CHAPTER X
NARRATES A CONFESSION
Half an hour later the man found in the hiding-hole lay upon a bed in one of the spare rooms.
Though not dead, he had, when discovered, been in the last stage of exhaustion. The doctor telephoned for had at once discovered that what we already suspected was true—the man’s left ankle was very badly sprained. It must, he said, have been sprained ten or twelve days previously. In addition, the man was almost like a skeleton.
“You found him not an hour too soon,” the doctor said when, after completing his diagnosis, and giving instructions concerning the treatment of his patient to the nurse who had just arrived, he rejoined us in the smoking-room downstairs. “He is in a state of complete collapse. For days he has evidently not touched food.”
He looked at u
