a cup of tea, I found him rubbing his hands over the open day-book.

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," he remarked cheerfully as we
shook hands. "This will pay the expenses of my holiday, including you.
By the way, you are not anxious to be off, I suppose?"

As a matter of fact, I was; for I had decided to accept Thorndyke's
offer, and was now eager to take up my duties with him. But it would
have been shabby to leave Stillbury to battle alone with this rush of
work or to seek the services of a strange assistant.

"I should like to get off as soon as you can spare me," I replied, "but
I'm not going to leave you in the lurch."

"That's a good fellow," said Stillbury. "I knew you wouldn't. Let us
have some tea and divide up the work. Anything of interest going?"

There were one or two unusual cases on the list, and, as we marked off
our respective patients, I gave him the histories in brief synopsis. And
then I opened the subject of my mysterious experiences at the house of
Mr. Weiss.

"There's another affair that I want to tell you about; rather an
unpleasant business."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Stillbury. He put down his cup and regarded me
with quite painful anxiety.

"It looks to me like an undoubted case of criminal poisoning," I
continued.