"It was the cooking did it, I suppose," said Meldon.
"That and the state his bed was in," said Doyle. "It was close on eleven o'clock last night, and I was sitting smoking quiet and easy along with the doctor, when there came a noise like as if some one would be ringing a bell, and him in a hurry. It was the doctor drew my attention to it first; but I told him he'd better sit where he was, for it was Sabina's business to go up to any one that would ring a bell. Well, the ringing went on terrible strong, for maybe ten minutes, and—"
"Sabina funked it, I suppose," said Meldon.
"She did be in dread," said Doyle, "on account of the way the bell was going, not knowing what there might be at the other end of it. That's what she said any way, and I believe her. The doctor spoke to her, encouraging her, the way she'd go and see whatever it might be, and we'd be at peace again. But for all he said to her she wouldn't move an inch. Then I told the doctor that maybe he'd better go himself, for it could be that the gentleman was ill. 'It's hardly ever,' I said, 'that a man would ring a bell the way that one's being rung without there'd be some kind of a sickness on him. It'll be a pound into your pocket, doctor, and maybe more,' I said, 'if you get at him at once before the pain leaves him.'"
"I should think O'Donoghue jumped at that," said Meldon.
"He did not then, but he sat there looking kind of frightened, the same as Sabina did; like as if there might be something that the judge would want to be blaming on him. At the latter end I had to go myself. It was in his bedroom he was, and devil such a state ever you saw as he had the place in. The sheets and the blankets was off the bed, scattered here and there about the floor, and the pillow along with them. It was like as if they'd been holding a meeting about the land, and the police were after interfering with it, such a scatteration as there was. I hadn't the door hardly opened before he was at me. 'You detestable villain,' says he, 'what do you mean by asking me to sleep in a bed like that? Isn't it enough for you to have me near poisoned with paraffin oil without—' 'If there's hell raised on the bed,' said I, 'and I don't deny but there is, it's yourself riz it. The bed was nice enough before you started on it. I had the sheets damped with the stuff the doctor give me—'"
"Did you say that?" asked Meldon, pushing the punt a little nearer to the shore.
"I did, and if he was mad before he was madder after. I offered to fetch the doctor up to him, but he wouldn't listen to a word I said. It was twelve o'clock and more before I got him quietened down, and I wouldn't say he was what you'd call properly pacified then. He was growling like a dog would when I left him, and saying he'd have it out with me in the morning."
"I daresay," said Meldon, "he was worse after he got his breakfast."
"He was," said Doyle. "It was Sabina he got a hold of then; for, thanks be to God, I was out in the yard seeing after the car that was to drive him up to the liver. He went down into the kitchen after Sabina, and he asked her what the devil she meant by upsetting one lamp over his dinner and another over his breakfast. Sabina up and told him straight to his face that it was you done it."