Page:The Death-Doctor.djvu/341

Rh Now I had decided some time since to use, if I used anything at all for a deadly purpose, bacteria called the diplococcus lanceolatus, which I have mentioned to you once before—a germ which in the lung causes pneumonia, but which, curiously enough, if it takes its habitat in some other portion of the body, sets up a totally different set of symptoms, such as inflammation of the brain, or of a joint, the main point being that the result is almost invariably fatal, and quite beyond the possibility of discovery by ordinary methods.

If I had three minutes with Mr. Manne-Martyn on the following afternoon I could, assisted by my faithful hypodermic, put into his circulation a sufficient amount of this germ-infection to, with the smallest pinch of luck, assist him rapidly to leave a world which he certainly did not adorn.

It was impossible to say where he would be attacked. Time alone would show. But I had to depend upon Rita to create a diversion, to remove for a sufficiently long time the sourvisaged Martha. This was the weak point of the plan of campaign.

Would my fellow-conspirator be successful?

"What will you do?" I had inquired of her.

"Leave it to me; I will manage it," was