"Good. But how can it be done? We can't carry a body to Wapping in a brown paper parcel."
"Of course not. But has it not occurred to you that we are close to the Regent's Canal? I haven't worked out details. They will shape themselves later on. But there are plenty of barges always going up and down the canal. Certainly we can do the thing. It is only a question of money. We have an unlimited command of money. But, listen. Our body is alive still. It will be quite easy for us—with our knowledge—to treat this living body with certain preparations, and in such a way that when it is dead it will present all the appearance of having been killed by excess in some drug. The post-mortem will disclose it. If we keep it alive during a month from now, we can make it a morphia maniac to all appearance. We can inject anything we like into this Rathbone and make him a slave to some drug, whether he likes it or not!"
"No, Guest. The really expert pathologist would discover it. It couldn't be done in a month. It might in six."
"The really expert pathologist won't perform the post-mortem, William. There are only ten in London! Some local doctor of the police will apply the usual tests and discover exactly what we wish him to discover. He will analyze a corpse. He won't synthesize a history of the corpse. Only ten men in England could do that with certainty, and you and I are two of those ten, though it is many years ago since we gave up that sort of work for physics. So you see your object will be doubly served. The actual death will be proved, and the fellow's life be discredited while the apparently true reason of his disappearance will be revealed."
Sir William looked steadily at his assistant. "Your brain is wonderfully sufficient," he said. "It is extraordinary how it withstands the ravages of alcohol. Really, my dear Wilson, you are a remarkable man. All you say is quite excellent. And, meanwhile, I have a proposal to make."
He suddenly rose from his chair, and his eyes began to blaze with insane passion. He shook with it, his whole face was transformed. In his turn he became abnormal.
And just as the famous man had thought of the lesser, a moment or two ago—had regarded him coldly and spoken of him, to him, as a mind diseased—so now the lesser, stimulated to spurious sanity for the moment, saw the light of mania in his chief's eyes.
Two great forces, two great criminals, two horrid egotists, and both lost men! Lost far more certainly and irrevocably than the prisoned and dying gentleman far below in the strong room, where the electric fans whispered all day and night, where the fetters jingled and the heart was turning to salt stone!
The man was changed utterly. The grave courtly ascetic vanished as a breath on glass vanishes. And in his stead stood a creature racked with evil jealousy and malice, a gaunt inhuman figure in whose eyes was the glitter of a bird of prey.
Guest saw the swift and terrible drop into the horrible and the grotesque. He realized that for a brief moment he was master of the situation.