“I can. You are thinking that I have poison here, ready to give you a dose, so that you may die out of the way, and never be able to expose me by betraying what you have seen.”
The old man’s jaw dropped again, and his face grew more wrinkled and puckered up, if possible, as he scratched his head with one yellow claw.
“Well, it were some’at o’ that kind,” he said, with a grim chuckle.
“You old fool!” exclaimed the doctor; “don’t I know that you could not expose me without exposing yourself? Do you think me blind?”
“Nay, doctor, nay; you’re a sharp one. You can see too much.”
“Have I not seen how dexterous you are at work of this kind? Do you think I cannot read what it all means? Moredock, I’ll be bound to say that one way or another you have made yourself a rich man.”
“No, no, doctor; no, no!” cried the sexton. “A few pounds gathered together to keep me out of the workus some day when I grow old.”
“You think that I want to poison you, then, and to hide your body here?”
“Nay, nay, doctor, I don’t. You haven’t got no need, have you? Give us a drop of the stuff.”
“Yes, we are wasting time,” said North, pouring out a portion of the contents of his flask, and handing it to the old man, who took it, and, in spite of all said, smelt it suspiciously.