“Yes, and I shall do my best to fulfil it conscientiously. Then you do not expect to come here any more?”
“What for?” asked Sholmes.
“I don’t know ... of course.... I am getting on as well as possible. But, Herlock, do me a last service: give me a drink.”
“A drink?”
“Yes, I am dying of thirst; and with my fever——”
“To be sure—directly——”
He made a pretense of getting some water, perceived a package of tobacco, lighted his pipe, and then, as if he had not heard his friend’s request, he went away, whilst Wilson uttered a mute prayer for the inaccessible water.
“Monsieur Destange!”
The servant eyed from head to foot the person to whom he had opened the door of the house—the magnificent house that stood at the corner of the Place Malesherbes and the rue Montchanin—and at the sight of the man with gray hairs, badly shaved, dressed in a shabby black coat, with a body as ill-formed and ungracious as his face, he replied with the disdain which he thought the occasion warranted: