Part 18 (1/2)

”Really, the unnecessary violence with which people take their own lives, or the lives of others, is amazing. They did it better in olden days in Italy and the East. No waste or anything--all scientifically measured.”

With a confident and satisfied smile Mr. Mappin, the celebrated surgeon, looked round the little group of which he was the centre at Glencader, Rudyard Byng's castle in Wales.

Rudyard blinked at him for a moment with ironical amus.e.m.e.nt, then remarked: ”When you want to die, does it matter much whether you kill yourself with a bludgeon or a pin, take gas from a tap or cyanide of pota.s.sium, jump in front of a railway train or use the revolting razor?

You are dead neither less nor more, and the shock to the world is the same. It's only the housemaid or the undertaker that notices any difference. I knew a man at Vleifontein who killed himself by jumping into the machinery of a mill. It gave a lot of trouble to all concerned. That was what he wanted--to end his own life and exasperate the foreman.”

”Rudyard, what a horrible tale!” exclaimed his wife, turning again to the surgeon, eagerly. ”It is most interesting, and I see what you mean.

It is, that if we only really knew, we could take our own lives or other people's with such ease and skill that it would be hard to detect it?”

The surgeon nodded. ”Exactly, Mrs. Byng. I don't say that the expert couldn't find what the cause of death was, if suspicion was aroused; but it could be managed so that 'heart failure' or some such silly verdict would be given, because there was no sign of violence, or of injury artificially inflicted.”

”It is fortunate the world doesn't know these ways to euthanasia,”

interposed Stafford. ”I fancy that murders would be more numerous than suicides, however. Suicide enthusiasts would still pursue their melodramatic indulgences--disfiguring themselves unnecessarily.”

Adrian Fellowes, the amiable, ever-present secretary and ”chamberlain”

of Rudyard's household, as Jasmine teasingly called him, whose handsome, unintellectual face had lighted with amus.e.m.e.nt at the conversation, now interposed. ”Couldn't you give us some idea how it can be done, this smooth pa.s.sage of the Styx?” he asked. ”We'll promise not to use it.”

The surgeon looked round the little group reflectively. His eyes pa.s.sed from Adrian to Jasmine, who stood beside him, to Byng, and to Ian Stafford, and stimulated by their interest, he gave a pleased smile of gratified vanity. He was young, and had only within the past three years got to the top of the tree at a bound, by a certain successful operation in royal circles.

Drawing out of his pocket a small case, he took from it a needle and held it up. ”Now that doesn't look very dangerous, does it?” he asked.

”Yet a firm pressure of its point could take a life, and there would be little possibility of finding how the ghastly trick was done except by the aroused expert.”

”If you will allow me,” he said, taking Jasmine's hand and poising the needle above her palm. ”Now, one tiny thrust of this steel point, which has been dipped in a certain acid, would kill Mrs. Byng as surely as though she had been shot through the heart. Yet it would leave scarcely the faintest sign. No blood, no wound, just a tiny pin-p.r.i.c.k, as it were; and who would be the wiser? Imagine an average coroner's jury and the average examination of the village doctor, who would die rather than expose his ignorance, and therefore gives 'heart failure' as the cause of death.”

Jasmine withdrew her hand with a shudder. ”Please, I don't like being so near the point,” she said.

”Woman-like,” interjected Byng ironically.

”How does it happen you carry this murdering asp about with you, Mr.

Mappin?” asked Stafford.

The surgeon smiled. ”For an experiment to-morrow. Don't start. I have a favorite collie which must die. I am testing the poison with the minimum. If it kills the dog it will kill two men.”

He was about to put the needle back into the case when Adrian Fellowes held out a hand for it. ”Let me look at it,” he said. Turning the needle over in his palm, he examined it carefully. ”So near and yet so far,” he remarked. ”There are a good many people who would pay a high price for the little risk and the dead certainty. You wouldn't, perhaps, tell us what the poison is, Mr. Mappin? We are all very reliable people here, who have no enemies, and who want to keep their friends alive. We should then be a little syndicate of five, holding a great secret, and saving numberless lives every day by not giving the thing away. We should all be ent.i.tled to monuments in Parliament Square.”

The surgeon restored the needle to the case. ”I think one monument will be sufficient,” he said. ”Immortality by syndicate is too modern, and this is an ancient art.” He tapped the case. ”Turkey and the Mongol lands have kept the old cult going. In England, it's only for the dog!”

He laughed freely but noiselessly at his own joke.

This talk had followed the news brought by Krool to the Baas, that the sub-manager of the great mine, whose chimneys could be seen from the hill behind the house, had thrown himself down the shaft and been smashed to a pulp. None of them except Byng had known him, and the dark news had brought no personal shock.

They had all gathered in the library, after paying an afternoon visit to Jigger, who had been brought down from London in a special carriage, and was housed near the servants' quarters with a nurse. On the night of Jigger's accident Ian Stafford on his way from Jasmine's house had caught Mr. Mappin, and the surgeon had operated at once, saving the lad's life. As it was necessary to move him in any case, it was almost as easy, and no more dangerous, to bring him to Glencader than to take him to a London hospital.

Under the surgeon's instructions Jasmine had arranged it all, and Jigger had travelled like royalty from Paddington into Wales, and there had captured the household, as he had captured Stafford at breakfast in St. James's Street.

Thinking that perhaps this was only a whim of Jasmine's, and merely done because it gave a new interest to a restless temperament, Stafford had at first rejected the proposal. When, however, the surgeon said that if the journey was successfully made, the after-results would be all to the good, Stafford had a.s.sented, and had allowed himself to be included in the house-party at Glencader.

It was a triumph for Jasmine, for otherwise Stafford would not have gone. Whether she would have insisted on Jigger going to Glencader if it had not meant that Ian would go also, it would be hard to say. Her motives were not unmixed, though there had been a real impulse to do all she could. In any case, she had lessened the distance between Ian and herself, and that gave her wilful mind a rather painful pleasure.

Also, the responsibility for Jigger's well-being, together with her duties as hostess, had prevented her from dwelling on that scene in the silent house at midnight which had shocked her so--her husband reeling up the staircase, singing a ribald song.