This Was Ivor Trent

I

Vera Thornton wandered restlessly round the sitting-room of her flat in Bloomsbury, glancing at the clock every other minute. Then, with an impatient gesture, she sat in a low chair by the fire and closed her eyes. Several minutes passed, but she did not move.

The room was square, well furnished, in a manner that made no concession to modern ideas—with the exception that the walls were almost bare—but its chief characteristic was an absence of personality. Its atmosphere proclaimed that it was occupied, but not lived in, and this fact was significant, as the flat had been hers for two years. Furniture, colour scheme, intimate possessions, lacked individuality. They were mute observers, not collaborators, and so they remained anonymous.

She continued to sit motionless, leaning towards the fire, but the immobility of her attitude indicated conflict rather than repose. The body was taut, the features tense, and the closed eyes suggested concentration, not peace. An observer of any penetration would have imagined that she had disciplined herself to remain physically inert while inwardly raging with impatience.

She started violently when the telephone bell rang.

She let it ring for some moments, however, while she went to a mirror, arranged her hair, and assumed a social expression as if a visitor were about to be announced.

At last she picked up the receiver.

“Yes.”

“It’s Peter—Peter Marsden.”

“Well?”

“Well—as you were so insistent—I went to Number 77——”

“You’re not ringing up from there?” she interrupted quickly.

“No—this is a public box. I’ve just left. There’s no great news about Trent. He’s not delirious now and——”

She made a muffled exclamation.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Go on.”

“I had a long talk with Captain Frazer. He took me down to his study. You’ve no idea what an odd room——”

“Yes, yes! Well?”

“How impatient you are! Well, the gallant Captain has one or two theories, not too favourable to Trent and——”

“What do you mean? What did he say?”

“Oh, he suggested that Trent had those rooms not to work in but to facilitate his amorous affairs.”

Her hands tightened convulsively, but she made no sound.

“Frazer backs his theory,” Marsden went on, “by saying that it’s the only explanation of his friends’ ignorance concerning those rooms. The Captain is very communicative, particularly if you lend him half a crown. But, all the same, I fancy he knows more than he says.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“How intense you are! I only mean that he gives you a look implying he could say more if he chose. After all, his wife was looking after Trent when he was delirious and so——”

“Did Frazer mention me?”

“Wait a minute—I must think. Oh yes, he quoted you as being one of those who knew Trent and yet was ignorant that he had those rooms. And he added that you ought to have known.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“My dear girl, I don’t know. Probably that you’d known Trent some time and that therefore it was odd. But that’s enough about Potiphar Street. Look here, I’ve got to see you again—and soon. I can’t get you out of my head, do you know that? Keep thinking about you. . . . Are you there?”

“Yes, yes. I was thinking. We’ll meet to-morrow night, if you like. Come here at about seven. Did you see Rendell?”

“No, I did not see Rendell!” Marsden exclaimed irritably. “I never cared much about him and—the last few days—I like him less than ever. What the devil is he doing at Potiphar Street, anyway?”

“But he’s reliable, isn’t he? I mean, you’d trust him, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh yes, of course! If Rendell said he’d keep his mouth shut, he’d keep it shut. I admit that—but it doesn’t make me like him.”

“Still, you’re certain of it?”

“Yes, quite certain. You are an odd person. What’s Rendell to you? I believe you’re a dark horse. Now I must get on. I’ve work to do. But I’ll come at seven to-morrow, and I want to talk to you rather seriously. I liked you a lot, you know, even the first time I saw you at Trent’s flat, but you wouldn’t look at me then. Till to-morrow.”

“Yes, to-morrow. Good-bye.”

She replaced the receiver but did not move. Several minutes passed, then, with sudden resolution, she touched the receiver—hesitated—and failed to remove it. But her thoughts evidently proved so disturbing that a moment later she snatched the receiver and rapidly dialled a number.

At last a voice responded to the summons.

“I want to speak to Mr. Rendell.”

“I’ll see if he’s in. What name shall I say?”

“It’s a private call.”

“Oh, very well. Hold the line.”

