Craig. "You can talk as freely before him as you have to me alone. We
always work together."

I shook hands with the visitor.

"The doctor has succeeded in interesting me greatly in a case which
has some unique features," Kennedy explained. "It has to do with
Stephen Haswell, the eccentric old millionaire of Brooklyn. Have you
ever heard of him?"

"Yes, indeed," I replied, recalling an occasional article which had
appeared in the newspapers regarding a dusty and dirty old house in
that part of the Heights in Brooklyn whence all that is fashionable
had not yet taken flight, a house of mystery, yet not more mysterious
than its owner in his secretive comings and goings in the affairs of
men of a generation beyond his time. Further than the facts that he
was reputed to be very wealthy and led, in the heart of a great city,
what was as nearly like the life of a hermit as possible, I knew
little or nothing, "What has he been doing now?" I asked.

"About a week ago," repeated the doctor, in answer to a nod of
encouragement from Kennedy, "I was summoned in the middle of the night
to attend Mr. Haswell, who, as I have been telling Professor Kennedy,
had been a patient of mine for over twelve years. He had been suddenly
stricken with total blindness. Since then he appears to be failing
fast, that is, he appeared so the last time I saw him, a few days ago,
after I had been superseded by a younger man. It is a curious case and
I have thought about it a great deal. But I didn't like to speak to
the authorities; there wasn't enough to warrant that, and I should
have been laughed out of court for my pains. The more I have thought