The hour for the drinking of coffee there was usually ten, or ten-thirty o’clock, and it was, therefore, safe to plan that by the time the midnight hour struck, the inmates of Linden Fells would be slumbering so soundly that an army marching past would not disturb them.
And—in fact, there would be something closely akin to an army on hand at that time, if comparative estimates may be used as standard.
Sixty-five men, not counting Paul Rogers himself—sixty-five desperate criminals—sixty-five human fiends would, during the hours between ten and twelve, approach Linden Fells from every direction, creeping in upon it silently and stealthily through the darkness, while every member of the household was incapable of resistance because stupefied by the drug that had been introduced into the coffee.
Sixty-five men, whose professions ran the gamut of crime from sneak-thievery and pocket-picking to bank-burglary and conspiracy, were to gather around that mansion in the darkness and await the signal of Paul Rogers for their descent upon it.
As a precaution against interruption from the outside, every wire which connected with the house was to be cut, as Dewey cut the cables at Manila Bay.
At a given signal, a certain detail of these men were to descend upon the stable and the remainder were to attack the house, so that if out of all the inmates there happened to be one person who had not swallowed the drug—or even two—that one or two would have no opportunity to escape and so give the alarm.
And then, the sixty-five were to go through the house and loot it at their pleasure. They were given full liberty, by Paul Rogers, to help themselves to anything of value which they could find and which could be carried away without impediment to their escape.
And when the house had been looted of all that was desired, and when Mercedes Danton had been taken out of the house a captive and hurried away through the darkness to a fate concerning which even Tom Morgan was kept in ignorance, then, after that, gallons upon gallons of kerosene-oil were to be scattered throughout the house, the match was to be applied, and old Peter Danton, with his wife and son, and so many of the servants as happened to be there, were to be consumed in the flames.
Thus, it was planned, would all traces of the crime be destroyed.
Thus, by the wholesale murder of the servants as well as their employers, it would not be suspected that the real plan was to put the Dantons out of the world.