“We are certainly in agreement on that point,” said the other.
“We have fought in the past without the police; we’ll finish without them. And having made up my mind to that, it became necessary to think of some scheme by which the survivor should not suffer. If it’s you—well, you’ll get caught sooner or later; if it’s me, I certainly don’t propose to suffer in any way. Apart from having just bought weight-carrying hunters for next winter, it would be grossly unfair that I should.”
He selected a cigarette with care and lit it.
“It was you, Carl, who put the idea into my head,” he continued, “so much of the credit is really yours. Your notion of making my death appear accidental that night at Maybrick Hall struck me as excellent. Worthy undoubtedly of an encore. Your death, Carl—or mine—will appear accidental, which makes everything easy for the survivor. I hope I’m not boring you.”
“Get down to it,” snarled Blackton. “Don’t play the fool, damn you!”
“As you did, Carl, that night at Maybrick Hall.” For a moment the veins stood out on Drummond’s neck as the remembrance of that hideous scene came back to him; then he controlled himself and went on. “At first sight it may seem absurd—even fanciful—this scheme of mine; but don’t judge it hastily, I beg you. Know anything about glaciers, Carl?”
He smiled at the look of blank amazement on the other’s face.
“Jolly little things, my dear fellow, if you treat ’em the right way. But dangerous things to play tricks with. There are great cracks in them, you know—deep cracks with walls of solid ice. If a man falls down one of those cracks, unless help is forthcoming at once, he doesn’t live long, Carl; in fact, he dies astonishingly quickly.”
Blackton moistened his lips with his tongue.
“People fall down these cracks accidentally sometimes,” continued Drummond thoughtfully. “In fact there was a case once—I won’t vouch for its truth—but I’m sure you’d like to hear the story. It occurred on the glacier not far from Grindelwald—and it’s always tickled me to death. It appears that one of the local celebrities went out to pick edelweiss or feed the chamois or something equally jolly, and failed to return. He’d gone out alone, and after a time his pals began to get uneasy. So they instituted a search-party, and in due course they found him. Or rather they saw him. He had slipped on the edge of one of the deepest crevasses in the whole glacier, and there he was about fifty feet below them wedged between the two walls of ice. He was dead, of course—though they yodelled at him hopefully for the rest of the day. A poor story, isn’t it, Carl?—but it’s not quite finished. They decided to leave him there for the night, and return next day and extract him. Will you believe it, Mademoiselle, when they arrived the following morning, they couldn’t get at him. The old glacier had taken a heave forward in the night, and there he was wedged. Short of blasting him out with dynamite he was there for keeps. A terrible position for a self-respecting community, don’t you think? To have the leading citizen on full view in a block of ice gives visitors an impression of carelessness. Of course, they tried to keep it dark; but it was useless. People came flocking from all over the place. Scientists came and made mathematical calculations as to when he’d come out at the bottom. Every year he moved on a few more yards; every year his widow—a person now of some consequence—took her children to see father, and later on her grandchildren to see grandfather. Forty years was the official time—and I believe he passed the winning-post in forty-one years three months: a wonderful example of pertinacity and dogged endurance.” Drummond paused hopefully. “That’s a pretty original idea, Carl, don’t you think?”
Sir Raymond gave a short, almost hysterical laugh, but there was no sign of mirth on the faces of the other two.
“Am I to understand,” said Blackton harshly, “that you propose that one or other of us should fall down a crevasse in a glacier? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.”
“Don’t say that,” answered Drummond. “It’s no more ridiculous than braining me with a rifle-butt, as you intended to do once. And a great deal less messy. Anyway, that is my proposal. You and I, Carl, will go unarmed to a glacier. We will there find a suitably deep crevasse. And on the edge of that crevasse”—his voice changed suddenly—“we will fight for the last time, with our bare hands. It will be slippery, which is to your advantage, though the fact that I am stronger than you cannot be adjusted at this late hour. It’s that—or the police, Peterson: one gives you a chance, the other gives you none. And if, as I hope, you lose—why, think of your triumph. The leading detectives of four continents will be dancing with rage on the top of the ice watching you safely embalmed underneath their feet.”
“I refuse utterly,” snarled the other. “It’s murder—nothing more nor less.”
“A form of amusement you should be used to,” said Drummond. “However, you refuse. Very good. I will now send for the police.”
He rose and went to the door, and Blackton looked round desperately.
“Wait,” he cried. “Can’t we—can’t we come to some arrangement?”
“None. Those are my terms. And there is one other that I have not mentioned. You said that two copies of the Professor’s notes were excessive. I agree—but I go farther: one is too much; that process is altogether too dangerous. If the police take you—it doesn’t matter; but if you accept my terms, you’ve got to hand that copy over to me now. And I shall
