e patient
was having.

As soon as I was left alone, I returned to the bedside and once more
looked down at the impassive figure. And as I looked, my suspicions
revived. It was very like morphine poisoning; and, if it was morphine,
it was no common, medicinal dose that had been given. I opened my bag
and took out my hypodermic case from which I extracted a little tube of
atropine tabloids. Shaking out into my hand a couple of the tiny discs,
I drew down the patient's under-lip and slipped the little tablets under
his tongue. Then I quickly replaced the tube and dropped the case into
my bag; and I had hardly done so when the door opened softly and the
housekeeper entered the room.

"How do you find Mr. Graves?" she asked in what I thought a very
unnecessarily low tone, considering the patient's lethargic state.

"He seems to be very ill," I answered.

"So!" she rejoined, and added: "I am sorry to hear that. We have been
anxious about him."

She seated herself on the chair by the bedside, and, shading the candle
from the patient's face--and her own, too--produced from a bag that hung
from her waist a half-finished stocking and began to knit silently and
with the skill characteristic of the German housewife. I looked at her
attentively (though she was so much in the shadow that I could see her
but indistinctly) and somehow her appearance prepossessed me as little
as did that of the other members of the household. Yet she was not an
ill-looking woman. She had an excellent figure, and the air of a person
of good social position; her features were good enough and her
colouring, although a little unusual, was not unpleasant. Like Mr.
Weiss, she had very fair hair, greased, parted in the middle and brushed
down as smoothly as the painted hair of a Dutch doll. She appeared to
have no eyebrows at all--owing, no doubt, to the light colour of the
hair--and the doll-like character was emphasized by her eyes, which were
either brown or dark grey, I could not see which. A further peculiarity
consisted in a "habit spasm," such as one often sees in nervous
children; a periodical quick jerk of the head, as if a cap-string or
dangling lock were being shaken off the cheek. Her age I judged to be
about thirty-five.

The carriage, which one might have expected to be waiting, seemed to
take some time in getting ready. I sat, with growing impatience,
listening to the sick man's soft breathing and the click of the
housekeeper's knitting-