“Yes; Dr. Nelson would understand and expose the ruse in an instant.”
“But why should he more than others? May I die, if I know what you are driving at!” exclaimed Annella, looking more and more perplexed.
“Why, at this fact, that Dr. Nelson would certainly be summoned; that his knowledge of narcotics and their effects would enable him to comprehend the case at the first glance, and so your scheme would fail.”
While he spoke Annella was watching him attentively. When he ceased, she said:
“I am astonished at your perspicacity, Mr. Montrose; but tell me what you suppose the plan to be which the medical attendant of the prison will be so quick to detect?”
“Why, of course, when you assure me that Eudora Leaton shall be saved, at the very time that all the world, except our three selves, shall believe her to have perished, I can come but to one of two conclusions in respect to your purposed course.”
“And what may those be?”
“The first I have already mentioned; that perhaps you insanely propose to take her place, in the mad hope that your person might possibly be mistaken for hers and yourself permitted to suffer in her stead, so as to deceive the world into the belief that she had perished, while in reality she would be safe and free.”
“You know that I have denied and repudiated that course as impracticable and even unthought of by me. But the other! What is the other conclusion to which your wisdom has arrived in regard to my purposed course?”
“Or else—” said Malcolm, hesitatingly.