The Romance of Elaine Part 16

Still there was no answer. I worked the hook up and down but could get no reply. Finally, disgusted, I hung up.

A moment later, I recall now, it seemed to me as though some one had stuck a pin into the lobe of my ear. Still, I thought nothing of it in the excitement of Kennedy's departure, and went to work again to help him pack.

We had scarcely got back to work, when the telephone bell jangled again, and a second time I answered it.

"Is Mr. Kennedy there?" came back a strange voice.

I handed the instrument to Craig.

"h.e.l.lo," he called. "Who is this?"

No response.

"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo," he shouted, working the hook as I had done and, as in my case, there was still no answer.

"Some crank," he exclaimed, jamming down the receiver in disgust and returning to his packing.

Neither of us thought anything of it at the time, but now I recall that I did see Kennedy once or twice press the lobe of his ear as though something had hurt it.

We did not know until later that in a pay station down the street our arch enemy, Long Sin, had been calling us up and then, with a wicked smile, refusing to speak to us.

It was about a week later that I came home late one night from the Star, feeling pretty done up. Whatever it was, a violent fever seemed to have come on me suddenly. I thought nothing of it, at first, because I soon grew better. But while it lasted, I had the most intense s.h.i.+vering, excruciating pains in my limbs, and delirious headache. I recall, too, that I felt a peculiar soreness on the ear. It was all like nothing I had ever had before.

Indeed the next morning when I woke up, I felt a la.s.situde that made it quite hard enough even to lounge about in my bath-robe. Finally, feeling no better, I decided to see a doctor. I put on my clothes with a decided effort and went out.

The nearest doctor was about half a block away and we scarcely knew him, for neither Kennedy nor I were exactly sickly.

"Well," asked the doctor, as he closed the door of his office and turned to me. "What seems to be the matter?"

I tried to smile. "I feel as though I had been celebrating not wisely but too well," I replied, trying to cheer up, "but as a matter of fact I have been leading the simple life."

He sounded me and pounded me, looked at my tongue and my eyes, listened to my heart and lungs, though I don't think he treated my symptoms very seriously. In fact, I might have known what he would do. He talked a little while on generalities, diet and exercise then walked over to a cabinet, and emptied out a few pills into a little paper box.

"Take one every hour," he said, handing them to me, and carefully returning the bottle to the cabinet so that I could not see what was on the label. "Cut your cigarettes to three a day, and don't drink coffee.

Four dollars, please."

I suppose I ought to have been cured, and in fact I was cured--of going to that doctor. I paid him and went back to the apartment, my head soon in a whirl from a new onset of the fever.

I managed to get back into my bath-robe, and threw myself down on the divan, propped up with pillows. I had taken the pills but they had no more effect than sugar of milk. By this time, I was much more delirious and was crying out.

I saw faces about me, but I did not see the faces which were actually out by our hall door. Wu Fang and Long Sin had waited patiently for their revenge. Now that they thought sufficient time had elapsed, they had stolen stealthily to the apartment door. While Long Sin watched, Wu listened.

"The white devil has it," whispered Wu Fang, as he rejoined his fellow conspirator.

How long I should have remained in this state, and in fact how long I did remain, I don't know. Vaguely, I recall that our acquaintance, Johnson, who had the apartment across the hall, at last heard my cries and came out to his own door. He needed only a moment to listen at ours to know that something was wrong.

"Why, what's the matter, Jameson?" he asked, poking his head in and looking anxiously at me.

I could only rave some reply, and he tried his best to quiet me.

"What's the matter, old man?" he repeated. "Tell me. Shall I send for a doctor?"

Somehow or other I knew the state I was in. I knew it was Johnson, yet it all seemed unreal to me. With a great effort I gathered all my scattered wits and managed to shout out, "Telegraph Kennedy--Rockledge."

By this time Johnson himself was thoroughly alarmed. He did not lose a second in dictating a telegram over the telephone.

At about the same time, up at Rockledge, Kennedy and Elaine, with her cousin Mary Brown, were starting out for a horseback ride through the hills. They were chatting gaily, but Kennedy was forcing himself to do so.

In fact, they had scarcely gone half a mile when Kennedy, who was riding between the two and fighting off by sheer nerve the illness he felt, suddenly fell over in half a faint on the horse's neck. Elaine and Mary reined up their horses.

"Why, Craig," cried Elaine, startled, "what's the matter?"

The sound of her voice seemed to arouse him. He braced up. "Oh, nothing, I guess," he said with a forced smile. "I'm all right."

It was no use, however. They had to cut short the ride, and Kennedy returned to the house, glad to drop down in an easy chair on the porch, while Elaine hovered about him solicitously. His head buzzed, his skin was hot and dry, his eyes had an unnatural look. Every now and then he would place his hand to his ear as though he felt some pain.

They had already summoned the country doctor, but it took him some time to get out to the house. Suddenly a messenger boy rode up on his bicycle and mounted the porch steps. "Telegram for Mr. Kennedy," he announced, looking about and picking out Craig naturally as the person he wanted.

Kennedy nodded and took the yellow envelope while Elaine signed for it.

Listlessly he tore it open. It read:

CRAIG KENNEDY,

c/o Wellington Brown, Rockledge, N. J.

Jameson very ill. Wants you. Better come.

JOHNSON.

The message seemed to rouse Kennedy in spite of his fever. His face showed keen alarm, which he endeavored to conceal from Elaine. But her quick eye had caught the look.

"I must see Walter," he exclaimed, rising rather weakly and going into the house.

How he ever did it is still, I think, a mystery to him, but he managed to pack up and, in spite of the alternating fever and chills, made the journey back to the city.

When at last Craig arrived at our apartment, it must have seemed to him that he found me almost at death's door. I was terribly ill and weak by that time, but had refused to see the doctor again and Johnson had managed to get me into bed.

Ill himself, Kennedy threw himself down for a moment exhausted. "When did this thing come on Walter?" he asked of Johnson.

"Yesterday, I think, at least as nearly as I can find out," replied our friend.

Craig was decidedly worried. "There's only one person in New York to call on," he murmured, pulling himself out of bed and getting into the living-room as best he could.

"Is that you, G.o.dowski?" he asked over the telephone. "Well, doctor, this is Kennedy. Come over to my apartment, quick. I've a case--two cases for you."

G.o.dowski was a world-famous scientist in his line and had specialized in bacteriology, mainly in tropical diseases.