‘Perhaps, Dr. Melville,’ he said, ‘it will be more reassuring to you if I at once hold my hands up,’ and he sat there and smiled, holding up his neatly gloved hands.
The doctor stared, and his hand stole towards an instrument like an unusually long stethoscope, which lay on his table.
Merton sat there ‘hands up,’ still smiling. ‘Ah, the blow-tube?’ he said. ‘Very good and quiet! Do you use urali? Infinitely better, at close quarters, than the noisy old revolver.’
‘I see I have to do with a cool hand, sir,’ said the doctor.
‘Ah,’ said Merton. ‘Then let us talk as between man and man.’ He tilted his chair backwards, and crossed his legs. ‘By the way, as I have no Aaron and Hur to help me to hold up my hands, may I drop them? The attitude, though reassuring, is fatiguing.’
‘If you won’t mind first allowing me to remove your muff,’ said the doctor. It lay on the table in front of Merton.
‘By all means, no gun in my muff,’ said Merton.
‘In fact I think the whole pistol business is overdone, and second rate.’
‘I presume that I have the honour to speak to Mr. Merton?’ asked the doctor. ‘You slipped through the cordon?’
‘Yes, I was the intoxicated miner,’ said Merton. ‘No doubt you have received a report from your agents?’