Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/43

Rh two small bottles of chloroform from different hemists. At a draper's I bought three yards of thick, strong cloth, a packet of large needles and some black thread. At an ironmonger's I bought ten yards of strong copper wire. Then I returned to the Temple, and set about the painful construction of my invention. I am no mechanic.

First of all, I made a noose of twisted wire large enough to slip easily over the normal human head. Then I made a bag of the cloth about two feet deep and sewed it on round the noose. I am no seamstress; so I sewed it on very firmly. Then I sewed a strip of the cloth round the noose inside the bag, so that the wire could not bruise the neck of the person whose head was in the bag. Then I worked and worked the noose until I could draw it tight very easily.

I had just finished, and was regarding my contrivance with a modest but not ill-founded pride, for, as I say, I have no natural mechanical genius, when I heard Chelubai's knock at my door.

I let him in, and, sitting down in an easy chair, he lighted a cigarette and lay back with the air of a man who has done a good day's work.

"Did you work it?" I said.

"I worked it. I have arranged our first operation. But I tell you that it will be a peculiarly sunless day on which Honest John Driver gets left. The idea of removing a financial accomplice