I heard the rasping, laboured breathing of the sick man. “Give me the water!” he gasped.
“You’re precious near your end, my friend, but I don’t want you to go till I have had a word with you. That’s why I give you water. There, don’t slop it about! That’s right. Can you understand what I say?”
Holmes groaned.
“Do what you can for me. Let bygones be bygones,” he whispered. “I’ll put the words out of my head—I swear I will. Only cure me, and I’ll forget it.”
“Forget what?”
“Well, about Victor Savage’s death. You as good as admitted just now that you had done it. I’ll forget it.”
“You can forget it or remember it, just as you like. I don’t see you in the witness-box. Quite another shaped box, my good Holmes, I assure you. It matters nothing to me that you should know how my nephew died. It’s not him we are talking about. It’s you.”
“Yes, yes.”
“The fellow who came for me—I’ve forgotten his name—said that you contracted it down in the East-end among the sailors.”
“I could only account for it so.”
“You are proud of your brains, Holmes, are you not? Think yourself smart, don’t you? You came across someone who was smarter this
