Night had closed in. Vernon and I were seated opposite to one another
at the oval dining-table. Cragg waited upon us. Now and then, as he
moved softly to and fro, I glanced at him, and I thought I detected in
his well-trained face a flicker of anxiety as his eyes rested upon his
master, a flicker of appeal as they rested upon me. It seemed to me at
such times that he wanted me to do something to help Vernon, that he
was longing to have a word with me alone.
The dinner was excellent, but Vernon ate scarcely anything. He talked,
however, a good deal, though hardly with his usual nerve and relish.
When dessert was on the table, he said—
“Bring us our coffee here, Cragg; at least, one black coffee.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I won’t take it,” Vernon said to me. “I’ve been sleeping wretchedly
lately. Morphia would be more the thing for me than coffee.”
“I knew you had been suffering from insomnia.”
He laughed drearily.
“I don’t look up to much, do I?”
Cragg brought my coffee and cigars.
“You can leave us now, Cragg; go and have your supper; go downstairs.”
The man looked slightly surprised, but said nothing and went away.
When he had gone Vernon lit a cigar, puffed out some rings of smoke,
watched them curling up towards the ceiling, then said—
“You wanted to have a look at the spaniel, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, if I bring him in, be careful with him, will you?”
“Careful with him! Why? Is he dangerous?”
“I don’t say that. But he’s got an odd temper. I keep him muzzled.”
“In the house?”
“Yes, always. I don’t want to be bitten. You remember how Deeming died?
Well, I don’t want to die like that.”
His mention of Deeming gave me an opportunity of which I at once
availed myself.
“That was a sad business,” I said. “Did you see much of him before he
died, as you were living next door?”
“Oh,” he interrupted, “Deeming was not a friendly neighbour. Do you
know that I took your advice?”
“What advice?”
“To get into his house as a patient.”
“You really did that!”
“Yes. One morning, as he never invited me in as a friend, I went in as
a patient.”
“How did he take it?”
“Well, he could hardly decline to treat me. It happened that I was
really unwell at the time, so I had a good excuse.”
“And—and—your strange suspicions”—I was almost stammering, conscious,
painfully conscious of my own—“your strange suspicions—did you ever
find out whether they were justified?”
“They were justified, fully justified. But the dog took its own part in
the end and killed its persecutor.”