So it was finally settled. Colonel Wragge would provide the materials for the experiment, and we were to meet at midnight. How he would contrive at that hour⁠—but that was his business. I only know we both realised that he would keep his word, and whether a pig died at midnight, or at noon, was after all perhaps only a question of the sleep and personal comfort of the executioner.

“Tonight, then, in the laundry,” said Dr. Silence finally, to clinch the plan; “we three alone⁠—and at midnight, when the household is asleep and we shall be free from disturbance.”

He exchanged significant glances with our host, who, at that moment, was called away by the announcement that the family doctor had arrived, and was ready to see him in his sister’s room.