Vera waited, drumming the table with her fingers. The delay seemed interminable, then she heard:

“Rendell speaking. Who is it?”

“It’s—Vera Thornton.”

“Hullo! How are you? What can I do for you? Anything?”

“Yes, as it happens, you can. Would—would you mind coming here—now? I’m in my flat in Bloomsbury. It’s—well—important, or I wouldn’t trouble you. Do you think you could come now?”

“Yes, I’m free enough. You mean now, literally?”

“Yes, if you could.”

“Right! What’s the address?”

She gave it to him, then added:

“It’s good of you to come.”

“That’s all right.”

She put down the receiver, then passed the palms of her hands over her forehead and thick black hair. She repeated the movement several times, as if to still tumultuous thoughts. Some moments later she rose wearily and went into the bedroom to change.

Long before she expected it, the sound of the bell pealed through the flat.

“You’ve been very quick.”

“I came in a taxi. Am I too early?”

“No, please come in.”

Rendell followed her into the sitting-room, trying to appear at ease with little success.

“Do sit down,” she said abruptly, “and—and try one of these cigarettes.”

“Thanks. Are you on your own here?”

“Yes. I’ve been here for two years.”

“I see. Very central, of course.”

A long silence followed. Any attempt at small talk was ludicrous. Vera stared into the fire and Rendell sat opposite her, glancing more than once at her powerful figure and dark fanatical eyes.

“Can I trust you—really trust you?”

The deep tone of her voice, breaking the long silence, almost startled him:

“Wait!” she exclaimed, just as he was about to reply. “I’ve only met you once—in that awful house. You’ll think me mad, but—but I’ve got to confide in someone. I believe I can trust you. That’s why I asked you to come here to-night.”

Her submissive tone, and the absence of that defensive armour she had worn at their first meeting, so surprised Rendell that he hesitated before replying.

“Anything you tell me will go no further,” he said simply. “You can rely on that absolutely. But I’d like to know if you’ve told anyone else what you propose telling me.”

“No—no one. And I can’t tell you all.”

The blood invaded her cheeks so swiftly that in an instant she was scarlet.

Rendell looked away, greatly embarrassed, but almost immediately she went on:

“It’s about Ivor and myself. I’ve got to tell you. You’ll see why later.”

She passed her hand across her forehead.

“I don’t know where to begin. I’ll have to start some way back, I suppose. It will be rather long, I’m afraid.”

“Say what you want to in your own way. It won’t go an inch further.”

“I’d better begin with my family. They live in the Midlands. I’ve two brothers—one twenty-six, the other twenty-five. I’m twenty-four. And I’ve three sisters younger than I am—the youngest is twenty-one. My father is a business man, rich and—notorious.”

“In what way notorious?” Rendell asked as she broke off.

“Oh, for affairs with women—nothing more interesting than that. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and when he’s drunk he will do literally anything. More than once he’s brought one of his women to the house.”

“That’s not too good, I admit. What did your mother think about it?”

“I doubt if my mother has thought about anything for years. I imagine that her wedding night was the real date of her death—whatever the actual one may prove to be. She had six children—one a year—and after that I should think she was only too glad when my father became openly promiscuous.”

She spoke with such bitterness that Rendell could only wait for her to continue.

“I won’t go into details about my brothers and sisters. I’ll only say that they are his children—and leave it at that. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the facts. My brothers are in my father’s business, but they do practically nothing. And my sisters concentrate on getting a good time. My father, as you can imagine, is not in a strong position to restrain them in any way. When they want money, they blackmail him for it—politely and successfully. The house is pandemonium—a good example of meaningless modern existence.”

She attempted a laugh as she took a cigarette from the box by her side.

“You’ve made it very plain to me why you cleared out,” Rendell said slowly.

“Why—and how—I cleared out may interest you. When I explain that I was a student, that I worked hard, won scholarships, and so on, you will be able to imagine what my life was like in that hell of a house. But you won’t be able to imagine what it was like when I found myself a prisoner in it with nothing to do. That happened when I was twenty.”

