"Well, I'll tell you. I killed the author three times before his book came out."
"You did what?" asked Arthur, with a shout of laughter.
"Killed him, sir. Once he perished on the Matterhorn in a snow-storm. The next time he was killed in a railway accident in Canada. The last time he was lost in a wreck in the South Sea Islands. By this time every one was talking of him. I received no fewer than four hundred press cuttings the last time headed, 'A Famous Author Lost at Sea.' The name of Sampson E. Dodge became as famous as the President's. Of course, when his book came out every one rushed for it."
"And was he really in Switzerland, Canada, or the South Seas?"
"Certainly not. As safe as you are. Writing his book at a farmhouse in Vermont."
"Do you often practise this method, Mr. Legion?"
"Well, it must be applied judiciously, of course. Dodge writes adventure novels, so I give him adventures. But for quieter authors, you must invent something else. It used to be appendicitis, but that's nearly played out. Total loss of memory through overwork used to take, but I found that the authors objected to it. Double pneumonia in a lonely shack among the mountains, where he had gone to obtain local colour for his new novel, answers as well as anything else. And that reminds me—didn't you say Vickars had been ill?"
"Yes, he nearly died. Typhoid fever from bad drains."
"And didn't anybody write it up?"
"Not that I ever heard of."