  I suppose he’s got nothing to worry him?”

“Not really, I think.  He fusses a bit about his affairs.”  He smiled.  “We go to London every week to fuss about his affairs; he’s always changing his investments, taking his money out of one thing and putting it in another, you know.  Old people get like that sometimes, don’t they?  I’m a novice at that kind of thing, never having had any money to play with; but I’m bound to say that he seems to know very well what he’s about.”

“Do you know anything of his history or his people?  Has he any relations?”

“I know very little.  I don’t think he has any, any real relations, so to speak.  There are, I believe, some cousins, distant cousins, whom he hates.  In fact, a lonely old bachelor, Dr. Arkroyd.”

Mary gave a little laugh and became less professional.  “He’s rather an old dear!  He uses funny stately phrases.  He said I might speak quite openly to you, as you were closely attached to his person!”

“Sounds rather like a newspaper, doesn’t it?  He does talk like that sometimes.”  Beaumaroy moved round the table, came close to the fire, and stood there, smiling down at Mary.

“He’s very fond of you, I think,” she went on.

“He reposes entire confidence in me,” said Beaumaroy, with a touch of assumed pompousness.

“Those were his very words!” cried Mary, laughing again.  “And he said it just in that way!  How clever of you to guess!”

“Not so very.  He says it to me six times a week.”

Mary had risen, about to take her leave, but to her surprise Beaumaroy went on quickly, with one of his confidential smiles, “And now I’m going to show you that I have the utmost confidence in you.  Please sit down again, Dr. Arkroyd.  The matter concerns your patient just as much as myself, or I wouldn’t trouble you with it, at any rate I shouldn’t venture to so early in our acquaintance.  I want you to consider yourself as Mr. Saffron’s medical adviser, and, also, to try to imagine yourself my friend.”