“Sit down, Professor,” he said gently. “I feel that I owe you some explanation.”
With a groan the other sank back into his chair.
“Will you have a cigar?” went on Mr. Robinson easily, holding out his case. “You don’t smoke? You should. Most soothing to the nerves. In the first place I must apologise for not having made things clearer to you before, but this slight contretemps with Drummond has kept me rather fully occupied. Now I want you to recall to your mind the interviews that you had with Sir Raymond Blantyre.”
“I recall them perfectly,” answered the Professor, and Mr. Robinson noted with quiet satisfaction that he seemed to be less agitated.
“He offered you, did he not? a large sum of money for the suppression of your secret, which you refused—and very rightly refused. But, my dear Professor, do you really imagine for a moment that an unscrupulous blackguard of his type was going to lie down and accept your refusal? If you chose to refuse the money, so much the better for him; but whether you refused or accepted, he intended to suppress you. And but for me”—he paused impressively—“he would have done.”
Professor Goodman passed a bewildered hand across his forehead.
“But for me,” repeated Mr. Robinson, “you would now be dead—foully murdered. You have never in your life—and I trust you never will again—been in such deadly peril as you were in a few days ago. Indeed, if it were known now that you were alive, I fear that even I would be powerless to save you.”
He drew carefully at his cigar; then he leaned forward and touched the Professor on the knee.
“Have you ever heard of a man called Peterson?”
“Never,” returned the other.
“No—probably not. You and he hardly move in the same circles. Peterson, of course, is only one of the many names by which that arch-devil is known. He is a King of Criminals—a man without mercy—a black-hearted villain.” Mr. Robinson’s voice shook with the intensity of his emotion. “And to that man Sir Raymond Blantyre went with a certain proposal. Do you know what that proposal was? It concerned you and your death. You were to be murdered before you gave your secret to the world.”
“The villain!” cried Professor Goodman, in a shaking voice. “To think that I’ve had him to dinner, and that his wife is a friend of ours.”
Mr. Robinson smiled pityingly.
“My dear Professor,” he said, “I’m afraid that your life has been lived far apart from the realities of the world. Do you really suppose that such a trifle as that would have weighed for one instant with Sir Raymond Blantyre? However, I will get on with my explanation. It matters not how I discovered these things: I will merely say that for twenty years now I have dogged this man Peterson as his shadow. He did me the greatest wrong one man can do another: I won’t say any more.”
Mr. Robinson choked slightly.
“I have dogged him, Professor,” he went on after a while, “as I say, for twenty years, hoping—always hoping—that the time would come for my revenge. I have lived for nothing else; I have thought of nothing else. But one thing I was determined on—that my revenge when it did come should be a worthy one. A dozen times could I have given him away to the police, but I stayed my hand. When it came, I wanted the thing to be more personal. And at last the opportunity did come. It came with you.”
“With me?” echoed Professor Goodman. “How can I have had anything to do with your revenge on this man?”
“That is what I am just going to explain to you,” continued Mr. Robinson. “In this man Peterson, Sir Raymond Blantyre had encountered a blackguard far more subtle than himself. Peterson was perfectly prepared to murder you—but he had no intention of murdering the secret of your process. That he proposed to keep for himself—so that he could continue blackmailing Sir Raymond. You see the manner of blackguard he is. It was a scheme after his own heart, and I made up my mind to strike at last. Apart from frustrating the monstrous crime of murdering you, I should achieve an artistic revenge.”
He again pulled thoughtfully at his cigar.
“Now pay close attention, Professor. Scheidstrun the German scientist made an appointment to see you, didn’t he?”
“He was with me when I was chloroformed,” cried the other.
Mr. Robinson smiled.
“No, he wasn’t. A man you thought was Scheidstrun was with you.”
“But—good heavens!” gasped the Professor. “I met him in the hall. I was late, I remember …”
“And, as you say, you met him in the hall talking to your maidservant.”
“But how on earth did you know that?”
“Because the man you met in the hall was not Scheidstrun—but me.” He laughed genially at the amazement on the other’s face. “It’s a shame to keep you mystified any further; I will explain everything. It was Peterson who made the original appointment with you, writing in Scheidstrun’s hand. What he intended to do I know not; how he intended to murder you I am not prepared to say. But the instant I discovered about it, I realised that there was not a moment to be lost. So I took the liberty, my dear Professor, of posing over the telephone as your secretary. I rang up Peterson, and speaking in an assumed voice I postponed his appointment with you until the following day. And then I took his place.
