The Final Count

The Final Count by H.C. McNeile

The Final Count opens with John Stockton recalling his friendship with Robin Gaunt, a brilliant scientist who served as a Royal Engineer during the war, officially building roads while secretly developing weapons for the military's hush-hush department. Gaunt confides to Stockton that frightfulness carried to its logical extreme—a weapon so terrible no nation would dare fight—might be the only way to prevent future wars. He claims to have perfected such a device: a poison causing universal, instantaneous death. He is financed by a wealthy Australian who lost two sons at Gallipoli, and plans to demonstrate the weapon to the Army Council the next day. That same night, Gaunt telephones Stockton in terror, then the line goes dead. Stockton and his friend Toby Sinclair rush to Gaunt's rooms and find blood, a dead guinea pig, and Gaunt's terrier poisoned. A policeman dies instantly after touching the dog's corpse. In an adjoining room they find the body of the supposed Australian financier, bearing signs of a ferocious struggle; Gaunt has vanished. Inspector MacIver of Scotland Yard investigates, and toxicologist Sir John Dallas determines the poison kills through external contact alone, via open blisters, losing potency after several hours. The War Office, represented by General Darton and Major Jackson, swears Stockton to secrecy: Gaunt's discovery, if genuine, is a weapon of apocalyptic significance, and no hint of its nature can reach the press. Stockton must let a false theory stand at the inquest implicating Gaunt as a possible murderer of his own dog and benefactor. Stockton then meets Captain Hugh Drummond, an exuberant and formidable amateur adventurer, through Sinclair. A man watching Sinclair's house is caught and turned into an informant, leading the trio (in disguise) to a pub called the Three Cows in Peckham, where they identify members of the conspiracy and trail them to a house in Ashworth Gardens. There they rescue a hanged informer, narrowly escape a poison attack, and shoot dead one of the conspirators—only to have MacIver's men burst in, mistaking the vigilantes for the criminals, while the body mysteriously vanishes. Drummond receives a menacing note along with two giant venomous spiders delivered to his home, one of which terrifies his wife Phyllis. Pursuing a hunch, Drummond investigates the house next door to the crime scene, posing as the "nephew" of its elderly resident, Miss Simpson, and detects an imposture by a sinister bearded man calling himself Doctor Helias. That night Drummond, Stockton, and four companions infiltrate the house, confirming the imposture when "Miss Simpson" reveals herself as an associate of Drummond's old enemy and recognizes him with horror, naming him explicitly as someone to be killed rather than risk capture. Helias overrules her, and the raiders are knocked unconscious and locked in a cellar, where they discover a secret passage between the two houses and a bloodstained handkerchief from Gaunt bearing a cryptic coded message, leading to hidden caches of the poison and what appears to be its antidote. A woman impersonating Miss Simpson is later found dead of the poison while searching the house, and the real Miss Simpson turns up drowned after having been kidnapped to facilitate the scheme. Sir John Dallas, racing to analyze the antidote, is murdered in his own laboratory by a man posing as a Scotland Yard officer, who steals both the poison and the antidote sample. Drummond's foresight in secretly dividing the antidote with MacIver preserves half of it. Despite extensive effort, Scotland Yard cannot trace Doctor Helias, the murderer, or the vanished Gaunt, and the investigation stalls for months. The narrative then shifts to two seemingly unconnected events: the launch of Mr. Wilmot's commercial airship venture, promoted as perfectly safe and capable of immense range, and the mysterious disappearance of the American millionaire Cosmo Miller's yacht Hermione, lost with all forty people aboard despite calm seas, never to be found. Drummond, still obsessively pursuing leads on his own, summons Stockton after apparently discovering something significant connecting these threads to the Gaunt affair, including the eventual account of the death of Wilmot, the fate of Helias in Cornwall, and Gaunt's final statement.

By H.C. McNeile · First published 1926 · Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Espionage · 13 chapters · 92,233 words

First lines

It was on a warm evening towards the end of April 1927 that the first act took place, though it is safe to say that there has never been any connection in the public mind up till this day between it and what came after. I was dining at Prince's with Robin Gaunt, a young and extremely brilliant scientist, and a very dear friend of mine. We had been at school together and at Cambridge; and though we had lost sight of one another during the war, the threads of friendship had been picked up again quite easily at the conclusion of that foolish performance. I had joined the Gunners, whilst he, somewhat naturally, had gravitated towards the Royal Engineers. For a year or two, doubtless bearing in mind his really extraordinary gifts, the powers that be ordained that he should make roads, a form of entertainment of which he knew less than nothing. And Robin smiled thoughtfully and made roads. At least he did so officially: in reality he did other things, whilst a sergeant with a penchant for rum superintended the steam roller. And then one day came a peremptory order from G. H. Q. that Lieutenant Robin Gaunt, R. E., should cease making roads, and should report himself at the seats of the mighty at once. And Robin, still smiling thoughtfully, reported himself. As I have said, he had been doing other things during that eighteen months, and the fruits of his labours, sent direct and not through the usual official channels, lay on the table in front of the man to whom he reported.

What this Textopian page supports

The Final Count is listed on Textopian as a novel by H.C. McNeile, dated 1926 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Good citation fit

Similar titles

Genres

Tags

poison · murder mystery · spy thriller · post-World War I · London · scientist · secret weapon · espionage · military conspiracy · investigation · disappearance · Scotland Yard

Contents

More by H.C. McNeile