First I told them of Arold Smiff, the cheap, crooked, gin-soaked little man, who had taken his last bath in 1922; the man who could see the usurpers as well as I could. That roused them to gleeful vociferance, which I squashed with a bark. "Quiet, will you! I'm half starved—haven't had a bite since breakfast. I want to get this done, so I can go and eat a good dinner.
"You know that when I left you I could see just one dismal possibility—a long campaign of slaughter, slaughter, slaughter. But when I met Arold, a plan grew up in my mind—"
"Like a lovely flower in a swamp," murmured Geoff. "Sorry. Pray continue."
"The whole plan," I growled, "is about nine-tenths sheer bluff; but I think it may work. Here it is: first, I travel around the country and collect a hundred names; the names of usurpers whose human shells have had more or less spectacular careers. Not those born to the purple, but those who've come up like rockets, self-made men who've climbed to posts of importance in politics, the law, and elsewhere. I've seen a number of big shots of that sort who are nothing really but robots moved by slimy misshapen blobs ... and I've deduced (pardon the Holmesian expression) that the important members of their loathsome breed are probably those who rise to take over important positions in this world. That allows 'em to protect and to advance their secret cause."
"How?"
"By passing certain laws, and—well, here's an example. One of them commits some crime, perhaps inadvertently. They don't want him to get chucked into prison, where he'd be no use to them in furthering the birth rate. So a were-policeman, to coin a name, will let him escape; or a were-judge will set him free. Get the poisonous subtlety of it? They work themselves into posts where they can help each other to the top of their bent. Even on the lower levels, they're often bartenders and hotel-keepers, who can pass quick word of developments, and so forth. It's as if a lot of Nazis had become lawyers and judges and M.P.s here during the late fracas, and from their exalted seats had protected whole battalions of lesser spies when they ran afoul of the cops."
"I see," said the Colonel. "That's logic."
"So it stands to reason that, if I want to put a great big crimp in their plans, I have to chop a slice off the top of their organization, rather than out of the bottom. I slew a score of 'em while I was the Manchester Slasher, but those were common low folk whom I can't see as especially important to the general plan of the usurpers. They got very peeved about me, but it was nothing to the way they'd have acted had I murdered twenty judicial were-people, or twenty husks of Members of Parliament. My score of twenty lower-case aliens might have been accidental, but twenty upper-crusters wouldn't be. And a hundred will make them sit up and scream like hell.
"You can't hire decent men to commit pointless assassinations, so of course I was handicapped until I met Arold Smiff. In fact, I never even thought of hiring killers, until that night when I found that he could see 'em too. Then the dawn flashed up. You can pay professional rogues to commit murders, and no questions asked. So I deputized Arold to go out and collect a hundred scoundrels for me: the most reliable riffraff available, men who would, as he says, do in their old mothers for a chew of tobacco. He's to pay them ten pounds apiece in advance, with a promise of ten more when the business is done. Then, on a certain night, and within a period of a few hours, they're to strike all over England—and slay these usurpers I'll have collected in my little black book. I understand that the underworld looks with disfavor on a gentleman who collects a fee from a brother crook and then doesn't deliver the goods, so I believe that most of these cutthroats will keep faith and comply with his instructions."