She sent for me early on Tuesday morning, and since the summons sounded an

urgent one, I hastened there, expecting to find her _in extremis_.

 

The lady was in bed. So much did she concede to the etiquette of the situation.

She gave me her bony hand, and indicated a chair drawn up to the bedside.

 

“Well, Mrs. Ackroyd,” I said, “and what’s the matter with you?”

 

I spoke with that kind of spurious geniality which seems to be expected of

general practitioners.

 

“I’m prostrated,” said Mrs. Ackroyd in a faint voice. “Absolutely prostrated.

It’s the shock of poor Roger’s death. They say these things often aren’t felt at

the _time_, you know. It’s the reaction afterwards.”

 

It is a pity that a doctor is precluded by his profession from being able

sometimes to say what he really thinks.

 

I would have given anything to be able to answer “Bunkum!”

 

Instead, I suggested a tonic. Mrs. Ackroyd accepted the tonic. One move in the

game seemed now to be concluded. Not for a moment did I imagine that I had been

sent for because of the shock occasioned by Ackroyd’s death. But Mrs. Ackroyd is

totally incapable of pursuing a straight-forward course on any subject. She