“No, that couldn’t have been easy. What did you do?”

“Read Ivor Trent’s books.”

She looked at him oddly, then went on:

“I read his books. I read them again and again. He seemed like a god to me. I knew whole pages by heart. He became my idol, something to worship in the midst of noise, mental squalor, and filth. He represented everything I admired—everything that gave life meaning. He was my ideal—made flesh. That may sound cheap, sentimental, hysterical. But not to those who have had to find a dream, or just die inch by inch.”

Her tone suggested all this was so familiar that it had become monotonous.

“And how long did that last?” Rendell asked after a long silence.

“About a year. Then two things happened. The first was that I came into a few hundreds which an aunt had left me, but which I did not get till I was twenty-one. The second was that I went mad.”

Rendell’s astonishment produced a peal of laughter from Vera which was too near hysteria to reassure him.

“Yes, I went mad,” she repeated. “But, first, I must tell you that I had written to Ivor and he had answered my letter. Well, when I came into that money I packed a bag, said nothing to my family, and came to London.”

“To Trent?”

“Yes, but he had no idea I was arriving. It was the act of a fanatic. I was a fanatic. What a pity you do not know his elegant flat near Cork Street! Still, try to imagine the scene. Ivor at home, and alone. A ring at the bell. A young woman, with bag, facing her ideal—believing he would be her destiny. Why don’t you laugh?”

“I don’t think It very funny,” Rendell replied. “Did he?”

“He was—interested. I can’t think of a better word. He soon realised my situation, my emotions—everything! It was impressive how quickly he identified himself with my state. Also, he was very remarkable in appearance. So I was completely done for.”

“But what on earth did he do?”

“Gave me tea—which was very orthodox of him, as tea forms a part of every English crisis. Then he rang up a man and put him off. And then—well—he cross-examined me so subtly that I believed I was telling him things spontaneously. We dined together and then he sent me to bed—early.”

Again she laughed, finding it a little difficult to stop, and then leaned back in her chair pretending to be amused by Rendell’s expression.

“Do you mean you slept in his flat?”

“Yes, in the spare room. Most decorous! And we had breakfast together, and he survived that searching ordeal—and remained my idol.”

“Well, go on!” Rendell exclaimed impatiently as she remained silent, “you can’t stop there.”

“No—neither did he. But that comes later. He seemed rather glad I had turned up from nowhere. He’d just finished a book—perhaps that was why. Finally, he got me a room near his flat. I lived there, feeling I dwelt on the frontier of heaven.”

“But didn’t you write to your family?”

“Oh yes, I sent a line—with no address—saying I was in London and that I was never coming back.”

“And you’ve never been back?”

“Never!” she exclaimed angrily. “I write twice a year to my mother, and she replies telling me what sort of weather they’ve been having. My break with them was final. I did achieve that.”

“And then?”

But she did not answer. She rose and began to wander about the room. When she spoke, her sentences were disjointed. Rendell could not see her face.

“Well, eventually, he discovered—exactly—how I regarded him. That took some time. I mean, for him fully to realise. Then—well—he cured me. No, don’t ask any questions! I—I can’t tell you everything. I told you I couldn’t. He showed me that he wasn’t—well—precisely what I had imagined him to be. He came down from the pedestal very successfully—and he made me watch his descent.”

Then, after a brief silence, she suddenly shouted:

“You needn’t think I became his mistress—because I didn’t!”

“But——”

“You don’t believe that, of course?”

“I believe you,” Rendell managed to say. “I can’t see what you’d gain by lying to me.”

There was a long silence. When she spoke, her voice was so low that he only just heard her.

“He humiliated me—in every way he could imagine. He showed me very clearly that he was not my Christmas-card conception of him. And—now—I hate him.”

“You don’t—you love him.”

“Yes, I love him.”

Her voice was so low that Rendell hardly heard the words.

The silence that followed seemed endless. The atmosphere was heavy with conflicting emotions.

At last she said in a harsh, metallic voice:

“Let’s make this short. All this is a preface. Eventually, when he was bored, he got me a job. I was well educated. I knew several languages. He knows plenty of influential people—and he got me a job in the foreign department of a bank.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Two years.”

