In a few minutes the assistant shambled in. His eyes were bright with the liquid brightness of alcoholic poisoning; his speech was much clearer and more decided than it had been earlier in the day. It had tone and _timbre_. The crimson blotches on the face were less in evidence. Guest had drunk a bottle of whisky since breakfast-time, a quantity which would hopelessly intoxicate three ordinary men and probably kill one. But this enormous quantity of spirit was just sufficient, in the case of this man, to make him as near the normal as he could ever get. A bottle of whisky in the morning acted upon the drink-sodden tissues as a single peg might act upon an ordinary person who was jaded and faint. Gouldesbrough knew all the symptoms of his assistant's disease very well. He recognized that the moment in the day when Guest was most himself and was most useful had now arrived. The effects of yesterday's drinking were now temporarily destroyed. "I want your help, Wilson," he said, with a strange look in his eyes. "I want to resume the discussion we were beginning when Lady Poole called. You are all right now?" "Oh yes, William," the man answered without a trace of his usual giggle, with the former sly malice of his manner quite obliterated. "This is my good hour. I feel quite fit--for me--and I'm ready. About Rathbone you mean?" "Exactly. Lady Poole has given me to understand that her daughter is still pining after this person." "Call him a _thing_, William. He isn't a person any more. He is just a part of our machinery, nothing more. And moreover a part of our machinery that is getting worn out, that we don't want any more, and that we ought to get rid of." "You think so?" "I'm certain of it. We must not lose sight of the fact that while there is life in that body there is always danger for us. Not much danger, I admit--everything was managed too well in the first instance. But still there is danger, and a danger that grows." "How grows?" "Because at the present moment the newspapers of the civilized world are full of your name. Because the eyes of the whole world are directed towards this house in Regent's Park." "There is something in that, Wilson. Now my thought is that if the body could actually be found, then Miss Poole would know, with the rest of the world, that the fellow was actually dead. Could that be managed?" Guest lit a cigarette. "I suppose so," he said, thoughtfully. "But that would be giving up an experiment I had hoped to have had the opportunity of performing. Human vivisection would give us such an enormous increase of scientific knowledge. It is only silly sentiment that does not give the criminal to the surgeon. But have it your own way, William. I will forego the experiment. It is obvious that if the body is to be found, there must be no traces of anything of that sort. There would be a post-mortem of course." "Then what do you propose, Guest?" "Let me smoke for a moment and think."