Array Sapper - The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile Sapper

With a trembling hand the Professor took the paper. "But I don't understand," he said after he had read it. "For Heaven's sake, sir, won't you explain? I remember nothing from the time when I was chloroformed in my laboratory till I came to in a packing-case. It wasn't I who was blown up?"

"Obviously," returned the other. "But the great point is, Professor, that everyone thinks it was. The cream of the scientific world, in fact, will attend the burial of somebody else's foot, in the firm belief that they are honouring your memory. Whose foot it is you needn't worry about; I assure you he was a person of tedious disposition."

"But I must go at once and telephone."

He rose in his agitation. "It's the most dreadful thing. Think of my poor wife."

"I know," said Mr Robinson sadly. "Though not exactly married myself, I can guess your feelings. But I'm afraid, my dear brother, that your wife must remain in ignorance of the fact that she is not a widow."

Professor Goodman's face went grey. He knew now what he had only suspected before that he was in danger.

"Possibly things are becoming clearer to you," went on the other. "The world thinks you are dead. No hue-and-cry will be raised to find you. But you are not dead—far from it. You are, as I explained, my partially insane brother, whom no one is allowed to see. I admit that you are not insane nor are you my brother—but qu'importe . It is not the truth that counts, but what people think is the truth. I trust I make myself clear?" Professor Goodman said nothing; he was staring at the speaker with fear in his eyes. For the mask of benevolence had slipped a little from Mr Robinson's face: the real man was showing through the assumed role.

"From your silence I take it that I do," he continued. "No one will look for you as Professor Goodman; no one will be permitted to see you as my brother. So—er—you will not be very much disturbed."

"In plain language, you mean I'm a prisoner," said the Professor. "Why? What is your object?"

"You have recently, my dear Professor," began Mr Robinson, "made a most remarkable discovery."

"I knew it," groaned the other. "I knew it was that. Well, let me tell you one thing, sir. If this infamous outrage has been perpetrated on me in order to make me keep silent about it—I still refuse utterly. You may detain me here in your power until after the meeting of the Society, but I shall give my discovery to the world all the same."

Mr Robinson gently stroked his side whiskers. "A most remarkable discovery," he repeated as if the other had not spoken. "I congratulate you upon it, Professor. And being a chemist in a small way myself, I am overcome with curiosity on the subject. I have therefore gone to no little inconvenience to bring you to a place where, undisturbed by mundane trifles, you will be able to impart your discovery to me, and at the same time manufacture diamonds to your heart's content. I should like you to make hundreds of diamonds during the period of your retirement; in fact, that will be your daily task...."

"You want me to make them?" said the bewildered man. "But that's the very thing Blantyre and those others didn't want me to do."

Mr Robinson stroked his whiskers even more caressingly. "How fortunate it is," he murmured, 'that we don't all think alike!"

"And if I refuse?" said the other.

Mr Robinson ceased stroking his whiskers. "You would be unwise, Professor Goodman—most unwise. I have methods of dealing with people who refuse to do what I tell them to do which have always succeeded up to date."

His eyes were suddenly merciless, and with a sick feeling of fear the Professor sat back in his chair.

"A dynamo has been installed," went on Mr Robinson after a moment or two. "Also the most modern type of electric furnace. Here I have the retort which you use in your process—" he placed it on the table beside him—"and all that now remains are the necessary chemicals. Your notes are a trifle difficult to follow, so you will have to prepare a list yourself of those chemicals and they will be obtained for you tomorrow."

He took the papers from his pocket and handed them to the Professor.

"Just one word of warning. Should anything go wrong with your process, should you pretend out of stupid obstinacy that you are unable to make diamonds—may God help you! If there is anything wrong with the apparatus, let me know, and it will be rectified. But don't, I beg of you, try any tricks."

He rose, and his voice became genial again.

"I am sure my warning is unnecessary," he said gently. "Now I will leave you to prepare the list of the salts you require."

"But these are the wrong notes," said Professor Goodman, staring at them dazedly. "These are my notes on peptonised proteins."

Mr Robinson stood very still.

"What do you mean?" he said at length. "Are those not the notes on your process of making diamonds?"

"Good gracious, no," said the Professor. "These have got nothing to do with it."

"Are the notes necessary?"

"Absolutely. Why, I can't even remember all the salts without them—let alone the proportions in which they are used."

"Do you know where they are?" The Professor passed his hand wearily across his forehead.

"Whom was I lunching with?" he murmured. "It was just before I went to meet Professor Scheidstrun, and I gave them to him to take care of. And by the way—what has happened to Scheidstrun? Surely it wasn't he who was killed."

"Don't worry about Scheidstrun," snarled Mr Robinson. "Whom were you lunching with, you damned old fool?"

"I know—I remember now. It was Captain Drummond. I lunched at his club. He's got them. Good God! why are you looking like that?" For perhaps the first time in his life every vestige of self-control had left the master- criminal's face and he looked like a wild beast.

"Drummond!" he shouted savagely. "Not Captain Hugh Drummond, who lives in Brook Street?"

"That's the man," said the Professor. "Such a nice fellow, though rather stupid. Do you know him by any chance?" How near Professor Goodman was to a violent death at that moment it is perhaps as well he did not know. In mild perplexity he watched the other man's face, diabolical with its expression of animal rage and fury, and wondered vaguely why the mention of Hugh Drummond's name should have produced such a result.

And it was a full minute before Mr Robinson had recovered himself sufficiently to sit down and continue the conversation. Drummond again—always Drummond. How, in the name of everything conceivable and inconceivable, had he got mixed up in this affair? All his carefully worked out and brilliantly executed plan frustrated and brought to nothing by one miserable fact which he could not possibly have foreseen, and which, even now, he could hardly believe.

"What induced you to give the notes to him?" he snarled at length.

"He said he didn't think it was safe for me to carry them about with me," said the other mildly. "You see, I had received a threatening letter in the morning—a letter threatening my life..." He blinked apologetically.

So it was Lewisham's letter that had done it, and the only ray of comfort in the situation lay in the fact that at any rate he'd killed Lewisham.

"Did you give him any special instructions?" he demanded.

"No—I don't think so," answered the Professor. "I think he said something about handing them over to the bank."

Mr Robinson rose and started to pace up and down the room. The blow was so staggering in its unexpectedness that his brain almost refused to work. That Drummond of all people should again have crossed his path was as far as his thoughts would go. The fact that Drummond was blissfully unaware that he had done so was beside the point; it seemed almost like the hand of Fate. And incredible though it may seem, for a short time he was conscious of a feeling of genuine superstitious fear.