There was an elated smirk on his face, and The Phantom turned away in disgust.
"I came to America," continued the doctor in oily tones, "and by mere chance made the acquaintance of our remarkable Mr. Shei. I shall not weary you by reciting all the details. I happened to mention my discovery to Mr. Shei, and his brilliant mind immediately conceived the idea of putting it to a highly profitable use. Like all great things, his plan was simplicity itself. His theory was based on the fact, so aptly stated by yourself last night, that the average run of mortals can be most effectively controlled through the factor of fear. He suggested that if a deadly malady were communicated to a number of wealthy men, they could easily be persuaded to pay almost any price for a sure antidote, especially if the antidote were the exclusive property of an individual or an organization.
"That was the beginning of the idea. It required quite a little elaboration. The chief factors in the plan were the poison and the antidote. The antidote was in readiness, but the poison had to be so adjusted that it would produce death within a specified time unless the antidote were administered meanwhile. If the plan was to succeed, we must be in a position to tell the subjects that they would die within a certain number of days unless they paid our price for the antidote. You probably know, since you appear to be an educated man, that the ancient Chinese knew how to adjust poisons so as to produce death within a certain time. All my life I have been making special studies along that line, and my discoveries proved very valuable in connection with Mr. Shei's project. Yet, for a long time, I was unable to adjust the poison with sufficient accuracy. With Mr. Shei's assistance I fitted up a laboratory here and began making additional researches. It was necessary to have human subjects for the experiments, and Mr. Shei furnished me several. Two or three, who were inoculated in the early stages of the work, failed to react properly to the antidote, and one or two of them were unfortunate enough to die."
"You murdered them, in plain words," suggested The Phantom curtly.
"Harsh word, my dear Gray Phantom. As a whole, the experiments were highly successful. I discovered how to adjust the poison so as to produce death within a specified time. We were now ready to go ahead with the plan. Mr. Shei selected the victims, and I showed a number of his most trusted men how the poison was to be injected. Each of these, with an assistant, was assigned to one of the seven victims chosen by Mr. Shei, and the whole number of inoculations were successfully accomplished the other night. In a few days----"