The Final Count quotes

“There are a few things in my life that I’m thankful for, John,” he said quietly. “And the one that I’m most thankful for is that the Boches broke when they did. For if they hadn’t …”

“There wouldn’t have been any Boches left to break.”

“And a damned good thing too,” I exclaimed.

“But what will happen to them?” I cried.

“Universal, instantaneous death over as large or as small an area as is desired.”

I think it was at that moment that I first began to entertain doubts as to Robin’s sanity. Not that people dining near would have noticed anything amiss with him: his voice was low-pitched and quiet.

“But there’s no necessity for you to come,” I expostulated.

“Go to hell,” he remarked tersely, and jammed his top hat on his head. “This is the sort of thing I love. Old Hugh will turn pea-green with jealousy tomorrow when he hears.”

We were hurtling West in a taxi, and my thoughts were too occupied with what we were going to find at the other end to inquire whom old Hugh might be.

“Who the devil are you, sir?” he spluttered. “And what do you mean by speaking to me?”

“I liked your face,” said Drummond calmly. “It’s the sort of face that inspires confidence in canaries and white mice. Good morning: sorry I can’t ask you to lunch.”

“But the man is mad,” I murmured helplessly to Toby as we turned into Piccadilly.

“Do you mean to say that that man you spoke to was on the lookout for me?” I stammered.

“What the dickens did you think he was doing? Growing watercress on the pavement?”

He dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand.

“Oh! Lord!” Drummond began to laugh. “Then that accounts for it.

The effect of your casual eye would make an archbishop feel he’d committed bigamy.

It has a sledgehammer action about it, old man, that would make a nun confess to murder.”

We looked over his shoulder at the typewritten slip he held in his hand. It ran as follows:—

“Mr. Stockton is dead because he knew too much: a traitor is dead because he was a traitor. Unless you stop at once, a fool will die because he was a fool.”

“How crude,” he repeated. “How very crude. I’m afraid our opponents are not very clever. They must have been going to the movies or something. It is rare to find three lies in such a short space.

“Listen, you fool,” roared MacIver. “You’re drunk: you’ve gone mad. I order you to open the door. It’s me—Inspector MacIver.”

“Inspector my aunt,” came the impassive reply.

“Now don’t you forget what I said. The van oughtn’t to be long now.”

“Seems like it,” agreed Drummond, lighting a cigarette thoughtfully. “And yet it’s all a little difficult.

A fellow may quite easily forget his handkerchief when he goes out, but he ain’t likely to forget his trousers.

What I mean, Stockton, is this. The whole thing has been done from the very beginning with the sole idea of getting the secret of that poison.

But, as MacIver said, what was the use of that unless he could first be found? And as she was quite unable to describe him, beyond saying that he was of medium height, clean-shaven and dark, the prospect of finding him was remote.

At a conservative estimate her description would have fitted some ten million men.

The case of the man called Doctor Helias held out a little more prospect of success. Drummond and I separately described that human monstrosity to MacIver, and within two days a description of him was circulated all over the world.

The advancing wave had actually reached his chair; another second would have been too late.

I have said that the passage sloped down abruptly from the opening in the cliff to the room, and pouring down it was a stream of the liquid.

It came surging over the smooth floor and in an instant there ensued a scene of wild confusion. Drummond had got on the table: Toby Sinclair and I scrambled on to chairs, and Jerningham and Darrell just managed to reach a wooden bench.

the daily torture I am subjected to, and above all the final unbelievable atrocity which I saw committed with my own eyes, and for which, so help me God, I feel a terrible personal responsibility, are undermining my brain.

I have some rudimentary medical knowledge: I know how tiny is the dividing line between sanity and madness.

And I have been seeing things lately that are not there: and hearing things that do not exist.

But for the necessity of his doing that, he would have—er—disappeared far sooner. He had very kindly paid a considerable sum of money to acquire an airship, and as I wanted the airship and not Mr. Ganton, the inference is obvious.

You’ve no idea, Mr. Gaunt, how enormously it simplifies matters when you can get other people to pay for what you want yourself.

”

“Yes,” he agreed. “As you say, I killed him that night.

I have a few little fads, Mr. Gaunt, and one of them is a dislike to the word murder. It’s so coarse and crude.

Well—to return, Mr. Ganton’s sphere of usefulness as far as I was concerned was over the moment he had afforded me the pleasure of meeting you. But for the necessity of his doing that, he would have—er—disappeared far sooner.

There is a valve in the room by which the flow can be stopped. It must be to supply the vessel below. But why so much? I will not make it: I swear I will not make it, even if they torture me.

Dear God! I didn’t know such things were known to man. Four days⁠—four centuries.

Don’t judge me … I tried, but the entrance was guarded.

“Not that that is ever likely to come off, my dear Gaunt,” he remarked, “though if it did, of course, I should have no objection to taking the money.

But it instils confidence in the public mind: makes them regard me as an institution. And an institution can do no wrong.

You might as well suspect the Cornish Riviera express of robbing the Bank of England.”

But it instils confidence in the public mind: makes them regard me as an institution. And an institution can do no wrong.

You might as well suspect the Cornish Riviera express of robbing the Bank of England.

”

My dearest, this caviar is not so good as the last consignment. Another devastating example of the harm done by revolutions, I fear.

Even the sturgeons have gone on strike.

“However, to return to my little story. I bethought me of your antidote. ‘Here,’ said I to myself, ‘is an opportunity to test that dear chap Gaunt’s excellent ointment in a manner both useful and spectacular.’

Probably leaves them with a few ripe and fruity instructions, and a bomb timed to explode a little later. And so Wilmot’s dirigible pays the just retribution for an astounding and diabolical crime, while Wilmot himself retires to Monte Carlo on the proceeds thereof.

It’s what he has always said: there’s nothing like dying to put people off the scent.

No police in the world are going to bother to look for the blighter if they think he is a perfectly good corpse in his own burnt-out airship. It’s a pity in a way,” he concluded regretfully, “a great pity.

“

He’s mother’s bright boy all right is Carl Peterson,

” agreed Drummond. “I confess that I’m distinctly intrigued to see what is going to happen tonight.”