“Thought you’d come to it. You mean that I poison the girl and her uncle. Smith has to come back to us because he has no one else. The skipper and crew will know nothing, and will be told a tale. That’s it, eh?”
“Of course, though it needn’t be put quite like that. The best of doctors cannot save every patient. Lechworthy would be distracted, and a sleeping-draught might be necessary—and a mistake might occur. That’s the way I’m going to put it—to Smith, to the men here, to everybody. You can trust me.”
“Absolutely. But you’re in too much of a hurry. I’m not going to do it.”
“Why not? Because you’re called in as a doctor? Man, our lives are at stake. Let’s be frank. I won’t face a trial and penal servitude to follow. Would you? You were ready to do much worse than this. It isn’t a time for—”
“I know,” said the doctor. He had finished with his boots now, and stood upright. “It’s not exactly a point of professional etiquette. The thing simply isn’t sport. It’s too easy and too dirty.”
“But this isn’t reasonable. You’re willing to sink the Snowflake and—and all that’s implied in that.”
“Willing to try. The scuttling of a schooner is not too easy. Teetotal millionaires can afford luxuries, and you may bet there’s a good sober skipper and a picked crew on board the Snowflake. They will be awake. If I were caught cutting a pipe, or fooling with the sea-cocks, or doing something surgical to the boats, I think—well, objections would be raised. Also, the problem of the one survivor takes some thinking out. It’s likely there would be too many survivors or none at all. It’s blackguardly enough, but still there is an element of risk about it. As for the other thing, well, to cut it short, I won’t do it.”
“Then I must leave it,” said Sir John. “I think you’re missing a chance, but that can’t be helped. When do you return?”
“Can’t say. To-night perhaps, if the patient doesn’t need me. Well, good-bye, Sweetling. Get ’em to elect Hanson secretary if you can. If I can’t come I’ll write.”
Sir John crept back again into bed. He did not mean to break with Pryce, and he had shown less anger than he felt. He was not really surprised at Pryce’s prompt and definite refusal. He had dealt with many bad men—some worse than the doctor—and he was a bad man himself; and he had come constantly on the bad thing that the bad man would not do. He had found the distorted sense of honour in men who had done some dishonourable things. He had found generosity in thieves and tender-heartedness in a murderer. Even as the good sometimes fall, so do the bad sometimes rise.