Well, dear, I will close now. I thought what you told me about little Stubbins was simplykilling! Whatever did Matron say?

No more now.

Yours ever,

Amy Leatheran

Enclosing the letter in an envelope, she addressed it to Sister Curshaw, St Christopher’s Hospital, London.

As she put the cap on her fountain-pen, one of the native boys approached her.

‘A gentleman come to see you. Dr Leidner.’

Nurse Leatheran turned. She saw a man of middle height with slightly stooping shoulders, a brown beard and gentle, tired eyes.

Dr Leidner saw a woman of thirty-five, of erect, confident bearing. He saw a good-humoured face with slightly prominent blue eyes and glossy brown hair. She looked, he thought, just what a hospital nurse for a nervous case ought to look. Cheerful, robust, shrewd and matter-of-fact.

Nurse Leatheran, he thought, would do.

Chapter 2. Introducing Amy Leatheran

I don’t pretend to be an author or to know anything about writing. I’m doing this simply because Dr Reilly asked me to, and somehow when Dr Reilly asks you to do a thing you don’t like to refuse.

‘Oh, but, doctor,’ I said, ‘I’m not literary-not literary at all.’

‘Nonsense!’ he said. ‘Treat it as case notes, if you like.’

Well, of course, youcan look at it that way.

Dr Reilly went on. He said that an unvarnished plain account of the Tell Yarimjah business was badly needed.

‘If one of the interested parties writes it, it won’t carry conviction. They’ll say it’s biased one way or another.’

And of course that was true, too. I was in it all and yet an outsider, so to speak.