Part 2 (1/2)
”When I got upstairs, Elaine opened her door. She already was undressed--had on the negligee she's wearing now. She said she wasn't sleepy, and that she'd decided to come back down for another look at the presents. So I came along....”
Carefully, yet concisely, Mark outlined the events which had preceded the girl's collapse. When he had finished, Professor Duchard looked even more worried than before.
”I do not like what you tell me,” he informed the younger man. ”I believe this is a case for a doctor. A good one. I have a friend who is a neurologist. I shall call him.”
He disappeared toward the telephone.
Not once in the half-hour preceding the specialist's arrival did the girl stir. She lay upon the big double bed like a lovely corpse, unmoving save for the slight rise and fall of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she breathed.
The neurologist examined her with keen interest.
”A remarkable case!” he declared. ”Her pulse and respiration have slowed to the point where they are scarcely apparent.”
Professor Duchard nodded slowly.
”But what does it mean?” exploded Mark, beside him, his handsome young face pale and haggard. ”Why can't you revive her?”
The doctor frowned, pinched his chin thoughtfully.
”A remarkable case!” he repeated slowly. ”To be frank about it, I can't find the slightest clue as to what's wrong. She seems in a perfect state of health. Organically I can detect no possible cause for this coma. Yet she doesn't respond to any resuscitatory measures.”
”But there must be something--”
The specialist shot Mark a disapproving glance. Without a word he opened his bag, taking from it a smaller case of instruments. He selected a long, slender dissecting needle. Plunged its point into a bottle of disinfectant.
”Watch me!” he commanded.
Turning to the bed, he plunged the needle an eighth of an inch into the unconscious girl's breast!
Mark's eyes went wide with horror. He started forward. Found himself halted by Professor Duchard's hand.
”You asked a question, Mark!” the white-haired scientist rapped. ”The doctor merely is giving you his answer. Look at her!”
Elaine had not stirred! If anything, she lay even more still than before, not a muscle so much as quivering. Her eyes were closed, her face calm, her golden hair halo-like about her head.
The neurologist bared her thigh. Again plunged in the needle.
She did not move.
A dozen times the physician p.r.i.c.ked her, moving over the white surface of her body from one nerve center to another. At last he straightened.
”You see?” he demanded grimly. ”Anaesthesia is complete. She feels nothing.”
Mark's eyes were horror-stricken. He was breathing hard.
”What does it mean, doctor?” he choked. ”What's happened to her?”
The medical man motioned him closer.