The question instantly awakened one of my dormant remembrances in
connection with the birthday festival. The foolish wrangle which took
place, on that occasion, between Mr. Candy and myself, will be found
described at much greater length than it deserves in the tenthdispute--so little had I thought of it afterwards--entirely failed to
recur to my memory. All that I could now recall, and all that I could
tell Ezra Jennings was, that I had attacked the art of medicine at the
dinner-table with sufficient rashness and sufficient pertinacity to put
even Mr. Candy out of temper for the moment. I also remembered that Lady
Verinder had interfered to stop the dispute, and that the little doctor
and I had "made it up again," as the children say, and had become as
good friends as ever, before we shook hands that night.
"There is one thing more," said Ezra Jennings, "which it is very
important I should know. Had you any reason for feeling any special
anxiety about the Diamond, at this time last year?"
"I had the strongest reasons for feeling anxiety about the Diamond.
I knew it to be the object of a conspiracy; and I was warned to take
measures for Miss Verinder's protection, as the possessor of the stone."
"Was the safety of the Diamond the subject of conversation between you
and any other person, immediately before you retired to rest on the
birthday night?"
"It was the subject of a conversation between Lady Verinder and her
daughter----"
"Which took place in your hearing?"
"Yes."
Ezra Jennings took up his notes from the table, and placed them in my
hands.
"Mr. Blake," he said, "if you read those notes now, by the light which
my questions and your answers have thrown on them, you will make two
astounding discoveries concerning yourself. You will find--First, that
you entered Miss Verinder's sitting-room and took the Diamond, in a
state of trance, produced by opium. Secondly, that the opium was
given to you by Mr. Candy--without your own knowledge--as a practical
refutation of the opinions which you had expressed to him at the
birthday dinner."
I sat with the papers in my hand completely stupefied.
"Try and forgive poor Mr. Candy," said the assistant gently. "He has
done dreadful mischief, I own; but he has done it innocently. If you
will look at the notes, you will see that--but for his illness--he would
have returned to Lady Verinder's the morning after the party, and would
have acknowledged the trick that he had played you. Miss Verinder would
have heard of it, and Miss Verinder would have questioned him--and the
truth which has laid hidden for a year would have been discovered in a
day."