"Sir," said one of the footmen, very respectfully, to Mr. E. H. Merriwether, "will you kindly take off your coat and waistcoat, preliminary to the removal of your trousers?"
Mr. E. H. Merriwether tried to smile, but desisted when he saw that the men's faces had taken on a grim look--as if they knew that after the whipping it would be a fight to the death. They somehow conveyed an impression that, though they would not stop at murder, they nevertheless appreciated the gravity of the offense.
"We know," said the master, solemnly, "that for every blister we raise you will gladly spend a million to clap us into jail. Do you really wish to be spanked and to hate us for it for the rest of your life?"
"The alternative is the million--or death."
"You can't kill me and get away with it."
"Oh yes--even easier than kidnapping. I'll show you how we'll do it." He rose and took from one of the drawers of the table a small, morocco-covered medicine-case, opened it, and showed Mr. Merri-wether a lot of small tubes tightly stoppered. "Cultures!" explained the man--"typhoid; bubonic plague; anthrax; _Bacillus mallei_--that's glanders--meningitis; Asiatic cholera; and others. This, for instance--number thirteen--is the virus of tetanus. Inoculation with an ordinary culture would take days; but with this virus it will take hours. What a wonderful thing science is! You know what tetanus is?"
"Yes," answered Mr. Merriwether, calmly, "lockjaw."
"Exactly! Well, this will lock your jaws, and all your millions won't be able to pry them open for you, and all the antitoxin injections won't help you. You will have your consciousness almost to the last--and you will not make yourself understood. The _risus sardonicus_, which is a most unpleasant sort of grin resulting from your inability to smile naturally, will linger in the memory of Tom to his death. You really ought to have a moving-picture film of your last hours taken as a warning to those stupid millionaires whose plunder we would recover. And, of course, I have here seven poisons, of which prussic acid is the mildest and slowest. Will you please assume the fact of your death?"
"I'll do that much to please you," said Mr. Mer-riwether. He still believed that murder would not be profitable to these men and hence did not believe they would go that far.