“Then I’ll just tak’ my depairture,” replies the other, “for I’m nae gude here!” With which remark he finishes his brief attendance and returns to finish his dinner.
The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face and carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his pretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one.
“I knew this person by sight very well,” says he. “He has purchased opium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related to him?” glancing round upon the three bystanders.
“I was his landlord,” grimly answers Krook, taking the candle from the surgeon’s outstretched hand. “He told me once I was the nearest relation he had.”
“He has died,” says the surgeon, “of an overdose of opium, there is no doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough here now,” taking an old teapot from Mr. Krook, “to kill a dozen people.”
“Do you think he did it on purpose?” asks Krook.
“Took the overdose?”
“Yes!” Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible interest.
“I can’t say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?”
“I suppose he was. His room—don’t look rich,” says Krook, who might have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance around. “But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to name his circumstances to me.”
“Did he owe you any rent?”