Clymer looked around the room with a wicked expression in his eyes.
“What’s one life more or less?” he muttered. “Nothing. They’ll think he got up in the night and accidentally set fire to the place. Thus, I’ll have my revenge on Fox for discharging me from the shop, and no one will be any the wiser. Ha! matters couldn’t have worked out more my way if I had arranged everything beforehand. With this man out of the way, the papers gone, the boys will have to give up their fascinating scheme of going out to the Northwest, and the way will be clear and easy for Plunkett and myself. I knew I was not born to have to drudge for a beggarly living. No; it takes money to see life, and money is now almost within my grasp.”
Clymer then took the night lamp and re-entering the back of the drugstore lifted a trap leading to the cellar.
Descending the stairs he went directly to a particular corner, where he knew a certain inflammable acid was kept in a large globular bottle of green glass, enclosed in a wooden framework for protection.
He took a quart measure, which lay on top of another carboy, and filled it with the fluid.
Then he returned to the surgery and began to sprinkle the stuff about on the floor and upon the surfaces of the walls.
This atrocious piece of work completed, he went to the door and looked out.
All was as silent as before.
Not a sound save the gentle sighing of the early morning breeze through the branches and leaves of the trees that lined the street.
The moon, shining over the roof of the Fox cottage, threw his figure into bold relief as he stood there in the doorway.