James M. Dodd

There was this house where he could live.

Mr. Kent here, he's a surgeon, was prepared to stay and care for him in secret.

Yes, but why?

Surely a hospital... Don't you see it would have meant segregation for the rest of his life?

To live forever amongst strangers without any hope of release.

Even in these quiet parts, if one word had got out, he would have been dragged away to that.

Even you had to be kept in the dark, Jimmy.

But what I don't understand, Father, is why you've relented now.

It was Mr. Sherlock Holmes who forced my hand with this scrap of paper.

He wrote one word on it.

Leprosy.

After that, I realized that if he knew so much, it was safer that he should know it all.

So it was.

And who knows the good may come of it.

How?

I understand that only you, Mr. Kent, have attended the patient.

May I ask, sir, if you are an authority on such tropical or semi-tropical complaints?

I have the ordinary knowledge of the educated medical man.

I have no doubt, sir, that you are fully competent.

But I'm sure you will agree that in such a case, a second opinion is valuable.