man whose general health is as good as that of Edgecumbe.'

'Yes, but India plays ducks and drakes with any man's constitution,' he
replied. 'You see, you know nothing about Edgecumbe, and his loss of
memory may be a very convenient thing to him.'

'What do you mean?

'I mean nothing, except this: Edgecumbe, I presume, has been a man of the
world; how he lost his memory--assuming, of course, that he _has_ lost
it--is a mystery. But he has lived in India, and possibly, while there,
went the whole hog. Excuse me, Luscombe, but I have no romantic notions
about him. He seems to be on the high moral horse just now, but what his
past has been neither of us know. As I said, life in India plays ducks
and drakes with a man's constitution, especially if he has been a bit
wild. Doubtless the remains of some old disease is in his system,
and--and--we saw the results.' He lit a cigarette as he spoke, and I
noticed that his hand was perfectly steady.

'Is that your explanation?' I asked.

'I have no explanation,' he replied, 'but that seems to me as likely as
any other.'

'Because, between ourselves,' I went on, 'both McClure and Merril think
he was poisoned.'

He was silent for a few seconds, as though thinking, then he asked quite
naturally, 'How could that be?'

'McClure, as you know, was an Army doctor in India,' I said.

'Well, then, if any one ought to know, he ought,' and he puffed at his
cigarette; 'but what symptoms did he give of being poisoned?'

I detailed Edgecumbe's condition, his torpor, and the symptoms which
followed.

'Is there anything suggestive of poisoning in that?' he asked, like a man
curious.

'McClure seems to think so.'

'Of course he may be right,' he replied carelessly, 'but I don't know
enough about the subject to pass an opinion worth having. All the same,
if he were poisoned, it is a wonder to me how he got well so quickly';
and he hummed a popular music-hall air.

'The thing which puzzles McClure,' I went on, 'and he seems to know a
good deal about Indian poisons, is the almost impossibility of such a
thing happening here in England. He says that the Indians have a trick
of poisoning their enemies by pricking them with some little instrument
that they possess, an instrument by which they can inject poison into the
blood. It leaves no mark after death, but is followed by symptoms almost
identical with those which Edgecumbe had. During the time the victim is
suffering, ther