'A note of that kind would hardly be in keeping with the supposed writer's well-known character.'
'No? Then what price this? "Dear Doug, I'm dying. If you have a moment to spare you might look in. Twick."'
'That's better. Oddly enough he used to call me "Doug," and sign himself "Twick."'
'That's so? Why shouldn't he have done? You hurry to my suffering side, bringing with you five hundred pounds in notes, which you slip into my clammy palm.'
'I should prefer to give you the thousand pounds afterwards.'
'I shouldn't. Half first, then the rest. If you don't bring five hundred when you come--I'll recover.'
This was spoken with an accent which suggested varied possibilities.
Before I left the York Hotel the whole business was cut and dried. From one point of view my success was altogether beyond my anticipations. Yet I was not feeling quite at my ease. There was a diabolical fertility of invention about the man which recalled Twickenham each moment more and more. The whole spirit with which the idea was taken up reminded me of him. He planned everything; filled in all the details, arranged, so far as I could see, for every eventuality. I was conscious, all the while, that the scheme was entirely after the man's heart. Its daring; the brazen impudence which would be required to successfully carry it out; entire absence of anything approaching nervousness; complete callousness;--these were the requisites which Mr. Montagu Babbacombe possessed in a degree which would have seemed unique had they not reminded me forcibly of somebody else. The whimsical character of the feat he was about to attempt just fitted in with his humour, as I had foreseen.
'You know, Mr. Smith--I beg your pardon--Mr. Howarth--I shall play this game for all I'm worth: right to the limit. All I'm wondering is if it shall be a lingering death-bed, punctuated with bursts of agony, or a foreshadowing of the perfect peace that'll soon be coming. How long will I take in dying?'
'I should suggest not too long.'