No programme could have outlined more admirably Mr. Twist's own desires. The mere contemplation of it heartened him. He snatched his glass from the table and drained it with a gesture almost swash-buckling. "Soapy will have doped the old man by this time, eh?" "That's right." "But suppose he hasn't been able to?" said Mr. Twist with a return of his old nervousness. "Suppose he hasn't had an opportunity?" "You can always find an opportunity of doping people. You ought to know that." The implied compliment pleased Chimp. "That's right," he chuckled. He nodded his head complacently. And immediately something which may have been an iron girder or possibly the ceiling and the upper parts of the house seemed to strike him on the base of the skull. He had been standing by the table, and now, crumpling at the knees, he slid gently down to the floor. Dolly, regarding him, recognized instantly what he had meant just now when he had spoken of John appearing like a total loss to his life-insurance company. The best you could have said of Alexander Twist at this moment was that he looked peaceful. She drew in her breath a little sharply, and then, being a woman at heart, took a cushion from the armchair and placed it beneath his head. Only then did she go to the telephone and in a gentle voice ask the operator to connect her with Rudge Hall. "Soapy?" "Hello!" The promptitude with which the summons of the bell had been answered brought a smile of approval to her lips. Soapy, she felt, must have been sitting with his head on the receiver. "Listen, sweetie." "I'm listening, pettie!" "Everything's set." "Have you fixed that guy?" "Sure, precious. And Chimp, too." "How's that? Chimp?" "Sure. We don't want Chimp around, do we, with that sixty-five--thirty-five stuff of his? I just slipped a couple of drops into his highball and he's gone off as peaceful as a lamb. Say, wait a minute," she added, as the wire hummed with Mr. Molloy's low-voiced congratulations. "Hello!" she said, returning. "What were you doing, honey? Did you hear somebody?" "No. I caught sight of a bunch of lilies in a vase, and I just slipped across and put one of them in Chimp's hand. Made it seem more sort of natural. Now listen, Soapy. Everything's clear for you at your end now, so go right ahead and clean up. I'm going to beat it in that guy Carroll's runabout, and I haven't much time, so don't start talking about the weather or nothing. I'm going to London, to the Belvidere. You collect the stuff and meet me there. Is that all straight?" "But, pettie!" "Now what?" "How am I to get the stuff away?" "For goodness' sake! You can drive a car, can't you? Old Carmody's car was outside the stable yard when I left. I guess it's there still. Get the stuff and then go and tell the chauffeur that old Carmody wants to see him. Then, when he's gone, climb in and drive to Birmingham. Leave the car outside the station and take a train. That's simple enough, isn't it?"