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 entitled 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 assented, and had allowed himself to be included in the house-party at Glencader.