We reached the house in good time for lunch, and my kindly chief pressed me to make a good meal.
“You are looking fagged,” he observed. “If you weren’t a teetotaller I should prescribe a half-bottle of Burgundy. Our work is only beginning. As soon as lunch is over I am going through the Members’-book, comparing the names in it with those in Weathered’s appointment-book. In that way we may get a key to the mysterious numbers.”
I did my best to conceal the apprehension with which I heard of this intention. I could see the search narrowing by degree, and gradually isolating a few names among which I had too much reason to fear that one would be found which I would have given all I possessed to exclude. I made an effort to brighten up and eat the good things before me. The doctor knew how to make the best of life, and an excellent digestion enabled him to enjoy the lobster mayonnaise and the tender cutlets provided by his accomplished cook. He drank nothing stronger than claret, but it was such claret as is not often found in private cellars, and its perfume reached my nostrils across the table like the breath of roses.
As soon as I thought he was sufficiently warmed and cheered to relax a little I ventured to put the question that had been trembling on my lips for hours.
“Is it too soon to ask if you have formed any opinion as to the cause of death, Sir Frank?”
He looked at me rather sharply, and his bushy eyebrows drew together.
“I can form no opinion till I have made an autopsy. If you mean have I made any conjecture, I have made several, any one of which may be right or may be wrong. Up to a certain point I am inclined to agree with your theory.”
“With my theory!” I was surprised into repeating.
“Yes. If you recollect, you suggested that whoever administered opium to Weathered had no intention of causing death. The object seems to have been to send him off into a state of unconsciousness so as to obtain possession of his keys; and we know what the keys were wanted for.”
“To suppress the evidence against some patient, you mean?” I faltered.