If robbery were their purpose, they seem to have worked with marvellous inefficiency.  That, however, is not my business.”  Here he took a big pinch of snuff, and turning to to Miss Trelawny, went on:  “Now as to the patient.  Leaving out the cause of his illness, all we can say at present is that he appears to be suffering from a marked attack of catalepsy.  At present nothing can be done, except to sustain his strength.  The treatment of my friend Doctor Winchester is mainly such as I approve of; and I am confident that should any slight change arise he will be able to deal with it satisfactorily.  It is an interesting case—­most interesting; and should any new or abnormal development arise I shall be happy to come at any time.  There is just one thing to which I wish to call your attention; and I put it to you, Miss Trelawny, directly, since it is your responsibility.  Doctor Winchester informs me that you are not yourself free in the matter, but are bound by an instruction given by your Father in case just such a condition of things should arise.  I would strongly advise that the patient be removed to another room; or, as an alternative, that those mummies and all such things should be removed from his chamber.  Why, it’s enough to put any man into an abnormal condition, to have such an assemblage of horrors round him, and to breathe the atmosphere which they exhale.  You have evidence already of how such mephitic odour may act.  That nurse—­ Kennedy, I think you said, Doctor—­isn’t yet out of her state of catalepsy; and you, Mr. Ross, have, I am told, experienced something of the same effects.  I know this”—­here his eyebrows came down more than ever, and his mouth hardened—­“if I were in charge here I should insist on the patient having a different atmosphere; or I would throw up the case.  Doctor Winchester already knows that I can only be again consulted on this condition being fulfilled.  But I trust that you will see your way, as a good daughter to my mind should, to looking to your Father’s health and sanity rather than to any whim of his—­whether supported or not by a foregoing fear, or by any number of “penny dreadful” mysteries.  The day has hardly come yet, I am glad to say, when the British Museum and St. Thomas’s Hospital have exchanged their normal functions.  Good-day, Miss Trelawny.  I earnestly hope that I may soon see your Father restored.  Remember, that should you fulfil the elementary condition which I have laid down, I am at your service day or night.  Good-morning, Mr. Ross.  I hope you will be able to report to me soon, Doctor Winchester.”

When he had gone we stood silent, till the rumble of his carriage wheels died away.  The first to speak was Doctor Winchester: 

“I think it well to say that to my mind, speaking purely as a physician, he is quite right.  I feel as if I could have assaulted him when he made it a condition of not giving up the case; but all the same he is right as to treatment.  He does not understand that there is something odd about this special case; and he will not realise the knot that we are all tied up in by Mr. Trelawny’s instructions.  Of course—­” He was interrupted by Miss Trelawny: