Then I saw, standing beside Dick, my friend, Dr. Tweedie, of the Royal Free Hospital in Gray's Inn Road, a mild-mannered old gentleman whom I had many times met during my inquiries at that institution. "What's happened?" the latter repeated. "That's what we want to ask you?" "I don't know," I answered, "except that I was suddenly taken frightfully queer." "Taken queer! I should rather think you were," he said, bending down to get a better look at my countenance, at the same time feeling my pulse. "You're better now, much better. But it's been a very narrow squeak for you, I can tell you." "What's been the matter with me?" I inquired mystified. "You've been eating something that hasn't quite agreed with you," he answered with a mysterious smile. "But that couldn't have brought on a seizure like this," I argued weakly. "Well," the doctor said, "of course you can tell better what you've been eating than I can. Only one fact is clear to me." "And what's that?" I asked. "Why, that you've been within an ace of death, young man," he answered. "You'll want the most careful treatment, too, if we are to get you round again, for the truth is you've been poisoned!" "Poisoned?" I gasped. "Yes," he responded, handing me some medicine. "And this seizure of yours is a very mysterious one indeed. I've never seen such symptoms before. That you've been poisoned is quite plain, but how the accident has occurred remains for us to discover later." CHAPTER SIXTEEN. IN THE CITY. Through several days I remained in bed, my limbs rigid, my senses bewildered. Although we said nothing to Tweedie, Cleugh entirely shared my suspicion that if an attempt had actually been made upon my life it had been made at Riverdene. The doctor ran in several times each day, and Dick, assisted by old Mrs. Joad, was as attentive to my wants as any trained nurse, snatching all the time he could spare from his duties to sit by me and gossip of men and things in Fleet Street, and the latest "scoop" of the _Comet_. Tweedie was puzzled. Each time he saw me he remarked upon my curious symptoms, carefully noting them and expressing wonder as to the exact nature of the deleterious substance. He pronounced the opinion that it was some alkaloid, for such it was shown by the reagents he had used in his analysis, but of what nature he was utterly at a loss to determine. Many were the questions he put to me as to what I had eaten on that day, and I explained how I had lunched at one of the restaurants in Fleet Street, and afterwards dined with friends at Laleham. "You ate no sandwiches, or anything of that kind at station refreshment bars?" he asked, when he visited me one morning, in the vague idea, I suppose, that the poison might, after all, be a ptomaine. "None," I answered. "With the exception of what I told you, I had a glass of wine at the house of a friend at Hampton before rowing up to Laleham."