ent. He looked
annoyed. I smiled reassuringly.

"It's like this, Mr. Clutterbuck. If you kill all the germs in a
person's body, that person doesn't die. He lives ... indefinitely. Now
do you see?"

"No, I don't see," said Clutterbuck with great frankness. "I don't
understand what you're driving at. You tell me that you're a doctor and
you give me a card bearing a well-known specialist's name. Then you say
you created a germ and put it in the Birmingham water supply and that
the result is the Blue Disease. This germ, you say, doesn't kill people,
but does something else which I don't follow. Now I was taught that
germs are dangerous things, and it seems to me that if your story is
true--which I don't believe--you are guilty of a criminal act." He
pushed back his chair and reached for his hat. There was a flush on his
face.

"Then you don't believe my tale?"

"No, I'm sorry, but I don't."

"Well, Mr. Clutterbuck, will you believe it when you see your wife
restored to health in a few days' time?"

He paused and stared at me.

"What you say is impossible," he said slowly. "If you were a doctor
you'd know that as well as I do."

"But the reports in the paper?"

"Oh, that's journalistic rubbish."

He picked up his umbrella and beckoned to the waitress. I made a last
attempt.

"If I take you to my house will you believe me then?"

"Look here," he said in an angry tone, "I've had enough of this. I can't
waste my time. I'm sure of one thing and that is that you're no doctor.
You've got somebody's card-case. You don't look like a doctor and you
don't speak like one. I should advise you to be careful."

He moved away from the table. Some neighbouring people stared at me for
a moment and then went on eating. Mr. Clutterbuck paid at the desk and
left the establishment. I had received the verdict of the average man.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DEAD IMMORTAL

When I reached home, Sarakoff was out. He had left a message to say he
would not be in until after midnight, as he was going to hear Leonora
sing at the opera, and purposed to take her to supper afterwards. Dinner
was therefore a solitary meal for me, and when it was all over I
endeavoured to plunge into some medical literature. The hours passed
slowly. It was almost impossible to read, for the process, to me, was
similar to trying to take an interest in a week-old newspaper.

The thought of the bacillus made the pages seem colourless; it dwarfed
all meanin