It was not surprising that the old fossil of a doctor announced that I was dead; for I had done the thing so extremely well, and was in such a state of collapse, that I myself wasn't sure I wasn't.
My experiences, on that occasion, by no means terminated with my decease. It's an odd sensation to be 'laid out' by a lady of a certain age and peculiar habits. It's a funny thing to be measured for your coffin. It's a still funnier one to be placed inside it. And it was when I was placed inside it that one of the not least difficult and delicate parts of the game began.
I've often thought that there's something to be said for an Irish wake, besides the pleasing opportunity it gives for the consumption of Irish whisky. And still more for the custom which obtains of never leaving a corpse alone until it's underground. From my point of view. For if they hadn't left me alone I'd have been in a trifling fix. Mr. Smith's idea was that he should appear upon the scene before the undertaker's men, that I there and then should come to life, and that we should screw down the lid upon an empty coffin. But apart from the fact that I didn't trust Mr. Smith, not half as far as I could see him, that notion of his was worth just nothing. He hadn't allowed for the absence of my weight from that elegant chest. They'd have to be a rummy lot of undertakers' men who couldn't tell, even when they were dead drunk, an empty coffin from a full one. But as I'd made arrangements of my own for supplying the deficiency I didn't trouble to go into details with Mr. Smith. As things turned out, from every point of view, it was just as well I had.
I took with me to Cortin's Hotel my double. There were only two men in the world who ever knew of its existence. I'm one; the other's dead. Real dead; and not for money. He was a Frenchman named Pétion--Edward Pétion. He was a modeller in wax. He had been attached to a waxworks museum in Paris; where, I fancy, propriety according to English notions was not the strongest point. That had been before I made his acquaintance. At the time I knew him the only thing to which he was attached was absinthe. The bonds of that attachment were never relaxed. He was penniless. And though he required no food he did want drink. With that I provided him on condition that he made my double. And he did.
It was made on the principle of a lay figure, with flexible limbs; and in every respect was an exact copy of the great original--so far, that is, as the means available permitted. The result altogether exceeded my expectations. It was my weight to an ounce. And when it was lying down, with its eyes closed, not the keenest observer, standing at a little distance--unless he had some prior cause of his own for doubt--would suspect that it wasn't me, especially when the light was a little bad. In support of that statement I need only mention that the public--and even my own manager--has stared at it when it was inside a glass frame without entertaining the faintest suspicion of the substitution which had taken place. With one accord they imagined themselves to be looking at me.
This was the double which I had taken with me to Cortin's Hotel. And when the time came that I judged myself to have had enough of being cribbed and cabined in that elegant example of the undertaker's art, I just got out of it, placed the garments in which I was attired on Myself No. 2, and laid him comfortably to rest in the position I had recently quitted. That any one would detect the change, without entering on a closer examination than in such a case was likely, I knew from experience was in the highest degree improbable.
My intention was, when Mr. Smith did arrive, to come out of my hiding-place, tell him what I had done, and so render detection practically impossible. But, as it happened, the fact that the undertakers' men came first introduced a new factor into the situation. They made no bones about the matter. Only one fellow glanced at the corpse, and his one remark was to the effect that 'the old chap looks pretty fresh.' Without any waste of time they proceeded to put on the lid. I could not help reflecting, as I viewed the proceedings, that it was just as well that things weren't what they seemed.
Just as they had got the last screw home, Mr. Smith did arrive. I was curious to know what would happen now. Practically nothing happened. He let them walk off with the coffin, in the full belief that I was its contents, without moving so much as a finger to save me from the living death to which he supposed me to be doomed. Beyond doubt his intention was to murder, and so rid himself of the unfortunate wretch whom he had incited to conspiracy. I had a queer shivery-shakery feeling as I thought of the fate I had escaped. I also reflected that, although he didn't know it, he had put another card into my hand. Hardly had he left the room, than I followed him down the stairs--not as my own proper self, but as a bearded individual who they probably imagined, in the confusion, was one of the guests of the house.
I bought a portmanteau, together with the necessary clothes with which to fill it, crossed town in a cab, and, as Mr. Leonard, took rooms in a highly respectable house in Clifford Street, Dalston. There, while maturing my plan of campaign, I watched the issue of events. I wasn't going to die and be buried for a mere monkey, as, in course of time, Mr. Smith would learn. In trying murder he'd given the game away, and not only so, had destroyed, for ever, his own peace of mind. I knew the kind of man he was. There are plenty like him. You probably see one when you look in the glass. To cut some one's throat is the shortest way out of heaps of holes into which one gets. It is only what some call conscience, and others blue funk, which stays one's hand. It wasn't the cutting of the throat which he objected to, but what came after. He'd be glad enough to have me boarded up, and out of the way, for ever and a day. But I'd lay odds that there'd come times when he'd hear me talking to him out of that box; and at those times he'd not be happy. It's a nasty moment when the man you dropped comes out of the hole into which you shovelled him to whisper in your ear.
He'd worry a good deal about the man he'd buried alive, being, unless I erred, of a worrying nature; and then, when he'd had about enough of worrying, the live man would come unburied; and that, so far as he was concerned, would be a finisher. The remainder of the proceedings wouldn't be of much interest to him.