“But you’ve seen him since then, haven’t you?” Rendell asked, mystified.

“Yes, when he sent for me. But I’ve not seen him for months.”

She returned to her chair and faced him.

“Now, listen! I’ve trusted you as if you were God. No one knows what I’ve told you. But I had to tell you because I’m terrified.”

“Terrified!”

“Yes, he’s been delirious. No, wait, wait! Delirious. God knows what he may have said. Listen! Mrs. Frazer was with him—and I’m afraid of her husband. He knows something. Yes—he—does! I can tell by the way he looks at me. He might blackmail me. I can’t sleep, I tell you!”

“But I assure you,” Rendell burst out, “there’s nothing to fear from Captain Frazer. His wife knows him too well to tell him anything. That’s definite.”

“How do you know? How can you know?”

“I’ve had a long talk with her, and with Frazer, and with the servant. I know the situation in that house. No one would tell Frazer anything—or pay any attention to what he said. If he made up anything, I’d guarantee to make him take it back—and keep his mouth shut in future. That I can promise you—definitely.”

“Yes, but—Peter Marsden! He’s friendly with Frazer. He might hear something and—well——”

“Well?” Rendell echoed, as she did not continue.

“I think Marsden cares about me. You see, there’s only one thing I can do—marry, and get away from London, and forget everything. It’s my only chance. Don’t imagine I could love Peter Marsden. All that’s over. It’s broken—and thrown away. I just want an existence now. That’s all. I’ve had enough of asking a lot. I only want a little.”

Then, after a brief pause, she asked:

“You’re certain I’m—safe?”

“Quite certain. And if you want anything done at Number Seventy-seven, I will do it. I don’t make promises lightly. But I do make that one. You can go to bed and sleep to-night.”

She leaned forward and put her hand on his knee.

“You must have loved someone once to have understood and helped me like this. I shall never forget it. I’m strong, as a rule. I’m not an hysterical person. But Ivor was stronger—he’s terribly strong.”

“You’re tired,” Rendell said, rising, “so I shall go—and you must go to bed early. I expect we shall meet again before long.”

He held out his hand, which she took in both of hers.

“No, don’t come out,” he went on. “You stay here. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He left her, and a moment later the front door closed behind him.

Vera buried her head in her hands and began to cry convulsively.

II

At two o’clock on the following Saturday, Denis Wrayburn walked slowly down Potiphar Street on his way to No. 77. As it was warm, he had removed his hat, thereby permitting the errant breeze to do what it would with his long black hair. This fact, and his narrow bearded face, occasioned the mirth of an errand-boy, who emitted a series of caustic comments, followed by a number of hilarious whistles. Wrayburn, however, remained unaware of these attentions and continued to walk towards his destination—slowly enough to justify the assumption that he wished the proceeding to occupy the maximum amount of time.

When he reached the front door, his actions showed that he had experienced the usual difficulty in obtaining a response to a knock. It was also evident that he had evolved a technique to deal with it, for he grasped the knocker firmly and continued to deliver a series of resounding blows until the door was opened.

On this occasion Marsden performed that function.

“Hullo, it’s you!” he exclaimed, without enthusiasm. “What the devil did you knock like that for?”

“To ensure speedy admittance,” Wrayburn replied, investing each word with significance, greatly to Marsden’s irritation.

“You don’t care who has to open it, I suppose?”

“Not in the smallest degree.”

He passed Marsden and entered Rendell’s room—where he discovered Vera Thornton.

“Only you,” was his greeting to her. Then he moved the chair Marsden had vacated nearer the fire, and sat down just as its late occupant returned.

“Well, of all the——”

But Wrayburn interrupted:

“Is Rendell expecting you two?”

“No, he isn’t. Why?”

The silence to this query continued until eventually Marsden realised that it constituted Wrayburn’s refutation of his claim to the chair. He glanced at Vera, who made a gesture expressive of her contempt for Wrayburn—which the latter intercepted.

