"If Gilrae must let Rannoch, then why in the name of Fortune doesn't he let it to respectable folk and not to the first fellow who answers his advertisement in _The Field ?_ It's simply disgraceful!" "Certainly, it is a most extraordinary story," I declared.

"Leithcourt evidently wished to escape from his visitor, and that's why he drugged him." "Why he poisoned him, you mean.

Cowan says the fellow is poisoned, but that he'll probably recover.

He is already conscious, I hear." I resolved to call on the doctor, who happened to be well known to me, and obtain further particulars.

Therefore at eleven o'clock I drove into Dumfries and entered his consulting-room.
He was a spare, short, fair man, a trifle bald, and when I was shown in he welcomed me warmly, speaking with his pronounced Galloway accent.
"Well, it is a very mysterious case, Mr.Gregg," he said, after I had told him the object of my visit.