to
get busy on that very suggestion."

"Another thing," Bristow said, lifting a feeble hand to detain his
visitor. "Come up here at six--this evening, will you? I'll have my
strength back by that time. Don't laugh. I will. I know I will. I've had
hemorrhages before this."

"What do you want to do at six?"

"Help you--be with you when you question Morley. Promise me. I'll be in
shape by that time."

Braceway promised, and went into the outer room.

"Do you think," he asked Miss Martin, "there's the slightest chance of
his getting up this evening, or tonight?"

"I really don't know," she smiled. "There may be. It all depends on his
courage, his nerve. Anyway, he won't be able to do much, to exert
himself."

"He's got the nerve," Braceway said admiringly; "got plenty of it. By the
way, how did it happen? How do you happen to be here?"

"It seems that at about a quarter to ten Mr. Bristow called the
downstairs operator and asked her to send a bellboy to his room,
number seven-seventeen. When the boy came in here, Mr. Bristow was
lying across the foot of his bed, pressing to his mouth a towel that
was half-saturated with blood.

"He had dropped his saturated handkerchief on the bathroom floor. And he
evidently had been bleeding when he was at the telephone. He was awfully
weak, so weak that the boy thought he was dying. He couldn't speak. The
boy remembered having seen the house physician, Dr. Carey, at a late
breakfast in the cafe, and got him up here at once. Dr. Carey called me
to take the case as soon as he had seen Mr. Bristow.

"I think that's all. Of course, the bed that was in here and all the
other soiled things had been removed by the time I came in; and the
management insisted on his taking the extra room."

"Thank you," said Braceway. "I'm glad to get the details. You'll see that
he has everything he needs, won't you?"

A few minutes later, when Miss Martin entered the bedroom to lower the
window shade, Bristow told her:

"I think I'll sleep now. Shut the door and, on no account, let--anybody,
doctor or anybody else--wake me up. You call me at six, please. What
time is it now? Twelve-fifteen? Remember, you'll let me sleep?"

Braceway went to his own room to brush up for lunch. Although he had not
taken the trouble to tell Bristow, he had already arranged with Golson to
have the "extra man" on the job. He was taking no chances. He smiled when
he thought of the sick man's eagerness to give him adv