'Alone? I didn't understand that.'
'I must see him alone. If you arrange for me to do that it will be a five-pound note in your pocket.
'Sure?'
'Certain.'
'Then you hang about as the people are going, and I'll pass you accidental-like into his dressing-room. As you go in you give me the fiver.'
'I will.'
'No kid?'
'None whatever. You do as you say and I will give you a five-pound note as certainly as I gave you a sovereign on Thursday.'
'You place yourself where I can keep an eye on you, and I'll earn that fiver.' He raised his voice to trumpet tones. 'Ladies and gentlemen. The greatest feat of modern times is now drawing to a close. The critical moment is at hand. In less than half an hour the boasted miracles of the Indian fakirs will be more than paralleled. Out of the silence Mr. Montagu Babbacombe will come; back from the misty plains. After being dead for thirty days he will resume existence. Already the dews of life are forming on his brow. The few remaining tickets admitting to this wonderful spectacle only two-and-sixpence each.'
I did not know what Mr. FitzHoward meant by 'the dews of life,' but so far as I could see, no change whatever had taken place in the appearance of the sleeping man. He retained the same rigidity of attitude, and bore, to the full, the same uncomfortable resemblance to a corpse.