“I had told him my story, such as it was, and he saw in me the one man who could take his place. I was an educated man once, Dr. Priestley, forced by circumstances to abandon my former life and become what you see me now. In those months I was in Morlandson’s company he taught me more than I had ever learnt before. He told me the names of the men who had formed the jury, and showed me how I was to trace each of them. He had thought out dozens of ways of killing them undetected, and he explained to me how each should be employed according to circumstances. In that laboratory which he built he spent long hours working at poisons which should be swift and effective, in preparing weapons which could not fail in the clumsiest hands. He taught me anatomy, where the vital organs of the body lay, how to strike so as to produce instant death. Within a few months I was fitted to undertake the task which he had delegated to me.”
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