"Stop that," he roared. "Pull yourself together. Get some brandy. I've done my work. If you can't do yours, let me finish it." "Oh, just a moment! Give me time! I hate the sight of blood. Get a towel. Bind it round his neck. His clothes! They will be saturated. And wipe his face. I must see his face." Grenier was hysterical; he had the highly strung nervous system of a girl where deeds of bloodshed were concerned. While Mason obeyed his instructions he pressed his hands over his eyes. "Bring some brandy, white-liver. Do you want me to do everything?" This gruff order awoke Grenier to trembling action. He went to a cupboard and procured a bottle. Mason, having placed Anson in a chair and steadied his head against the wall, seized half a tumblerful of the neat spirit and drank it with gusto. The other, gradually recovering his self-control, was satisfied with a less potential draught. "It will be dark soon," growled Mason. "We must undress him first, you said." "Yes. If his clothes are not blood-stained." "Rot! He must go into the water naked in any case. The idea is your own." "Ah! I forgot. It will soon be all right. Besides, I knew I should be upset, so I have everything written down here--all fully thought out. There can be no mistake made then." He produced a little notebook and opened it with uncertain fingers. He glanced at a closely written page. The words danced before his vision, but he persevered. "Yes. His coat first. Then his boots. Clothes or linen stained with blood to be burned, after cutting off all buttons. Now, I'm ready. I will not funk any more." His temperament linked the artistic and criminal faculties in sinister combination, and he soon recovered his domination in a guilty partnership. It must have been the instinct of the pickpocket that led him to appropriate Philip's silver watch, with its quaint shoelace attachment, before he touched any other article. "Queer thing," he commented. "A rich man might afford a better timekeeper. But there's no accounting for tastes." Mason, satiated and stupefied, obeyed his instructions like a ministering ghoul. They undressed Philip wholly, and Grenier, rapidly denuding himself of his boots and outer clothing, donned these portions of the victim's attire. Then the paint tubes and the other accessories of an actor's make-up were produced. Grenier, facing a mirror placed on a table close to Philip, began to remodel his own plastic features in close similitude to those of the unconscious man. He was greatly assisted by the fact that in general contour they were not strikingly different.