?" 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.
Familiarise 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 short-hand 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 i