"Absurd!" ejaculated Vernon. "Have I not told you that my brother believes me still to be in the East—still travelling in Turkey? So long as he supposes me far away, I can carry on my projects in London with far greater security. In a word, it is much safer that my presence in this country should remain a profound secret. He will die shortly—he must die—he is daily, steadily parting with vitality. He is passing out of existence by a sure, a speedy, and yet an inexplicable progression of decay. Of his death, then, I am sure; and when it shall occur, how can suspicion attach itself to me—since I am supposed to be abroad—far away?"
"You are certain that your brother is hastening towards the grave?" said the Resurrection Man. "The great obstacle—the greatest, I mean—will be thereby removed. Suppose that Lady Ravensworth should be delivered of a boy, would it not be equally easy——"
"Yes—it would be easy to put it out of the way by violence," was the rapid reply; "but, then, I should risk my neck at the same time that I gained a fortune. No—that will not do! I could not incur a danger of so awful a nature. The infant heir to vast estates would be jealously protected—attentively watched—surrounded by all wise precautions:—no—it were madness to think of practising aught against its life."
"Could not the same means by which—even though at a distance—you are undermining the life of your brother——"
"No—no," replied Vernon, impatiently. "It is not necessary that I should explain to you the precise nature of the means by which I succeed in effecting Lord Ravensworth's physical decay; suffice it to state that those means could not be applied to a child."
"Nevertheless," continued the Resurrection Man, "you must have an agent at Ravensworth Park; for if—as I suppose—your brother is dying by means of slow poison, there is some confidential creature of your own about his person to administer the drugs."
"I have no agent at Ravensworth;—I have no confidential creature about my brother's person;—and I have so combined my measures that Lord Ravensworth is actually committing suicide—dying by his own hand! Another time I will expound all this to you; for to you alone have I communicated my projects."
"Have you not explained yourself to Greenwood?" demanded the Resurrection Man. "I thought you told me, the last time we met, that he knew you well—and knew also that you are in England?"
"I was acquainted with him some four or five years ago, when he was not so prosperous as he is—or as he appears to be—at present," replied Vernon; "but having been abroad since that time until my return last week, I had lost sight of him—and had even forgotten him. It was not a little provoking to run against him the very first day of my arrival in London; and, though I endeavoured to avoid him, he persisted in speaking to me."
"You are not afraid that he will gossip about your presence in London?" said the Resurrection Man.