"Are you a Christian?" came the reply.
"I hope so. Why?"
"Do you call this Christian conduct, to imprison me here with this
infernal block of fire? I tell you, man, it's poisoning me. It's choking
me. It's getting to my brain. If you are a Christian, come down and let
me out."
"None of that hysterical sort of talk, Smithers," said the Professor
sternly. "It's no good appealing for mercy. You are a thief, and you've
got to be punished. Pull yourself together, and show what you are made
of. You don't know what a lot of good your sufferings may do to
humanity. I shall publish a full account of them in the _British Medical
Journal_, and I am sure your family will be proud of you when they read
it."
"I haven't got a family, and if I had they shouldn't read your
jibberings. I tell you that if you don't let me out I shall do something
desperate!"
"You can't," said the Professor. "There's nothing in the room except the
radium and the telephone. If you knock the radium about you'll only make
things worse for yourself, and if you damage the telephone you cut off
your only link with the outside world. Be a man, Smithers. You've read
of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The sufferings of the prisoners there
were far worse than yours."
"You are a scientific vampire--a howling chemical bounder!" came the
response.
"Tut, tut!" said the Professor serenely. "Do try and be calm. Take a
stroll round. You might put the thermometer under your tongue again, and
let me have the record. Nothing like filling your leisure moments with
useful occupation."
"Poor beggar!" he said to himself. "He's just beginning to realise
things. Five centigrammes of radium chloride killed eight mice in three
days; how long will it take an ounce of radium bromide to render a
strong man insensible? That's the problem in rule of three, and it's
high time that someone worked out the answer.
"Well?" in reply to the bell.
"Temperature, 102; pulse, 100. Look here, Blyth, I'm going dotty. If you
won't have pity on me as a Christian, I appeal to you as a family man.
Your people wouldn't like to hear of this, I'm sure."
"Pulse 100," repeated the Professor. "Jerky, I suppose?"
"Did you hear my appeal to you as a family man?"
"Now, Smithers, you agreed to help me with my scientific observations,
and I wish you'd keep to the letter of the agreement. Is your pulse
jerky?"
"It is, and my hands are fairly itching to close round your throat, and
my toes would like to kick you into eternity. Blyth, if I die, I'll
haunt you and your family to the fifth generation. If you don't end up
in a madhouse it won't be my fault. You scoundrel! You contemptible----"
Again the Professor hung up the receiver. "Strange," he soliloquised,
"how mentally unbalanced these common men are! I can't imagine myself
giving way to such ravings, whatever situation I was in. That's the
advantage of birth and education. Yet, judging from the way in which
Smithers expresses himself, he must be a man of very fair education.
It's birth alone that tells in the long run," and the Professor stroked
his stubble chin complacently.
The minutes passed. "He ought to be feeling it now. I'll ring him up."
The Professor did so, but there was no reply. "He can't have collapsed
already--a horse-soldier of thirty-five." Once more he rang. This time
there was a slow response.
"Why didn't you come before?" said the Professor irately.
"I'm not your servant. I was thinking how I'd like to chop you into
mincemeat, Blyth, and scatter you to the crows. My head's
splitting--splitting, do you hear? I shall go dotty, looking at this
infernal heap of fire. Those moving specks of light behind are all
alive, Blyth. They're grinning at me. They're choking me. And there you
sit like a scientific panjandrum with a little round button on top. And
you call yourself a Christian and a respectable family man. You are a
disgrace to your country. Come down and let me out. Send for the police.
I don't care."
"Smithers," said the Professor, "I'm ashamed of you. A horse soldier
going on like a nurserymaid! I shall not send for the police. You agreed
to this experiment, and you've got to see it through. Please remember
that. How's your pulse?"
"Blyth, it's 120! It's ticking like a clock. I believe it's going to
strike."
"Keep cool, Smithers. Have your hands a bluish tinge?"
"They seem to be green."
"Green? Preposterous!"
"They may be blue really. I'm colour blind."
"Colour blind, Smithers, and a soldier? I'm surprised at you. I suspect
they're only dirty. Do you feel a tingling at the finger tips?"
"Yes, and at my toe-tips too."
"Excellent! And your temperature?"
"One hundred and three. Man, I'm in a fever. I can't breathe. My head's
on fire."
"You've only been in there an hour and a quarter. You're just beginning
to get acclimatised, Smithers," said Professor Blyth callously, as he
hung up the receiver.
