'Well, Mr.
Blake, will you try a little medicine to-day? You will never sleep
without it.'--'There you are out, Mr. Candy: I have had an excellent
night's rest without it.' Then, come down on him with the truth! 'You
have had something besides an excellent night's rest; you had a dose
of laudanum, sir, before you went to bed. What do you say to the art of
medicine, now?'"
Admiration of the ingenuity which had woven this smooth and finished
texture out of the ravelled skein was naturally the first impression
that I felt, on handing the manuscript back to Ezra Jennings. He
modestly interrupted the first few words in which my sense of surprise
expressed itself, by asking me if the conclusion which he had drawn from
his notes was also the conclusion at which my own mind had arrived.
"Do you believe as I believe," he said, "that you were acting under the
influence of the laudanum in doing all that you did, on the night of
Miss Verinder's birthday, in Lady Verinder's house?"
"I am too ignorant of the influence of laudanum to have an opinion of
my own," I answered. "I can only follow your opinion, and feel convinced
that you are right.
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