“Because, sir, we do not wish to associate ourselves with an act which might prove difficult of explanation, and which, given publicity, must most certainly defeat its own object. You must accept our word for it that we were both close personal friends of the deceased, and that we have undertaken this difficult charge out of pure regard for an intimacy which contains for us many endearing recollections.”
“What was the cause of death? Will you tell me so much?”
“It was the result of a fall.”
The surgeon, wavering between conscience and professional acquisitiveness, gnawed his forefinger in an agitated way.
“But why,” he said—“why should not a post-mortem examination at his own house have sufficed for his apprehensions?”
“There is no calculating,” answered the stranger, “the lengths to which such diseased imaginativeness will carry a man. Safety, no doubt, to his mind, consisted in nothing short of dismemberment.” He looked at his watch in a hurried way. “Time, sir,” he said, “presses. If our natural scruples shrink, as I say, from association with this business, no such sentiment need apply to you. Gentlemen of your profession, I understand, are not expected to be over-inquisitive as to the material provided for their anatomical studies. You may rest completely satisfied that nothing discreditable to ourselves or harmful to you attaches to this case. Very well. Subjects, I believe, are costly. Here is one to your hand for nothing. But should our friend’s terrors prove actually justified, and this to be a case of suspended animation, in that event, sir, I will answer for it that the patient’s gratitude would take a form upon which you would have plentiful reason to congratulate yourself. And in the meantime every wasted minute is a reproach to us. Answer, sir, will you accept the conditions or not?”
“You will not tell me your name?”
“No.”
“Nor his there?”
“I must not, indeed.”