The little clock in the consulting-room showed that it was close on eleven; time for a tired G.P. to be thinking of bed.  But I was not sleepy.  Over my frugal supper I found myself taking up anew the thread of my meditations, and afterwards, as I smoked my last pipe by the expiring surgery fire, the strange and sinister features of the case continued to obtrude themselves on my notice.  I looked up Stillbury’s little reference library for information on the subject of sleeping sickness, but learned no more than that it was “a rare and obscure disease of which very little was known at present.”  I read up morphine poisoning and was only further confirmed in the belief that my diagnosis was correct; which would have been more satisfactory if the circumstances had been different.

For the interest of the case was not merely academic.  I was in a position of great difficulty and responsibility and had to decide on a course of action.  What ought I to do?  Should I maintain the professional secrecy to which I was tacitly committed, or ought I to convey a hint to the police?

Suddenly, and with a singular feeling of relief, I bethought myself of my old friend and fellow-student, John Thorndyke, now an eminent authority on Medical Jurisprudence.  I had been associated with him temporarily in one case as his assistant, and had then been deeply impressed by his versatile learning, his acuteness and his marvellous resourcefulness.  Thorndyke was a barrister in extensive practice, and so would be able to tell me at once what was my duty from a legal point of view; and, as he was also a doctor of medicine, he would understand the exigencies of medical practice.  If I could find time to call at the Temple and lay the case before him, all my doubts and difficulties would be resolved.

Anxiously, I opened my visiting-list to see what kind of day’s work was in store for me on the morrow.  It was not a heavy day, even allowing for one or two extra calls in the morning, but yet I was doubtful whether it would allow of my going so far from my district, until my eye caught, near the foot of the page, the name of Burton.  Now Mr. Burton lived in one of the old houses on the east side of Bouverie Street, less than five minutes’ walk from Thorndyke’s chambers in King’s Bench Walk; and he was, moreover, a “chronic” who could safely be left for the last.  When I had done with Mr. Burton I could look in on my friend with a very good chance of catching him on his return from the hospital.  I could allow myself time for quite a long chat with him, and, by taking a hansom, still get back in good time for the evening’s work.

This was a great comfort.  At the prospect of sharing my responsibilities with a friend on whose judgment I could so entirely rely, my embarrassments seemed to drop from me in a moment.  Having entered the engagement in my visiting-list, I rose, in greatly improved spirits, and knocked out my pipe just as the little clock banged out impatiently the hour of midnight.