‘ “Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?”

‘ “Really, sir!” I cried.

‘ “Quite right! That’s all right! But I was bound to ask. With all these qualities why are you not in practice?”

‘I shrugged my shoulders.

‘ “Come, come!” said he, in his bustling way. “It’s the old story. More in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say if I were to start you in Brook Street?”

‘I stared at him in astonishment.

‘ “Oh, it’s for my sake, not for yours,” he cried. “I’ll be perfectly frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me very well. I have a few thousands to invest, d’ye see, and I think I’ll sink them in you.”

‘ “But why?” I gasped.

‘ “Well, it’s just like any other speculation, and safer than most.”

‘ “What am I to do, then?”

‘ “I’ll tell you. I’ll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and run the whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out your chair in the consulting-room. I’ll let you have pocket-money and everything. Then you hand over to me three-quarters of what you earn and you keep the other quarter for yourself.”

‘This was the strange proposal, Mr Holmes, with which the man Blessington approached me. I won’t weary you with the account of how we bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the house next Lady Day and starting in practice on very much the same conditions as he had suggested. He came himself to live with me in the character of a resident patient. His heart was weak, it appears, and he needed constant medical supervision. He turned the two best rooms on the first floor into a sitting- room and bed-room for himself. He was a man of singular habits, shunning company and very seldom going out. His life was irregular, but in one respect he was regularity itself. Every evening at the same hour he walked into the consulting-room, examined the books, put down five and threepence for every guinea that I had earned, and carried the rest off to the strong box in his own room.

‘I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret his speculation. From the first it was a success. A few good cases and the reputation which I had won in the hospital brought me rapidly to the front, and during the last few years I have made him a rich man.

‘So much, Mr Holmes, for my past history and for my relations with Mr Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has occurred to bring me here to-night.

‘Some weeks ago Mr Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to me, a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some burglary which, he said, had been committed in the West-end, and he appeared, I remember, to be quite unnecessarily excited about it, declaring that a day should not pass before we should add stronger bolts to our windows and doors. For a week he continued to be in quite a peculiar state of restlessness, peering continually out of the windows, and ceasing to take the short walk which had usually been the prelude to his dinner. From his manner it struck me that he was in mortal dread of something or somebody, but when I questioned him upon the point he became so offensive that I was compelled to drop the subject. Gradually as time passed his fears appeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits, when a fresh event reduced him to the pitiable state of prostration in which he now lies.

‘What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which I now read to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.