“I like a thick cane,” repeated Pembury. “Cut it down to the proper length and don’t rivet the ferrule on. I’ll cement it on when I get home.”
His next investment would have seemed more to the purpose, though suggestive of unexpected crudity of method. It was a large Norwegian knife. But not content with this he went on forthwith to a second cutler’s and purchased a second knife, the exact duplicate of the first. Now, for what purpose could he want two identically similar knives? And why not have bought them both at the same shop? It was highly mysterious.
Shopping appeared to be a positive mania with Rufus Pembury. In the course of the next half-hour he acquired a cheap handbag, an artist’s black-japanned brush-case, a three-cornered file, a stick of elastic glue and a pair of iron crucible-tongs. Still insatiable, he repaired to an old-fashioned chemist’s shop in a by-street, where he further enriched himself with a packet of absorbent cotton-wool and an ounce of permanganate of potash; and, as the chemist wrapped up these articles, with the occult and necromantic air peculiar to chemists, Pembury watched him impassively.
“I suppose you don’t keep musk?” he asked carelessly.
The chemist paused in the act of heating a stick of sealing wax, and appeared as if about to mutter an incantation. But he merely replied: “No, sir. Not the solid musk; it’s so very costly. But I have the essence.”
“That isn’t as strong as the pure stuff, I suppose?”
“No,” replied the chemist, with a cryptic smile, “not so strong, but strong enough. These animal perfumes are so very penetrating, you know; and so lasting. Why, I venture to say that if you were to sprinkle a table-spoonful of the essence in the middle of St. Paul’s, the place would smell of it six months hence.”
“You don’t say so!” said Pembury. “Well, that ought to be enough for anybody. I’ll take a small quantity, please, and, for goodness’ sake, see that there isn’t any on the outside of the bottle. The stuff isn’t for myself, and I don’t want to go about smelling like a civet cat.”
“Naturally you don’t, sir,” agreed the chemist. He then produced an ounce bottle, a small glass funnel and a stoppered bottle labelled “Ess. Moschi,” with which he proceeded to perform a few trifling feats of legerdemain.
“There, sir,” said he, when he had finished the performance, “there is not a drop on the outside of the bottle, and, if I fit it with a rubber cork, you will be quite secure.”