Two startled faces were turned to him now, and a new atmosphere suddenly seemed to have come into the warm luxurious room, something that was cold, something that had entered from outside.
"You don't know," he went on. "Of course you have been out of England for some months. Well, it is this. Hancock is a youngish man of five and twenty. He was a chemist at Hackney, and of quite exceptional intelligence. He was at one time an assistant at Williamsons' in Oxford Street, where some of my prescriptions are made up and where I buy drugs for experimental purposes. I took rather an interest in him several years ago. He passed all his examinations with credit and became engaged to a really charming young woman, who was employed in a big ladies' shop in Regent Street. He wanted to set up in business for himself, very naturally, and I helped him with a money loan. He married the girl, bought a business at Hackney, and became prosperous enough in a moderate sort of way. He paid me back the hundred pounds I lent him and from time to time I heard that things were going on very well. He was respected in the district, and his wife especially was liked. She was a good and religious woman and did a lot of work for a local church. They appeared to be a most devoted couple."
The doctor stopped in his story and glanced at the set faces turned towards him. He poured some water into a tumbler and drank it.
"Oh, it's a hideous story," he said, with some emotion and marked distaste in his voice. "I won't go into the details. Hancock poisoned his wife with the most calculating and wicked cunning. He had become enamoured of a girl in the neighbourhood and he wanted to get rid of his wife in order to marry her. His wife adored him. She had been a perfect wife to him, but it made no difference. The thing was discovered, as such things nearly always are, he was condemned to death and will be hanged to-morrow morning at breakfast time."
"And you are going to see him to-night, John?"
"Yes. It is my duty. I owe it to my work, and to the wretched man too. I was present at the trial. From the first I realised that there must have been some definite toxic influence at work on the man's mind to change him from an intelligent and well-meaning member of society into a ghastly monster of crime. I was quite right. It was alcohol. He had been secretly drinking for years, though, as strong-minded and cunning inebriates do, he had managed to preserve appearances. As you know, Edith, the Home Secretary is a friend of mine and interested in our work. Hancock has expressed a wish to see me, to give me some definite information about himself which will be of great use in my researches into the psychology of alcoholism. With me, the Home Secretary realises the value of such an opportunity, and as it is the convict's earnest wish, I am given the fullest facilities for to-night. Of course the matter is one of absolute privacy. There would be an outcry among the sentimental section of the public if it were known. But it is my clear duty to go."
There was a dead silence in the room. Mrs. Daly played uneasily with her napkin ring. Suddenly it escaped her nervous fingers and rolled up against a tumbler with a loud ringing sound. She started and seemed to awake from a bitter dream.
"Again!" she said in a low voice that throbbed with pain. "At all hours, in all places, we meet it! The scourge of humanity, the Fiend Alcohol! The curse of the world!—how long, how long?"
PART II