“Take him to his room, and see that he doesn’t escape again. He’s mad, but for how long he’ll remain so I can’t tell. If you see the faintest sign of his recovering his reason, come and tell me at once.”
He watched them pick up Drummond and carry him out. They took him into the next room and threw him on the bed, and Mr. Robinson followed. For a moment or two he moved restlessly on the pillows—then he gave a strangled grunt and a snore.
“He’s asleep, Chief,” said one of the men, bending over him.
“Good,” answered Mr. Robinson. “Let us trust he remains so for some time.”
Then with a look of cold determination on his face he returned to the room where Professor Goodman still sat huddled in his chair.
IX
In Which Professor Goodman Has a Trying Time
“And now, dear brother,” he remarked, gently closing the door, “we will resume our little discussion where we left off. I was, if you remember just about to ask you to sample the temperature of the furnace at 2,000° when the interruption occurred. Is it necessary that I should repeat that request, or was your experience at the lower temperature sufficient for you?”
Professor Goodman raised his haggard face and stared at his tormentor.
“What have you done to that poor young man, you devil?”
Mr. Robinson smiled and stroked his whiskers.
“Well, really,” he answered mildly, “I think the boot is on the other leg. The question is more what has he done to my unfortunate staff? Poor Mr. Freyder I feel almost certain must be in great pain with his face, judging by the noise he made, and two of my other servants have very nasty burns.”
“I know all that,” said the other. “But what has sent him insane?”
Mr. Robinson smiled even more gently.
“As a scientist, dear brother, you should know the tiny dividing line between sanity and madness. One little link wrong in that marvellous mechanism of the brain, and the greatest thinker becomes but a babbling fool. Not that his best friends could ever have called poor Drummond a great thinker, but”—he paused to emphasise his words—“but, dear brother, he serves as a very good example of what might happen to one who is a great thinker.”
Professor Goodman shivered; there had been no need to emphasise the meaning underlying the words.
“You see,” continued Mr. Robinson, “Drummond very foolishly and very unfortunately for himself has again crossed my path. This time, as a matter of fact, it was by pure accident. Had you not lunched with him on the day of your death and given him the notes of your process, you may take it from me that this little interlude would never have occurred. But you did—and, well, you see what has happened to Drummond. The silly young fellow is quite mad.”
“You have done something to him to make him so,” said the other dully.
“Of course,” agreed Mr. Robinson. “Or to be strictly accurate, Freyder has.”
And suddenly Professor Goodman rose to his feet with a pitiful little cry.
“Oh! my God! I don’t understand. I think I’m going mad myself.”
For a moment or two Mr. Robinson looked at him narrowly. If such an appalling eventuality as that happened, the whole of his scheme would be frustrated. True, it was a common figure of speech, but Professor Goodman was a frail old man, accustomed to a sedentary life. And during the past two or three days his life had been far from sedentary. Supposing under the strain the old man’s reason did snap. … Mr. Robinson drew a deep breath: the mere thought of such a thing was too impossible to contemplate.
But it had to be contemplated, and it had to be taken into account in his immediate course of action. Whatever happened, Professor Goodman’s intellect must be preserved at all costs. Even a nervous breakdown would constitute a well-nigh insuperable obstacle to his plans. And in spite of the seriousness of the position, Mr. Robinson could hardly help smiling at the irony of the thing.
Here was he with the greatest prize of his career waiting to be picked up—almost, but not quite, within his grasp. All the difficult practical details, all that part of his scheme concerned solely with organisation, had gone without a hitch. And now he was confronted by something far smaller in comparison, and yet almost as important as all the rest put together—the state of the mind of an elderly scientist. It was a problem in psychology which in the whole of his career he had never had to face under exactly similar conditions.
There had been occasions when men’s reasons had snapped under the somewhat drastic treatment with which Mr. Robinson was wont to enforce his wishes. But on all those occasions a remarkable aptitude with the pen had enabled him to dispense with the formality of their signature. This time, however, his wonderful gifts as a forger were wasted. Knowledge of ancient cuneiform writing might have been of some use in enabling him to decipher the notes, he reflected grimly—but as it was they were hopelessly and utterly unintelligible. Only Professor Goodman could do it, and that was the problem which had just come home to him more acutely than ever. What was the best line to adopt with the old man? How far would it be safe to go in a policy of threats and force? Or would apparent kindness do the trick better and quicker? Especially quicker—that was the important thing. It was a ticklish point to decide; but it was essential that it should be decided, and at once.
He glanced at the haggard, staring eyes of the man confronting him; he noted
