"Um," I said noncommittally. My wife is a good woman, but propriety is very important to her. Sometimes I think it is by way of reaction, not to her American upbringing, which was all that could be wished, but rather to the suspicions of our less cosmopolitan acquaintances that anyone born west of Cornwall must necessarily be half wild Indian. I was not quite certain how she would react to the mysterious history of my proposed patient.

"She will be safer here than at Bart's. No one knows she's here, and there's less chance of unsavory strangers wandering in and out unobserved," my friend went on persuasively in the face of my hesitation. "I'm sure her recovery would be speeded in the heart of a normal home, as opposed to the impersonal confusion of a hospital."

"Would it be?" I asked.

"You underrate your abilities, my dear fellow. Certainly it would. And you could be eyes and ears for me when I was unable to observe the lady myself. It would be a great convenience in the case to have free access to her time.

Although not unaffected by his flattery, I was suspicious of the drift of his thinking. "I shouldn't get too carried away, Holmes," I said a little coldly. "She may be a convenient factor in the case to you, but she is also a woman in great mental distress. Any, ah, experiments you may have in mind would have to be evaluated in that light, as well as whether they would produce data for you."

"I promise you, no experiments without your medical approval. I may take it as fixed, then? There's a good fellow."

I found myself committed, and he took his leave.

With a sigh I prepared to go rouse the housemaid to make up the spare bedroom and look after the personal needs of what was now my resident patient. The lady watched my face gravely, with misgiving.