"'Well, it's just like any other speculation, and safer than most.'
"'What am I to do, then?'
"'I'll tell you. I'll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and runthe whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out your chair inthe consulting-room. I'll let you have pocket-money and everything. Thenyou hand over to me three quarters of what you earn, and you keep theother quarter for yourself.'
"This was the strange proposal, Mr. Holmes, with which the manBlessington approached me. I won't weary you with the account of howwe bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the house nextLady-day, and starting in practice on very much the same conditions ashe had suggested. He came himself to live with me in the character of aresident patient. His heart was weak, it appears, and he needed constantmedical supervision. He turned the two best rooms of the first floorinto a sitting-room and bedroom for himself. He was a man of singularhabits, shunning company and very seldom going out. His life wasirregular, but in one respect he was regularity itself. Every evening,at the same hour, he walked into the consulting-room, examined thebooks, put down five and three-pence for every guinea that I had earned,and carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.
"I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret hisspeculation. From the first it was a success. A few good cases and thereputation which I had won in the hospital brought me rapidly to thefront, and during the last few years I have made him a rich man.
"So much, Mr. Holmes, for my past history and my relations with Mr.Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has occurred tobring me here to-night.
"Some weeks ago Mr. Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to me,a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some burglary which, hesaid, had been committed in the West End, and he appeared, I remember,to be quite unnecessarily excited about it, declaring that a day shouldnot pass before we should add stronger bolts to our windows and doors.For a week he continued to be in a peculiar state of restlessness,peering continually out of the windows, and ceasing to take the shortwalk which had usually been the prelude to his dinner. From his mannerit struck me that he was in mortal dread of something or somebody, butwhen I questioned him upon the point he became so offensive that I wascompelled to drop the subject. Gradually, as time passed, his fearsappeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits, when a freshevent reduced him to the pitiable state of prostration in which he nowlies.
"What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which I nowread to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.
"'A Russian nobleman who is now resident in England,' it runs, 'wouldbe glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of Dr. PercyTrevelyan. He has been for some years a victim to cataleptic attacks, onwhich, as is well known, Dr. Trevelyan is an authority. He proposes tocall at about quarter past six to-morrow evening, if Dr. Trevelyan willmake it convenient to be at home.'
"This letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty in thestudy of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. You may believe,then, that I was in my consulting-room when, at the appointed hour, thepage showed in the patient.
"He was an elderly man, thin, demure, and commonplace--by no means theconception one forms of a Russian nobleman. I was much more struck bythe appearance of his companion. This was a tall young man, surprisinglyhandsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the limbs and chest of aHercules. He had his hand under the other's arm as they entered, andhelped him to a chair with a tenderness which one would hardly haveexpected from his appearance.
"'You will excuse my coming in, doctor,' said he to me, speaking Englishwith a slight lisp. 'This is my father, and his health is a matter ofthe most overwhelming importance to me.'
"I was
touched by this filial anxiety. 'You would, perhaps, care toremain during the consultation?' said I.
"'Not for the world,' he cried with a gesture of horror. 'It is morepainful to me than I can express. If I were to see my father in one ofthese dreadful seizures I am convinced that I should never surviveit. My own nervous system is an exceptionally sensitive one. With yourpermission, I will remain in the waiting-room while you go into myfather's case.'
"To this, of course, I assented, and the young man withdrew. The patientand I then plunged into a discussion of his case, of which I tookexhaustive notes. He was not remarkable for intelligence, and hisanswers were frequently obscure, which I attributed to his limitedacquaintance with our language. Suddenly, however, as I sat writing,he ceased to give any answer at all to my inquiries, and on my turningtowards him I was shocked to see that he was sitting bolt upright in hischair, staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid face. He was againin the grip of his mysterious malady.
"My first feeling, as I have just said, was one of pity and horror.My second, I fear, was rather one of professional satisfaction. I madenotes of my patient's pulse and temperature, tested the rigidity of hismuscles, and examined his reflexes. There was nothing markedly abnormalin any of these conditions, which harmonized with my former experiences.I had obtained good results in such cases by the inhalation of nitriteof amyl, and the present seemed an admirable opportunity of testingits virtues. The bottle was downstairs in my laboratory, so leaving mypatient seated in his chair, I ran down to get it. There was some littledelay in finding it--five minutes, let us say--and then I returned.Imagine my amazement to find the room empty and the patient gone.
"Of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. The son hadgone also. The hall door had been closed, but not shut. My page whoadmits patients is a new boy and by no means quick. He waits downstairs,and runs up to show patients out when I ring the consulting-room bell.He had heard nothing, and the affair remained a complete mystery. Mr.Blessington came in from his walk shortly afterwards, but I did not sayanything to him upon the subject, for, to tell the truth, I have got inthe way of late of holding as little communication with him as possible.
"Well, I never thought that I should see anything more of the Russianand his son, so you can imagine my amazement when, at the very same hourthis evening, they both came marching into my consulting-room, just asthey had done before.
"'I feel that I owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt departureyesterday, doctor,' said my patient.
"'I confess that I was very much surprised at it,' said I.
"'Well, the fact is,' he remarked, 'that when I recover from theseattacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has gone before. Iwoke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and made my way out intothe street in a sort of dazed way when you were absent.'
"'And I,' said the son, 'seeing my father pass the door of thewaiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to anend. It was not until we had reached home that I began to realize thetrue state of affairs.'
"'Well,' said I, laughing, 'there is no harm done except that youpuzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into thewaiting-room I shall be happy to continue our consultation which wasbrought to so abrupt an ending.'
"'For half an hour or so I discussed that old gentleman's symptoms withhim, and then, having prescribed for him, I saw him go off upon the armof his son.
"I have told you that Mr. Blessington generally chose this hour of theday for his exercise. He came in shortly afterwards and passed upstairs.An instant later I heard him running down, and he burst into myconsulting-room like a man who is mad with panic.
"'Who has been in my room?' he cried.
"'No one,' said I.
"'It's a lie! He yelled. 'Come up and look!'
"I passed over the grossness of his language, as he seemed half out ofhis mind with fear. When I went upstairs with him he pointed to severalfootprints upon the light carpet.