Ladbroke Black

One Clear Call

Warsaw 2022

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER I

“OH, doctor, can I help?”

Dr. Lionel Weedon looked up from his patient and met the gaze of a pair of violet-black eyes.

He was kneeling in the gutter, supporting a tattered remnant of humanity, a wretched old woman who had been caught in the whirl of a passing motor-car in a London street. Chance had taken him that way, and professional instinct brought him at once to the rescue when the bundle of rags staggered back on to the pavement. His thoughts were concentrated on his cursory examination, yet that voice arrested his attention.

“It is very kind of you, but I do not think there is much to be done at the moment,” he replied. By this time the policeman on the nearest beat reached the spot.

The motor-car which had gone by with a rush, had pulled up further down, and was backing slowly. The woman was shaken rather than hurt, and the doctor saw that the only thing to be done was to order her removal to the hospital.

The policeman produced his big notebook, and entered the time, the number of the car, and turning to the doctor, asked for his name.

“Doctor Lionel Weedon, Forty-one, Woodland-street,” he replied mechanically.

His eyes had wandered again to the face of the lady who was standing by.

A crowd began to gather, springing from nowhere, after the manner of a street crowd at any unusual event, and the lady flitted away with a quick, timid movement, as though the presence of so many people had frightened her.

Lionel Weedon turned again to the policeman, and gave him a brief outline of the facts.

The stretcher arrived, the poor derelict, was taken off to the accident ward, and the doctor, having performed this act of charity, wended his way towards the district where he was trying to build up a practice.

The face of the lady haunted him. Something he could not define made him anxious to see it again. There was a lock of sadness over and above the sympathy for the injured woman; soft, appealing timidity in these lovely eyes that had almost impelled him to rush after her and ask if she needed a friend. Away in the Quantocks once, a fawn, entangled in a fence and worried by a stray dog, had looked at him like that when he drove off the mongrel.

Instead of getting back at once to his surgery, he called on his cousin, Stanley Poole, who lived in bachelor quarters which is also used as professional chambers-in Lincoln’s Inn.

“I have seen the most beautiful thing in nature today, Stan,” he said impetuously. Stanley Poole, who had just come across from the Courts, threw his wig on the table.

“Blonde or brunette?” he asked in a dry tone..

“I said the most beautiful thing in nature. I did not confine my observation to human beings.”

“Quite unnecessary, my boy. When a chap of your temperament talks like that he has been caught by a woman. Your turn has come. The fates have overtaken you. You are over the bend of the hill on the downward slope to your doom. Well! may the valley be smiling and happy when you reach it. I say, you had better let me take you out this evening, just to show you what you are giving up. I am going to have a cup of tea; will you have one foretaste of domesticity?”

“No, I won’t.”

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