Catherine Pounds, if she should come in
person, may recognise in her a striking resemblance to Camilla. And you
may put difficulties in the way, and rake up history which was not
meant to be raked up. This phonographic record is to prevent you from
doing so, if by chance you have an impulse to do so. Think it over
carefully, Polycarp. Consider our situation, and obey my instructions
without a murmur. The thought of the false death certificates and burial
certificates, and of the unprofessionalism of Darcy, will abrade your
legal susceptibilities; but submit to the torture for my sake, Polycarp.
You are human. I shall add to the letter which Mrs. Catherine Pounds
will bring you a note to say that if you have any scruples, you are to
listen to the phonographic records in the safe; if not, you are to
destroy the phonographic records.
Do I seem gay, Polycarp?
I ought to be. I have carried through my scheme. I have outwitted
Ravengar. I have saved Camilla from death at his hands. I can look
forward to an idyll--brief, perhaps, but ecstatic--in a villa with the
loveliest view on all the Mediterranean. I ought to be gay. And yet I am
not. And it is not the knowledge of my fatal disease that saddens me.
No; I think I have been saddened by a day and a night spent with that
coffin.
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