"I have been forbidden the house, Bethel, by your two dragons here, and now, I am only permitted a few moments' talk with you. So I shall be obliged to skip the details; you shall have them all soon, however. But I will tell you something. We are having things investigated here, and, for the benefit of a certain detective, I want you to answer me a question. You possess some professional knowledge which may help to solve a riddle."
"What is your question?" he whispers, with a touch of his natural decisiveness.
"One night, nearly two weeks ago," I began, "you and I were about to renew an interview, which had been interrupted, when the second interruption came in the shape of a call, from 'Squire Brookhouse, who asked you to accompany him home, and attend to his son, who, so he said, had received some sort of injury."
"I remember."
"Was your patient Louis Brookhouse?"
"Yes."
"Did you dress a wound for him?"
He looked at me wonderingly and was silent.
"Bethel, I am tracing a crime; if your professional scruples will not permit you to answer me, I must find out by other means what you can easily tell me. But to resort to other measures will consume time that is most valuable, and might arouse the suspicions of guilty parties. You can tell me all that I wish to learn by answering my question with a simple 'Yes,' or 'No.'"