As has been shown, it had never been Mr Todhunterâs habit to commit himself to any course of action without consulting a great number of people as to the advisability or not of his intentions, and he was going to make no exception in such a matter as murder. Having allowed his mind to be made up concerning the deed, he had now to assure himself that the proposed victim was up to sample. One must, in short, make sure.
The first step in making sure was to pay a call at Ogilvieâs flat in Hammersmith, and this Mr Todhunter did on the day following his conversation with Wilson.
Mr Todhunter found Ogilvie in his shirt sleeves, writing furiously. Mrs Ogilvie, a small, rather faded little woman, tittered for a moment and then vanished. Mr Todhunter politely asked Ogilvie how he was.
âNot at all well,â said Ogilvie with gloom. He was a large, fleshy man, as the husbands of small, faded wives so often are; his heavy face bore now an expression even more serious than usual.
âIâm very sorry to hear that,â said Mr Todhunter, taking a chair.
âThis business has upset me a great deal,â pronounced Ogilvie. âYouâve heard, of course, that Iâve left the London Review ?â
âYes, Ferrers told me.â
âItâs brought on my indigestion very badly.â
âWorry always brings my indigestion on too,â agreed Mr Todhunter, perhaps with more sympathy for himself than for his friend.
âI havenât been able to touch meat since It Happened.â
âI have to be very careful about meat too,â said Mr Todhunter with gloomy relish. âIn fact my doctor saysââ
âEven teaââ
âOnly one small glass of portââ
âItâs very upsetting,â said Ogilvie heavily, âafter all these years.â
âWhat are you going to do now?â
âWhat can I do? I shall never get another job.â
âOh,â said Mr Todhunter uneasily, âdonât say that.â
âWhy not? Itâs true. Iâm too old. So Iâve begun a novel. After all,â said Ogilvie, the cloud of depression lifting a little, âWilliam de Morgan didnât begin writing his novels till he was over seventy.â
âAnd you can write, at any rate . . . But what are your private feelings about the matter, Ogilvie? I understand your dismissal is only one of many.â
âItâs appalling,â asserted Ogilvie solemnly. âUpon my word, I think the man must be a lunatic. Apart from my own case, his actions have been quite unjustifiable. It seems that heâs determined to get rid of every good man in the place. I simply canât understand it.â
âPerhaps he is mad, in a way?â
âIâm not at all sure that he isnât. That seems to me the only way of accounting for it.â
âIn any case,â said Mr Todhunter carefully, âquite apart, as you say, from your own case, itâs your conviction that this man Fischmann is a menace to the happiness of a great many persons, without adequate justification or even excuse?â
âI certainly do. Heâs caused a great deal of misery already, and heâs going on to cause more. I know of several hard cases of men heâs dismissed without the faintest reason so far as their work goes, who have wives and families and not a penny saved. What theyâre going to do I canât imagine. Luckily weâre not in that position, but the outlook is serious enough for us. Really, Todhunter, itâs pitiable that one manâone swollen-headed crook, ratherâshould be able to reduce a hundred people to such a state of abject terror as they are reduced to every Saturday morning. Itâs enough to make one a Communist.â
âAh yes,â nodded Mr Todhunter. âSaturday morning.â He ruminated. âThe man ought to be shot,â he said at last in real indignation.
âHe ought,
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