Then came the day when Grewgus was permitted to go up to the ill-furnished room where the Colonial lay, a shadow of his former robust self. He stretched out a wasted hand. “Very good of you to come and see me, mate. My landlady told me a gent had been inquiring after me. For the life of me I couldn’t guess who it was. I’ve no friends in this infernal country. And what made you look me up?” Grewgus played a waiting game, till he could see his way more clearly. “Well, just blind chance, as it were. I was in this district, on a bit of business one day, and remembering where you lived, I thought I’d look you up, to see if you had recovered from the effects of that rather warm evening we spent together. I was shocked to hear you were so bad.” “I’ve had a close shave, mister; the doctor told me he thought my number was up. But he says now, if I keep quiet for a few days, I shall pull through.” He paused and added grimly, “If I do, I guess it will be a disappointment to somebody.” So the same suspicion had crept into his mind. Grewgus proceeded in the same quiet way: “You dined out with a friend, your landlady told me. No doubt you partook of some food that poisoned you?” The man’s calm manner left him. His eyes blazed out in sudden fury. “And a dog-goned idiot I was, knowing the character of the man I went with. At my time of life I ought to have had more sense.” For a little time he kept silence, but his eyes were blazing, his face was working all the time. When he spoke again, it seemed as if he had, for the moment, forgotten the other man’s presence, as if he were muttering his thoughts aloud. “The dirty dog, the dirty dog to try and do me in for the sake of saving a few paltry quid! Me that stood by him when he hadn’t got a pal in the world, me that nursed him when he was sick to death as well as his own mother would have done. The treacherous swine.” Suddenly he seemed to realize the presence of Grewgus, and his mood underwent a sudden change. The fury in his glance died down, the voice lost its tone of hatred. “Don’t take any notice of me, mate. I’m weak after this infernal bout and perhaps a little bit light-headed. I was just rambling, that was all.” Grewgus leaned forward and looked the Colonial straight in the face. “You are not light-headed, and you are not rambling,” he said in a firm voice. “You did not partake of any bad food. You have in your mind the same suspicion which I have, and that is that you were deliberately poisoned, by some subtle means, by the man, your pretended friend, who took you out to dinner.” The man’s jaw dropped. He looked at the detective in a dazed kind of way. “How did you guess that?” he cried. It was evident to the keen-witted Grewgus that Newcombe’s feelings were making deadly war on each other. On the one hand he wanted to speak, to give full vent to the terrible ideas that were surging in his mind. On the other hand, he feared the consequence of a too frank revelation.