"Scotch," he said. "I always drink Scotch myself."
"Who are you?" Dr. Cooper managed to say. "What do you want?"
"All in good time, doctor," replied Rivers. "It's no good commencing in the middle of the game. You haven't the pleasure of my acquaintance yet, but you know this gentleman."
"I have seen him once before," said Dr. Cooper, with a troubled glance at me.
"And I am positive you must have enjoyed his society. He proves that he enjoyed yours by his anxiety to renew the intimacy. He is a private gentleman, I am a private detective, and we have come a long way to see you. But you will catch cold standing there with only your shirt on. Will you get into your clothes or into bed before we have our chat. You would like to dress? You shall. Softly, softly. I will hand you your clothes, taking the precaution to empty your pockets first."
"Steady does it, doctor. If you talk of rights we shall talk of wrongs. That's a sensible man. On go the trousers, on goes the waistcoat, on goes the coat, and we're ready for business. Now, how shall it be? Friends or foes? You don't answer. Very good. We'll give you time. Take a chair, and make yourself comfortable. No, doctor, no; don't take your whisky neat; as an experienced toper myself I insist upon putting a little water into it. And we'll pour half the spirit back into the bottle. Moderation and economy--that's the order of the day. You can't make up your mind to speak. Very well; we'll see if we can loosen your tongue. _I_ intend to make a clean breast of it, and you may feel disposed presently to follow a good example. Give me your best attention, I am going to open the case, and if I make mistakes I'm open to correction. Some few years ago there lived in the north of London a gentleman--we'll be polite, if nothing else--a gentleman and his stepdaughter, name of the gentleman Nisbet, name of the stepdaughter Beatrice. The house they inhabited was in Lamb's Terrace, and a gentleman of means could not have selected a more desolate locality to reside in. Miss Beatrice's mother was dead, and in her will she appointed her second husband--she couldn't very well appoint her first, doctor--guardian to her child, with a handsome provision for the maintenance and education of the young lady. The bulk of her fortune she left to her daughter, who was to come into possession of it when she was of age. It was a large fortune, some fifty or sixty thousand pounds, I believe, and I wish such a bit of luck had fallen to my share, but we can't all be born with silver spoons in our mouths, can we, doctor? That this fortune should have been left to the lady instead of the gentleman annoyed and angered him, and he determined to have the fingering of it. Now, how could that be managed? There was only one way, according to his thinking, and that was, to get rid of the lady, because it was set down in the will that, in the event of the young lady's death before she came of age, the money should revert to him. He laid his plans artfully, but there was a flaw in them, as you will presently confess. I don't pretend to understand how it was that he set about compassing his desire in the crooked way he did. Perhaps he found the young lady hard to manage; because he had some sort of sneaking feeling for her, perhaps he thought it would not be half so bad if he got rid of someone else in her place; and so contrived that it should be believed it was his own stepdaughter who was dead, instead of a poor, friendless young girl of her own age and build."