THE SLEEP-WALKING
From 'The Moonstone'
[This episode is related by the physician in charge of Mr. Franklin Blake, whose good name he wishes to clear from a charge of fraud.]
Two o'clock A.M.—The experiment has been tried. With what result I am now to describe.
At eleven o'clock I rang the bell for Betteredge and told Mr. Blake that he might at last prepare himself for bed.... I followed Betteredge out of the room, and told him to remove the medicine chest into Miss Verinder's sitting-room.
The order seemed to take him completely by surprise. He looked as if he suspected me of some occult design on Miss Verinder! "Might I presume to ask," he said, "what my young lady and the medicine chest have got to do with each other?"
"Stay in the sitting-room and you will see."
Betteredge appeared to doubt his own unaided capacity to superintend me effectually, on an occasion when a medicine chest was included in the proceedings.
"Is there any objection, sir," he asked, "to taking Mr. Bruff into this part of the business?"
"Quite the contrary! I am now going to ask Mr. Bruff to accompany me down-stairs."