World’s End

Marese was a man of science; and he was a typical man of science⁠—hard, clear, bright, pitiless as the dissecting knife. Unfortunately, he applied his knowledge and his undoubted ability to the worst of uses. One pursuit to which he had devoted special effort, and over which he had spent many thoughtful hours, was the problem how to dispose of a dead human body. There was an old superstitious saying that the earth will not hide blood⁠—it will out. Theodore was of a different opinion. Science had conquered everything: science could conquer this. Yet it certainly was a difficult task. Did you ever contemplate the difficulty? Suppose you slay your enemy⁠—slay him secretly, effectually: now, what next? Try to bury it: the loose earth speaks for itself. Exhalations will rise. Quicklime it, and hasten its decomposition: there will remain, perhaps, only a brass button, or some coin left in the pocket. Throw it into the water: it will rise to the surface. Burn it, and all the city will know from the odour. The more you think over it, the more difficult it will appear. But Theodore had found the solution.

In that laboratory of his which Fulk wished to explore, and which was a harmless-looking room⁠—without so much as a phial or a microscope in view, there was at one corner, not very far from the fireplace, a long upright cupboard, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Or, rather, the cupboard rose about halfway, and a bookcase reached the remainder. It was a shallow cupboard. There were no locks to the doors. Anyone could pull them open, and see a few trifles within⁠—such trifles as might be found in any bachelor’s room. The bookcase was also shallow, but there was depth enough back for some rows of books. The books were harmless enough⁠—mostly medical works, just such works as anyone can purchase who cares to. Nothing certainly here to excite suspicion. Yet behind that cupboard and bookcase was concealed the most deadly, insidious, awful engine ever constructed by man⁠—an engine about which no secrecy exists either, and which living men have seen in operation; which has been described in the papers; and which the legislature must put down, or strictly regulate.

Upon removing one of the books, Theodore had merely to push aside a small brass plate, which looked like part of a hinge, and there was a keyhole; turn the key, and the whole cupboard swung bodily out into the room. It was, in fact, a blind, placed in front of a narrow inner door, which rose to the ceiling. When the door was open, there stood revealed an iron box, not unlike an extremely long coffin, placed on end. There was a keyhole⁠—two keyholes⁠—to this iron box. Open the first, and there was a large cavity, tall enough for a man to sit on a bar which went across it, without his head touching the iron roof. In this iron roof there was an opening, not unlike a small grating. Put the key in the second keyhole, above the first, and there was the apparatus, greatly improved by Theodore, but in substance the same as used in other places⁠—the apparatus for absorbing the smell of the gases which arise from a human body when consumed by heat. Everyone knows that if the smoke of a pipe be passed through water in a peculiar way, it loses its pungency, and you can inhale it with more comfort: this is the hookah. Everybody also knows that manufacturers in great towns are compelled to consume their own smoke, and all have seen a lump of loaf sugar suck up a spoonful of tea. A combination of these principles formed Theodore’s deadly engine, which was nothing more or less than a private cremation stove. The ordinary fire in the harmless-looking fireplace produced sufficient heat, when a draught was caused by turning a winch with a multiplying wheel placed at the lower part of the cupboard, just beneath the cavity which was to receive the body. This body, made thoroughly insensible and unconscious by being saturated with chloroform or strong drugs⁠—or, if you like, still more insensible with a trifle of arsenic⁠—had merely to be lifted into its iron coffin, the door closed, the blast applied, and in a couple of hours or so there would remain a little heap of ashes, and a little melted metal, brass buttons, coins, and suchlike, things easily dropped into a canal, dust easily mixed with the ashes under the grate. Now, where was all that superstitious nonsense about the difficulty of getting rid of a dead body?

Whether Theodore had ever used this awful engine was never known; but it existed, and it may exist at this present hour in other equally unsuspected places. What I say is, that the legislature should take cremation in hand. If anyone had been shut up in that iron box alive⁠—only stupefied for a few minutes with a drug, put in asleep; if they had been awakened by the red-hot iron, of what use would their screams have been⁠—deadened by the confinement, deadened by thick walls?

“I am extremely sorry,” said Theodore Marese, meeting Violet at the railway station, and handing her to a carriage; “I regret very much that Mr. Malet could not come. He has, in fact, gone upon a special mission. A gentleman in the Isle of Man, who owed us a large sum, died suddenly; his affairs are in confusion, and Mr. Malet was obliged to start this afternoon to see to our debt. I am the bearer of his regrets. At all events, he will not be absent more than a week.”

Violet was naturally much disappointed, but after all, it was only a week or ten days, and they treated her with great courtesy at the residence at the asylum. A matron was always ready to afford her companionship; no intrusion was made upon her privacy. Theodore occasionally called upon her in the most respectful way. Books,