Antidote to Venom Read Online Free PDF Page B

know.”
    â€œOh, yes. I was out seeing her a couple of days ago.”
    George hastened to improve the occasion. “I hope it was only a social call? She seemed a little tired last night, though not exactly ill.”
    The doctor shrugged. “Well, she’s getting on in years, you know.” He paused, shook his head, then changed the subject.
    George’s heart gave a leap. Marr, he knew, was if anything an optimist, and such a remark in such a connection could surely mean only one thing. Her doctor also thought Lucy Pentland’s health was failing. George longed to press for more definite information, but while he was weighing the pros and cons the opportunity passed. Marr interrupted himself in the middle of a sentence. “There’s Ormsby-Lane,” he exclaimed. “Excuse me, old man, I must go and meet him.”
    Lunch passed without further incident, and after a chat in the smoking-room, George returned to his office. Frequently he had to pay calls in the city at this hour, and twice a week he played a round of golf, but on this occasion there was no such engagement and he walked back with the artist, Mornington.
    There was plenty of work to keep him busy all the afternoon: reports, statistics, estimates to be prepared, technical articles in the journals to be read. Also he was doing a paper for the Zoological Society on the effect of environment on animals in captivity, and he wanted to arrange the notes he had already collected.
    In spite of this, he could not keep Marr’s remark, and particularly Marr’s gesture, out of his mind. From an optimist they certainly did look significant. Marr, he would stake his life, thought badly of his patient. And he, George, was medically no fool. In qualifying as a vet he had learnt a lot about human ailments. He could see for himself that quite unmistakably the old lady was going down the hill…
    And that would mean—five thousand pounds!

Chapter III
    Venom: Through the Eye
    During the following week George had the stroke of luck at cards for which he had been hoping. On two successive nights at the club he had won: enough to meet his immediate difficulties and a little more. For the time being his financial crisis was over, though cynically he told himself that before long it would recur. He had been to see his aunt, and to his secret delight—which he tried unsuccessfully to hide from himself—her break-up seemed to grow more and more imminent. Incessantly he wondered how long she was likely to last, though always he pulled himself up with the reminder that he did not really wish her harm.
    In the Zoo he had been a good deal worried about the epidemic among the monkeys. Three more animals had gone down with it and another had died: a valuable old gibbon from Siam which the Zoo could ill afford to lose. It was a serious matter, upon which drastic action must be taken. George had rung up Hibbert, the London Zoo vet, only to find that he was from home. He had then put through a similar call to Edinburgh, this time with more satisfactory results. Mr. M’Leod, their medical expert, the secretary replied, would leave for Birmington by the first train. He had experience of a similar outbreak among the monkeys of his own Zoo and would bring a serum which had proved efficacious in that instance. He believed it would effect a cure in this one also.
    On the afternoon on which he received this news George had a very nasty headache, and when he had finished his essential work, he decided to relax until it was time to go to the station to meet M’Leod. A stroll round the grounds, looking at the visitors always rested him. It amused him to notice how like the people were to the animals and the animals to the people. They did the same things, obviously from the same motives, though the people tried to hide these motives and the animals didn’t. Usually, he thought, with a rather bitter smile, in any such comparison the animals