The physician paused and looked the Black steadfastly and significantly in the face.
"He will answer admirably!" exclaimed the latter, after a few moments' reflection. "Yes—better than any other, all things considered! I will undertake to get him into my power without giving you the trouble to ask him to dinner. But I must request, doctor, that to-morrow night at eleven o'clock you will take a lonely walk in some very retired spot, and at a good distance off too, so that you may lose all trace of the path pursued by your kidnappers."
"You do not require two persons, surely?" said Lascelles.
"Yes—it will be better," responded the Black; "a Justice of the Peace, and a competent and credible witness. Do you happen to have any patient in the neighbourhood of Bethlem, for instance?"
"Let me see," said the doctor, in a musing manner. "Yes," he cried: "an old lady whom I have not visited for some time."
"Very good," observed the Black. "Then you can call on her to-morrow evening; and between ten and eleven, as you are returning on foot—on foot, remember—you will be set upon by half a dozen ruffians," he continued, laughing, "who will blindfold you, shove you into a chaise, and carry you off—you never will be able to say whither."
"I understand you, my dear friend," said the physician, laughing heartily also. "Your scheme is admirable and certain of success."
"Thus far, then, the business is settled," observed the Black.
At that moment Cæsar entered the room, and informed his master that the man Jeffreys had just awoke, having slept uninterruptedly for many hours.
"But you have not left him alone, Cæsar?" exclaimed the Black.