"I wish Cantrip were here," he soliloquised. "'Deoxygenation of the
blood corpuscles, followed by coma.' Bah! Radium acts on the nerve
centres, and will ultimately produce paralysis. Cantrip is an ass. I
always told him so."
The bell rang. "Blyth," said the prisoner, "listen to me. If you don't
let me out, I'll swallow the radium. It can't make me feel worse, and it
may finish me off quicker."
"Nonsense, Smithers, don't talk like a fool. It would only add to
any--er--inconvenience you are now experiencing."
"I don't care what it would do. I----"
The Professor cut him off impatiently. "I'm disappointed in John
Smithers," he thought. "He has no stamina. A man of low birth,
evidently. A mere mountain of muscle. I know the species."
For a while he paced the room. Then he rang the bell, but this time
there was no coherent response. The gasps sounded like, "Sit on her
head, Blyth--keep her down, man. Whoa, mare!--mind that fencing--snow
again--what ho! she bumps--all down the road and round the corner----"
"For heaven's sake, keep cool, Smithers," cried the Professor. "I want
some more observations. Don't lose your head yet. You've all the night
in front of you."
"Squadron, right wheel! Draw swords! Charge! Down with 'em! Boers, Japs,
and Russians. Get home, lads! Give it 'em hot! Hurrah! I've killed a
sergeant-major." Then indistinct mumbling and cackling laughter came
through the telephone.
The Professor was disturbed. The end had come sooner than he had
expected, for John Smithers had only been there an hour and a half, and
he had calculated on a much longer time. But the symptoms were, on the
whole, what he had expected. Green hands, though. What if the
extremities were blue after all, and Cantrip right?
He rang the bell. There was no response. Once more, and yet again. Still
there was silence.
The Professor hung up the receiver gloomily. "I'm afraid I shall have to
go to him. He's unconscious, and continued exposure might be serious."
He went down the corridor, pulled back the bolts, and opened the door.
The room was in absolute darkness. The Professor was intensely
surprised. "What on earth has he done with the radium?" he thought.
"Good heavens! Surely he hasn't really swallowed it!"
He stepped carefully across the threshold towards the electric pendant
in the centre of the room. He started. The door had closed behind him
with a loud click. He switched on the light, and peered round the floor
for John Smithers. He was alone. Neither Smithers nor the radium was
there!
At that moment the telephone rang.
"Are you there?" came a voice.
"Is that you, Smithers?" said the Professor, in blank amazement.
"It is, Blyth. How's your temperature? You'll find the thermometer on
the telephone where you left it."
"You scoundrel! You consummate scoundrel! How did you get out?"
"For goodness' sake, Blyth, keep cool."
"If you don't release me immediately I'll hand you over to the police."
"You can't get 'em, old man. You can only talk to me."
"What have you done with the radium?"
"Got it here, Blyth; and I'm taking ever such a lot of care of it. I
read all about it before I came, and I know just what it fancies. I
brought a nice quarter-inch thick lead case, with a smaller one fixed
inside, and the half-inch of intervening space made up with quicksilver.
I've had the radium in the inner case most of the time, and it's as
quiet as a lamb, nicely bottled up with its rays. In fact, I think it's
gone to sleep. I've had quite a cheerful time with you to talk to,
Blyth. You don't know how amusing you've been."
"Smithers," stuttered the Professor, "you are an insolent fellow as well
as a consummate scoundrel."
"Tut, tut, Blyth! Do keep cool. Think how humanity will benefit from
your present inconvenience. I'll look out for your article in the
_British Medical Journal_, and I won't contradict it, though my pulse
never went above seventy-three nor my temperature over ninety-nine, and
wouldn't have done that if I'd bottled the radium at once instead of
stopping to chatter with you. But you really ought to have kept a
smarter look-out as you went in. I nearly brushed against you as I
closed the door behind me. Well, bye-bye, old man, and many thanks for
the radium. It will help my pension out nicely. I'll leave the receiver
off the telephone, so that you don't disturb your family. I wouldn't
worry, Blyth. Think of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and be a man!"
[Illustration: "'I NEARLY BRUSHED AGAINST YOU.'"
(_p. 108._)]
Before Anstruther had reached the laboratory the Professor was hammering
on the wall, and shouting at the top of his voice. The Major hurried
through the window, climbed the garden wall, and had found his bicycle
before the prisoner was released. By the time that the police were
informed, he was well on his way to town.
And that is how Major Everett Anstruther was able to renew his
subscription to the Burglars' Club.