“Ah! You recognize the symptoms?”

“Only too well.”

“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, Holmes. I shouldn’t be surprised if it were the same. A bad lookout for you if it is. Poor Victor was a dead man on the fourth day⁠—a strong, hearty young fellow. It was certainly, as you said, very surprising that he should have contracted an out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in the heart of London⁠—a disease, too, of which I had made such a very special study. Singular coincidence, Holmes. Very smart of you to notice it, but rather uncharitable to suggest that it was cause and effect.”

“I knew that you did it.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, you couldn’t prove it, anyhow. But what do you think of yourself spreading reports about me like that, and then crawling to me for help the moment you are in trouble? What sort of a game is that⁠—eh?”