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To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself such a blow is paralysing.

I seem to have lost the faculty of thought.

But you are a man of action - you are a man of affairs.

It is part of the everyday routine of your life.

You can preserve your balance in every emergency.

We are fortunate indeed in having you at our side."

Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old Professor was talking. I observed that he was smoking with extraordinary rapidity. It was evident that he shared our host's liking for the fresh Alexandrian cigarettes.

"Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow," said the old man.

"That is my MAGNUM OPUS - the pile of papers on the side table yonder.

It is my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundations of revealed religion.

With my enfeebled health I do not know whether I shall ever be able to complete it now that my assistant has been taken from me.

Dear me, Mr. Holmes; why, you are even a quicker smoker than I am myself."

Holmes smiled.

"I am a connoisseur," said he, taking another cigarette from the box - his fourth - and lighting it from the stub of that which he had finished.

"I will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination, Professor Coram, since I gather that you were in bed at the time of the crime and could know nothing about it.

I would only ask this.

What do you imagine that this poor fellow meant by his last words: 'The Professor - it was she'?"

The Professor shook his head.

"Susan is a country girl," said he, "and you know the incredible stupidity of that class. I fancy that the poor fellow murmured some incoherent delirious words, and that she twisted them into this meaningless message."

"I see. You have no explanation yourself of the tragedy?"

"Possibly an accident; possibly - I only breathe it among ourselves - a suicide. Young men have their hidden troubles - some affair of the heart, perhaps, which we have never known. It is a more probable supposition than murder."

"But the eye-glasses?"

"Ah! I am only a student - a man of dreams.

I cannot explain the practical things of life.

But still, we are aware, my friend, that love-gages may take strange shapes.

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