Rafael Sabatini

“ Boscawen waved him to a chair. “Sit down, Mr. Loane. Compose yourself. In spite of appearances there is not the least cause for excitement. The game has gone rather against you; but you have the advantage of being able to show yourself a good loser. It is in the manner in which we bear our losses, Mr. Loane, that we reveal our true natures. ”

“ Then gradually the interest will subside; other and more immediate affairs will overlay it; the police, disheartened, will abandon the quest for Schuhmacher, and the entire affair will be relegated to the limbo of unsolved criminal mysteries.
“Meanwhile, Mr. Loane,” and Boscawen smiled pensively as he spoke, “I shall not have permitted this unpleasant event to interfere with my arrangements. I shall have been married in peace, assured that there will be no dirty, sneaking blackguard to interfere with me, to threaten my happiness or wreck my future. ”

“ Boscawen was trapped into a little gesture of helplessness and a deprecatory smile. “Really, sir,” he said, “if you have been looking into my affairs, as you say, you should have learnt that I am not in a position to—”
“Ah, but wait,” Loane cut in. “There are ways of raising money when a man is about to make such a marriage as you are making. Now, look here, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. You shall have the letters for four thousand pounds, and you shall have a week to find the money. ”

“ Boscawen calmly shook his head. “You do my intelligence poor credit. Of all crimes, it has been shown that murder is the simplest to commit, the most difficult to trace to its perpetrator if he be a man of sufficient intelligence, imagination and self-possession to handle the affair properly. Let me explain to you the reason for this disguise which I have assumed that you may understand how very thoroughly I have laid my plans.
“A week ago, Mr. Loane, I dismissed my man, Smith—a most thorough and capable servant, who had been with me for five years. ”

“ A week later—three days before the date appointed for Boscawen's wedding—Loane again presented himself at Boscawen's flat in Hampton Gardens. He was admitted by a strange servant—a swarthy fellow of a certain portliness of bulk, with black glossy hair, black eyebrows and a square, black beard, but shaven upper lip, who, in answer to his announcement of his name, informed him in a nasal voice and in speech vitiated by a foreign accent that Mr. Boscawen was expecting him. ”

“ Boscawen agreed. “When a perfect blackguard, such as yourself, who has served a term of imprisonment for fraud, and who has been expelled from a third-rate club for cheating at cards, attempts to blackmail me, there cannot, of course, be the least possible occasion for me to be unpleasant. I must apologize, Mr. Loane, if my reception of you appears to lack that warmth to which your social status and your lofty attainments entitle you.”
“If you think sarcasm's going to help you,” said Loane, flushing heavily, “you're mistaken. I am a patient man, Mr. Boscawen ”

“ When you look back upon your past, when you consider your present, and speculate upon your likely future, you will, I am sure, agree that in—er—disposing of you, as I intend, I am not only serving my own interests, but those of humanity at large. ”

“ The doctor ascertains that the man has been dead at least an hour. The porter instantly accuses Schuhmacher, stating what he knows of the servant's movements. A hue-and-cry is raised, the man's description circulated, a reward is offered—all to no purpose. Schuhmacher has utterly vanished, leaving not a trace behind him. For a while the papers theorize upon the motive; remembering Loane's shady antecedents they have little difficulty in conjecturing one; they will circulate rumors of the murderer's capture to contradict them in the next issue ”

“ As I enter I make a point of inquiring from the porter whether Schuhmacher is in. He will tell me that Schuhmacher went out to look for me, as the gentleman I was expecting has arrived and is waiting for me upstairs.
“Need I continue? Very well. I come up, and I discover that a murder has been committed in my absence. I find a shady character by the name of Loane lying on the floor of my study with a bullet through the heart or the brain, as the case may be. I raise the alarm. The police are sent for; a doctor is summoned. ”

“ He will then take his departure, and make his way to a house in Soho in which he rented a room on the ground-floor on the day before entering Mr. Boscawen's service. There he will carefully remove the dye from his hair and face, he will burn his beard, and deflate the air-cushion which now provides him with his embonpoint, and by a simple change of necktie and shirt-stud, Mr. Boscawen the master, in the correct evening-dress of a man-about-town, will emerge from the chrysalis of Schuhmacher the servant in the unfailing dress-clothes of his office. ”

“ Smith received the letter from his master's hands, and turned to go. In that moment Loane woke from his stupefaction and realized what was taking place. With a strangled cry he sprang after Smith. But as he moved, Boscawen thrust out a leg, and the blackmailer pitched heavily forward. Boscawen knelt to pin him down. Smith turned, and came to his master's aid with a pair of handcuffs. The business done, he withdrew. They heard his voice outside, and the boy's answer. A moment later the door of the flat closed with a slam on the departing messenger. ”

“ You are at liberty to proceed in any way that commends itself to you. I don't see that there is anything to be gained by prolonging this interview.” And with that Boscawen moved towards the bell. Loane thrust out a hand precipitately to restrain him. ”