As I turned away from the bed Mr. Weiss stopped his slow pacing to and fro and faced me.  The feeble light of the candle now fell on him, and I saw him distinctly for the first time.  He did not impress me favourably.  He was a thick-set, round-shouldered man, a typical fair German with tow-coloured hair, greased and brushed down smoothly, a large, ragged, sandy beard and coarse, sketchy features.  His nose was large and thick with a bulbous end, and inclined to a reddish purple, a tint which extended to the adjacent parts of his face as if the colour had run.  His eyebrows were large and beetling, overhanging deep-set eyes, and he wore a pair of spectacles which gave him a somewhat owlish expression.  His exterior was unprepossessing, and I was in a state of mind that rendered me easily receptive of an unfavourable impression.

“Well,” he said, “what do you make of him?” I hesitated, still perplexed by the conflicting necessities of caution and frankness, but at length replied: 

“I think rather badly of him, Mr. Weiss.  He is in a very low state.”

“Yes, I can see that.  But have you come to any decision as to the nature of his illness?”

There was a tone of anxiety and suppressed eagerness in the question which, while it was natural enough in the circumstances, by no means allayed my suspicions, but rather influenced me on the side of caution.

“I cannot give a very definite opinion at present,” I replied guardedly.  “The symptoms are rather obscure and might very well indicate several different conditions.  They might be due to congestion of the brain, and, if no other explanation were possible, I should incline to that view.  The alternative is some narcotic poison, such as opium or morphia.”

“But that is quite impossible.  There is no such drug in the house, and as he never leaves his room now, he could not get any from outside.”

“What about the servants?” I asked.

“There are no servants excepting my housekeeper, and she is absolutely trustworthy.”

“He might have some store of the drug that you are not aware of.  Is he left alone much?”

“Very seldom indeed.  I spend as much time with him as I can, and when I am not able to be in the room, Mrs Schallibaum, my housekeeper, sits with him.”

“Is he often as drowsy as he is now?”

“Oh, very often; in fact, I should say that is his usual condition.  He rouses up now and again, and then he is quite lucid and natural for, perhaps, an hour or so; but presently he becomes drowsy again and doses off, and remains asleep, or half asleep, for hours on end.  Do you know of any disease that takes people in that way?”

“No,” I answered.  “The symptoms are not exactly like those of any disease that is known to me.  But they are much very like those of opium poisoning.”

“But, my dear sir,” Mr. Weiss retorted impatiently, “since it is clearly impossible that it can be opium poisoning, it must be something else.  Now, what else can it be?  You were speaking of congestion of the brain.”