Whether or not Mr. Vigors enjoyed a vindictive triumph in making me feel the weight of his authority, or whether his temper was ruffled in the excitement of so grave a case, I cannot say, but his manner was stern and his tone discourteous in the questions which he addressed to me. Nor did the questions themselves seem very pertinent to the object of investigation.
“Pray, Dr. Fenwick,” said he, knitting his brows, and fixing his eyes on me rudely, “did Sir Philip Derval in his conversation with you mention the steel casket which it seems he carried about with him?”
I felt my countenance change slightly as I answered, “Yes.”
“Did he tell you what it contained?”
“He said it contained secrets.”
“Secrets of what nature,—medicinal or chemical? Secrets which a physician might be curious to learn and covetous to possess?”
This question seemed to me so offensively significant that it roused my indignation, and I answered haughtily, that “a physician of any degree of merited reputation did not much believe in, and still less covet, those secrets in his art which were the boast of quacks and pretenders.”
“My question need not offend you, Dr. Fenwick. I put it in another shape: Did Sir Philip Derval so boast of the secrets contained in his casket that a quack or pretender might deem such secrets of use to him?”
“Possibly he might, if he believed in such a boast.”
“Humph!—he might if he so believed. I have no more questions to put to you at present, Dr. Fenwick.”