“What sort of anodyne?”
“A hypodermic.”
“Hypodermic! I’ve never heard of the thing; not even the name!”
“A wonderful cure it is—for noisy tongues!”
“You excite one’s curiosity. Tell me something of its nature?”
“Oh, it’s very simple; exceedingly so. Only a drop of liquid introduced into the blood; not in the common roundabout way, by pouring down the throat, but direct injection into the veins. The process in itself is easy enough, as every medical practitioner knows. The skill consists in the kind of liquid to be injected. That’s one of the occult sciences I learnt in Italy, land of Lucrezia and Tophana; where such branches of knowledge still flourish. Elsewhere it’s not much known, and perhaps it’s well it isn’t; or there might be more widowers, with a still larger proportion of widows.”
“Poison!” she exclaims involuntarily, adding, in a timid whisper, “Was it, Gregoire?”
“Poison!” he echoes, protestingly. “That’s too plain a word, and the idea it conveys too vulgar, for such a delicate scientific operation as that I’ve performed. Possibly, in Monsieur Coracle’s case the effect will be somewhat similar; but not the after symptoms. If I haven’t made miscalculation as to quantity, ere three days are over it will send him to his eternal sleep; and I’ll defy all the medical experts in England to detect traces of poison in him. So don’t enquire further, chérie. Be satisfied to know the hypodermic will do you a service. And,” he adds, with sardonic smile, “grateful if it be never given to yourself.”
She starts, recoiling in horror. Not at the repulsive confessions she has listened to, but more through personal fear. Though herself steeped in crime, he beside her seems its very incarnation! She has long known him morally capable of anything, and now fancies he may have the power of the famed basilisk to strike her dead with a glance of his eyes!
“Bah!” he exclaims, observing her trepidation, but pretending to construe it otherwise. “Why all this emotion about such a misérable? He’ll have no widow to lament him—inconsolable like yourself. Ha! ha! Besides, for our safety—both of us—his death is as much needed as was the other. After killing the bird that threatened to devour our crops, it would be blind buffoonery to keep the scarecrow standing. I only wish, there were nothing but he between us, and complete security.”