I buried the two things under two bricks, and I pushed the handkerchief into a crack in the wall behind me. And then I think I must have slept—for the next thing I remember was the door of the cellar opening and men coming in carrying another in their arms. They pitched him down in a corner, and I saw he was dead. Then I looked closer, and I saw it was the man I had fought with at the telephone.
But how had he died? Why did his eyes stare so horribly? Why was he so rigid?
It was Helias who told me—he had followed the other two in.
“Well, Mr. Pacifist,” he remarked, “do you like the effects of your poison? That man died of it.”
Until my reason snaps, which can’t be long now, I shall never forget the horror of that moment. It was the first time I had seen the result of my handiwork on a human being. Since then, God help me, I have seen it often—but that first time, in the dim light of the cellar, is the one that haunts me.
For a while I could think of nothing else: those eyes seemed to curse me. I think I screamed at them to turn his head away. I know that Helias came over and kicked me in the ribs.
“Shut that noise, damn you,” he snarled. “We’ve got quite enough to worry us as it is without your help. I’ll gag you if you make another sound.”
Then he turned to the other two.
“That fool has brought the police into the next house,” he raved, and wild hope sprang up in my mind. “That means we must get these two out of it tonight. Get his clothes.”
One of the men went out, to come back almost at once with a suit of mine.
“Look here, Helias,” he said, “if we’re to keep him alive we’d better handle him gently. He’s lost about two buckets of blood.”
“Handle him how you like,” returned Helias, “but he’s got to be out of this in an hour.”
And so they took off my evening clothes and put on the others. Then one of them put a rough bandage on my head and face, and here and now I would say—if ever that vile gang be caught—that I hope mercy will be shown him. I don’t know his name, and I have never seen him since, but he is the only one who has treated me with even a trace of kindness since I fell into their clutches.
I think I must have become unconscious again: certainly I have no coherent recollection of anything for the next few hours. Dimly I remember being put into a big motorcar, seeing fields and houses flash past. But where I was taken to I have no idea. Beyond the fact that it was somewhere in the country and that there were big trees around the house I can give no description of the place in which I was kept a prisoner for the next few weeks.
Little by little I recovered my strength, and the ghastly wound on my face healed up. But I was never allowed out of doors, and when I asked any question, no answer was given. The window was barred on the outside: escape was impossible even had I possessed the necessary strength.
But one night, when I was feeling desperate, I determined to chance things. I flashed my electric light on and off, hoping possibly to attract the attention of some passerby. And two minutes later Helias came into the room. I had not seen him since the night in the cellar, and at first I did not recognise him, for he had shaved his face clean.
“You would, would you?” he said softly. “Signalling! How foolish. Because anyway no one could see. But you obviously need a lesson.”
He called to another man, and between them they slung me up to a hook in the wall by my feet, so that I hung head downwards. And after a while the pressure of blood on the partially healed wound on my face became so terrible that I thought my head would burst.
“Don’t be so stupid another time,” he remarked as they cut me down. “If you do I’ll have your window boarded up.”
They left me, and in my weakness I sobbed like a child. Had I had any, I would have killed myself then and there with my own poison. But I hadn’t, and they took care to see that I had no weapon which could take its place. I wasn’t allowed to shave: I wasn’t even allowed a steel knife with my meals.
The days dragged on into weeks, and weeks into months, and still nothing happened. And I grew more and more mystified as to what it was all about. Remember that then I had seen no papers, and knew nothing. I wasn’t even sure that David Ganton was dead. Why did they bother to keep me alive? was the question I asked myself again and again. They had the secret: at least I assumed they must have, for the paper on which I had written the formula of the poison was no longer in my possession. So what use could I be to them?
And then one day—I’d almost lost count of time, but I should say it was about the 10th of June—the door of my room opened
