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Page 96
"I cannot possibly advise you if you try to deceive
me," said he.
"But I have told you everything."
Holmes turned on his heel with a gesture of disgust.
"Good-night, Dr. Trevelyan," said he.
"And no advice for me?" cried Blessington, in a
breaking voice.
"My advice to your, sir, is to speak the truth."
A minute later we were in the street and walking for
home. We had crossed Oxford Street and were half way
down Harley Street before I could get a word from my
companion.
"Sorry to bring you out on such a fool's errand,
Watson," he said at last. "It is an interesting case,
too, at the bottom of it."
"I can make little of it," I confessed.
"Well, it is quite evident that there are two
men--more, perhaps, but at least two--who are
determined for some reason to get at this fellow
Blessington. I have no doubt in my mind that both on
the first and on the second occasion that young man
penetrated to Blessington's room, while his
confederate, by an ingenious device, kept the doctor
from interfering."
"And the catalepsy?"
"A fraudulent imitation, Watson, though I should
hardly dare to hint as much to our specialist. It is
a very easy complaint to imitate. I have done it
myself."
"And then?"
"By the purest chance Blessington was out on each
occasion. Their reason for choosing so unusual an
hour for a consultation was obviously to insure that
there should be no other patient in the waiting-room.
It just happened, however, that this hour coincided
with Blessington's constitutional, which seems to show
that they were not very well acquainted with his daily
routine. Of course, if they had been merely after
plunder they would at least have made some attempt to
search for it. Besides, I can read in a man's eye
when it is his own skin that he is frightened for. It
is inconceivable that this fellow could have made two
such vindictive enemies as these appear to be without
knowing of it. I hold it, therefore, to be certain
that he does know who these men are, and that for
reasons of his own he suppresses it. It is just
possible that to-morrow may find him in a more
communicative mood."
"Is there not one alternative," I suggested,
"grotesquely improbably, no doubt, but still just
conceivable? Might the whole story of the cataleptic
Russian and his son be a concoction of Dr.
Trevelyan's, who has, for his own purposes, been in
Blessington's rooms?"
I saw in the gaslight that Holmes wore an amused smile
at this brilliant departure of mine.
"My dear fellow," said he, "it was one of the first
solutions which occurred to me, but I was soon able to
corroborate the doctor's tale. This young man has
left prints upon the stair-carpet which made it quite
superfluous for me to ask to see those which he had
made in the room. When I tell you that his shoes were
square-toed instead of being pointed like
Blessington's, and were quite an inch and a third
longer than the doctor's, you will acknowledge that
there can be no doubt as to his individuality. But we
may sleep on it now, for I shall be surprised if we do
not hear something further from Brook Street in the
morning."
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