The Ivory Dagger

The young man in the hospital bed threw out an arm and turned over. His first conscious thought was that he must have called out, because the sound of his own voice was ringing in his ears, but he didn’t know why he had called out or what he had said. He blinked at the light and got up on his elbow. There was a screen round his bed. The light came in over the screen. He blinked at it, and a nurse came round the edge of the screen and looked at him. She had a good plain face and nice eyes. She said ‘Oh!’ and then, ‘So you’ve waked up.’He said, ‘Where have I got to?’She came right up to him and took hold of his wrist.‘Now don’t you worry. The doctor will be along to see you in a minute.’‘What do I want a doctor for? I’m all right.’She said, ‘That’s fine. You were in a train smash. You just had a bump on the head.’He said, ‘Oh——’ and then, ‘It feels all right.’She went away after that, and presently she came back again with some sort of milky cereal that tasted like baby food.