Guest looked at him for a moment stupidly. The assistant was fuddled with drink, and could not understand these strange symptoms and phenomena of a great brain which was swiftly being undermined.
All he noticed was that Sir William certainly seemed sunk in upon himself like an old man.
With a gesture of impatience he left the room and traversed the corridor until he came to the largest laboratory, where the Thought Spectroscope instruments were. He turned up the electric light, found the switch which controlled part of the machinery, moved the switch and turned down the electric light once more, looking expectantly at the opposite wall. There was no great circle of light such as he waited for.
With an oath he stumbled out of the laboratory, not forgetting to lock it carefully. And then, unlocking another door, a door which formed the back of a great cupboard in No. C room, a door which nobody ever saw, he went down a flight of stone steps to those old disused cellars, in one of which Rathbone was kept. He opened the door and found the captive still lying upon the vulcanite couch, his face still working like the face of a mechanical toy, and in a deep swoon.
Guest hastily unbuckled the straps and released the neck from the collar. He carried Rathbone to the bed, locked the thin steel chains, which hung from the roof, upon the anklets and the handcuffs, and then dashed water repeatedly in his face.
In his pocket, Mr. Guest invariably carried a supply of liquor. It sometimes happened that in going from a room where he had exhausted all the liquor, into another room where he knew he would find more, the two rooms would be separated by a corridor of some little length, and it sometimes happened that Mr. Guest needed a drink when he arrived in the middle of the corridor. So he always carried a large, silver-mounted flask in the pocket of his coat. He unscrewed this now and poured some whisky down the captive's throat. In a minute or two a faint tinge of colour appeared upon the cheekbones, and with a shudder and sob the tortured soul came back to the tortured body, which even yet it was not to be suffered to leave.
"That's better," Mr. Guest remarked. "I thought you had gone off, I really did. Not yet, my dear boy, not yet. Would not do at all. Would not suit our purpose. I'm sure you won't be so disobliging as to treat us in such a shabby way after all we have done for you. I understand William has told you of the delicate attentions by which we propose to make your exit as interesting and as valuable to science as possible."
Rathbone looked at him steadily. He spoke to him in a weak, thin voice.
"Yes," he said, "I know now, I know everything. But have you no single spark of pity or compassion within you, that you can come here to mock and gloat over a man who is surely suffering more than any one else has ever suffered in the history of the world? Is it impossible to touch you or move you in any way?"
Mr. Guest rubbed his hands with huge enjoyment.