Mr. Watson admitted his error with a gleam in his dark eyes, which Mr. Sabin accepted as an additional warning.
“Your little device,” he continued, raising an unstopped flask from the table by the side of the bed, “is otherwise excellent, and I feel that I owe you many thanks for arranging a death that should be painless. You might have made other plans which would have been not only more clumsy, but which might have caused me a considerable amount of personal inconvenience and discomfort. Your arrangements, I see, were altogether excellent. You arranged for my—er—extermination asleep or awake. If awake the little visit which your charming wife had just paid here was to have provided you at once with a motive for the crime and a distinctly mitigating circumstance. That was very ingenious. Pardon my lighting a cigarette, these fumes are a little powerful. Then if I was asleep and had not been awakened by the time you arrived—well, it was to be a drug! Supposing, my dear Mr. Watson, you do me the favour of emptying this little flask into the sea.”
Mr. Watson obeyed promptly. There were several points in his favour to be gained by the destruction of this evidence of his unsuccessful attempt. As he crossed the deck holding the little bottle at arm’s length from him a delicate white vapour could be distinctly seen rising from the bottle and vanishing into the air. There was a little hiss like the hiss of a snake as it touched the water, and a spot of white froth marked the place where it sank.
“Much too strong,” Mr. Sabin murmured. “A sad waste of a very valuable drug, my friend. Now will you please come inside with me. We must have a little chat. But first kindly stand quite still for one moment. There is no particular reason why I should run any risk. I am going to take that revolver from your pocket and throw it overboard.”
Mr Watson’s first instinct was evidently one of resistance. Then suddenly he felt the cold muzzle of a revolver upon his forehead.
“If you move,” Mr. Sabin said quietly, “you are a dead man. My best policy would be to kill you; I am foolish not to do it. But I hate violence. You are safe if you do as I tell you.”
Mr. Watson recognised the fact that his companion was in earnest. He stood quite still and watched his revolver describe a semi-circle in the darkness and a fall with a little splash in the water. Then he followed Mr. Sabin into his cabin.