Lord Arthur Saviles Crime | Page 8

about doing
his duty. Fortunately also, for him, he was no mere dreamer, or idle
dilettante. Had he been so, he would have hesitated, like Hamlet, and
let irresolution mar his purpose. But he was essentially practical. Life
to him meant action, rather than thought. He had that rarest of all things,
common sense.
The wild, turbid feelings of the previous night had by this time
completely passed away, and it was almost with a sense of shame that
he looked back upon his mad wanderings from street to street, his fierce
emotional agony. The very sincerity of his sufferings made them seem
unreal to him now. He wondered how he could have been so foolish as
to rant and rave about the inevitable. The only question that seemed to
trouble him was, whom to make away with; for he was not blind to the
fact that murder, like the religions of the Pagan world, requires a victim
as well as a priest. Not being a genius, he had no enemies, and indeed
he felt that this was not the time for the gratification of any personal
pique or dislike, the mission in which he was engaged being one of
great and grave solemnity. He accordingly made out a list of his friends
and relatives on a sheet of notepaper, and after careful consideration,
decided in favour of Lady Clementina Beauchamp, a dear old lady who
lived in Curzon Street, and was his own second cousin by his mother's
side. He had always been very fond of Lady Clem, as every one called
her, and as he was very wealthy himself, having come into all Lord
Rugby's property when he came of age, there was no possibility of his
deriving any vulgar monetary advantage by her death. In fact, the more
he thought over the matter, the more she seemed to him to be just the
right person, and, feeling that any delay would be unfair to Sybil, he
determined to make his arrangements at once.
The first thing to be done was, of course, to settle with the
cheiromantist; so he sat down at a small Sheraton writing-table that
stood near the window, drew a cheque for 105 pounds, payable to the

order of Mr. Septimus Podgers, and, enclosing it in an envelope, told
his valet to take it to West Moon Street. He then telephoned to the
stables for his hansom, and dressed to go out. As he was leaving the
room he looked back at Sybil Merton's photograph, and swore that,
come what may, he would never let her know what he was doing for
her sake, but would keep the secret of his self-sacrifice hidden always
in his heart.
On his way to the Buckingham, he stopped at a florist's, and sent Sybil
a beautiful basket of narcissus, with lovely white petals and staring
pheasants' eyes, and on arriving at the club, went straight to the library,
rang the bell, and ordered the waiter to bring him a lemon-and-soda,
and a book on Toxicology. He had fully decided that poison was the
best means to adopt in this troublesome business. Anything like
personal violence was extremely distasteful to him, and besides, he was
very anxious not to murder Lady Clementina in any way that might
attract public attention, as he hated the idea of being lionised at Lady
Windermere's, or seeing his name figuring in the paragraphs of vulgar
society--newspapers. He had also to think of Sybil's father and mother,
who were rather old-fashioned people, and might possibly object to the
marriage if there was anything like a scandal, though he felt certain that
if he told them the whole facts of the case they would be the very first
to appreciate the motives that had actuated him. He had every reason,
then, to decide in favour of poison. It was safe, sure, and quiet, and did
away with any necessity for painful scenes, to which, like most
Englishmen, he had a rooted objection.
Of the science of poisons, however, he knew absolutely nothing, and as
the waiter seemed quite unable to find anything in the library but Ruff's
Guide and Bailey's Magazine, he examined the book-shelves himself,
and finally came across a handsomely-bound edition of the
Pharmacopoeia, and a copy of Erskine's Toxicology, edited by Sir
Mathew Reid, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, and
one of the oldest members of the Buckingham, having been elected in
mistake for somebody else; a contretemps that so enraged the
Committee, that when the real man came up they black-balled him
unanimously. Lord Arthur was a good deal puzzled at the technical

terms used in both books, and had begun to regret that he had not paid
more attention to his classics at Oxford, when in the second