`There is one thing more,' said Ezra Jennings, `which it is very important I should know.Had you any reason for feeling any special anxiety about the Diamond, at this time last year?'
`I had the strongest reasons for feeling anxiety about the Diamond.
I knew it to be the object of a conspiracy; and I was warned to take measures for Miss Verinder's protection, as the possessor of the stone.'
`Was the safety of the Diamond the subject of conversation between you and any other person immediately before you retired to rest on the birthday night?'
`It was the subject of a conversation between Lady Verinder and her daughter --'
`Which took place in your hearing?'
`Yes.'
Ezra Jennings took up his notes from the table, and placed them in my hands.
`Mr.Blake,' he said, `if you read those notes now, by the light which my questions and your answers have thrown on them, you will make two astounding discoveries concerning yourself.You will find: -- First, that you entered Miss Verinder's sitting-room and took the Diamond, in a state of trance, produced by opium.Secondly, that the opium was given to you by Mr.Candy -- without your own knowledge -- as a practical refutation of the opinions which you had expressed to him at the birthday dinner.'
I sat with the papers in my hand completely stupefied.
`Try and forgive poor Mr.Candy,' said the assistant gently.`He has done dreadful mischief, I own; but he has done it innocently.If you will look at the notes, you will see that -- but for his illness -- he would have returned to Lady Verinder's the morning after the party, and would have acknowledged the trick that he had played you.Miss Verinder would have heard of it, and Miss Verinder would have questioned him -- and the truth which has lain hidden for a year would have been discovered in a day.'
I began to regain my self-possession.`Mr.Candy is beyond the reach of my resentment,' I said angrily.`But the trick that he played me is not the less an act of treachery, for all that.I may forgive, but I shall not forget it.'
`Every medical man commits that act of treachery, Mr.Blake, in the course of his practice.The ignorant distrust of opium (in England) is by no means confined to the lower and less cultivated classes.Every doctor in large practice finds himself, every now and then, obliged to deceive his patients, as Mr.Candy deceived you.I don't defend the folly of playing you a trick under the circumstances.I only plead with you for a more accurate and more merciful construction of motives.'
`How was it done?' I asked.`Who gave me the laudanum without my knowing it myself?'
`I am not able to tell you.Nothing relating to that part of the matter dropped from Mr.Candy's lips, all through his illness.Perhaps your own memory may point to the person to be suspected?'
`No.'
`It is useless, in that case, to pursue the inquiry.The laudanum was secretly given to you in some way.Let us leave it there, and go on to matters of more immediate importance.Read my notes, if you can.Familiarize your mind with what has happened in the past.I have something very bold and very startling to propose to you, which relates to the future.'
Those last words roused me.
I looked at the papers, in the order in which Ezra Jennings had placed them in my hands.The paper which contained the smaller quantity of writing was the uppermost of the two.On this, the disconnected words, and fragments of sentences, which had dropped from Mr.Candy in his delirium, appeared as follows:
`...Mr.Franklin Blake...and agreeable...down a peg...
medicine...confesses...sleep at night...tell him...out of order...medicine...he tells me...and groping in the dark mean one and the same thing...all the company at the dinner-table.
..I say...groping after sleep...nothing but medicine...he says...leading the blind...know what it means...witty...
a night's rest in spite of his teeth...wants sleep...Lady Verinder's medicine chest...five and twenty minims...without his knowing it..to-morrow morning...Well, Mr.Blake...medicine to-day...
never...without it...out, Mr.Candy...excellent...without it...down on him...truth...something besides...excellent...dose of laudanum, sir...bed...what...medicine now.'
There, the first of the two sheets of paper came to an end.I handed it back to Ezra Jennings.
`That is what you heard at his bedside?' I said.
`Literally and exactly what I heard,' he answered -- `except that the repetitions are not transferred here from my shorthand notes.He reiterated certain words and phrases a dozen times over, fifty times over, just as he attached more or less importance to the idea which they represented.
The repetitions, in this sense, were of some assistance to me in putting together those fragments.Don't suppose,' he added, pointing to the second sheet of paper, `that I claim to have reproduced the expressions which Mr.Candy himself would have used if he had been capable of speaking connectedly.
I only say that I have penetrated through the obstacle of the disconnected expression, to the thought which was underlying it connectedly all the time.Judge for yourself.'
I turned to the second sheet of paper, which I now knew to be the key to the first.
Once more, Mr.Candy's wanderings appeared, copied in black ink; the intervals between the phrases being filled up by Ezra Jennings in red ink.
I reproduce the result here, in one plain form; the original language and the interpretation of it coming close enough together in these pages to be easily compared and verified.