“How are you progressing with your enquiries as to what Trent said when he was delirious?” Wrayburn asked her, with icy detachment.

Having thus gained complete psychological ascendancy over his companions, Wrayburn proceeded to ignore their presence.

But Marsden, who had obtained some sensational news, began to discuss it with Vera—hoping that Wrayburn’s curiosity would prompt him to ask questions which he would refuse to answer.

“Yes, the nurse has gone,” he said to Vera. “That’s definite. And there’s been the devil of a row between Mrs. Frazer and her husband. She’s packing him off to her sister in Ramsgate. He’s furious—but he’ll go because of the money she’s giving him. There’s no end of changes.”

But at this point he was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Frazer, who burst into the room in a state of considerable excitement.

“I’m leaving this hole,” he announced, “and for good! Everything is to be turned upside down for Trent. My wife is going to nurse him, if you please. Extra help in the house—to enable her to do it. You know that, I take it? But I’m not saying all I’ve found out—not by a long way. I’m putting two and two together—things I’ve remembered, and things I’ve heard.”

He paused, glanced at Vera, who became crimson, and was about to race on when Wrayburn extended a long thin arm towards him and demanded:

“Shut that door. There’s a draught.”

Frazer kicked the door to noisily, then went on:

“Nice thing, though, that I don’t know who’s in my own house. I find that artist’s model has been here since Monday. I thought she’d turn up. She knows more than she’ll say about our distinguished invalid——”

He got no further, for the door opened and Mrs. Frazer appeared, followed by the artist’s model.

“I’m not having this,” Mrs. Frazer announced.

“You’re not having what, my good lady?” Frazer enquired, from the eminence of his dignity.

“You coming into Mr. Rendell’s room and talking about things you know nothing about.”

“Know nothing about!” Frazer shouted. “No decent person would have a room in this house——”

“Hold your tongue! You’re making a fool of yourself.”

“I’ve let you make a fool of me. Come on! Let’s see whether you’ll lie to these people as you lie to me. Why do none of Trent’s friends know he’s had rooms here for years? Why don’t they?—why don’t they?”

“That’s his business, not yours. You’d have been in the gutter if it hadn’t been for him.”

“You hear that?” Frazer demanded, turning to the others. “Very well. All right. You’re witnesses. Now I know what to do.”

“You’ll go away, that’s what you’ll do,” his wife said in the same steady tone.

“You want me out of the way, my lady. I know too much. I know more than you think—more than any of you think. And I shall hear what goes on while I’m away. That’s all arranged. I’m off—and I’m leaving London in less than an hour.”

He flung himself out of the room, banging the door behind him.

Vera rose quickly.

“Why, where are you going?” Marsden asked.

“There’s something I want to ask Captain Frazer.”

She hurried out of the room before Marsden could reply.

Frazer was half-way up the stairs. He turned on hearing the door open, then came down slowly.

At their first meeting he had detected that Vera was frightened and had instinctively intensified her fears by making enigmatic statements to her or to Marsden, knowing that the latter would repeat them.

“Come down to my study,” he said in a confidential whisper. “We can talk there. The basement stairs are rather dark. Allow me.”

He took her arm, guided her down the stairs and into his room. Then, instead of releasing her, he took her other arm in a firm grip, turning her so that she faced him.

“Now, what is it? No secrets between us, I take it. No need to go into details perhaps——”

Her eyes flashed apprehensively, greatly to his satisfaction. He had long sought a victim on whom to inflict the spite accumulated by his daily humiliations. Of what she was frightened he had no conception. But as the merest hint concerning details clearly terrified her, his ignorance was unimportant.

He pressed her arms more tightly, but she made no protest.

“Don’t tremble. You can trust me. Lucky for you that you have to deal with an officer and a gentleman. I understand—I understand! You’re very handsome, and our friend Trent is too distinguished a person to be quite normal.”

He spoke entirely at random, but the effect on her was such that he put his arm round her, thinking she might collapse.

Possibilities—amorous and financial—raced through his mind. A sense of power thrilled him. He could put her on the rack at will.

“Hold on, or we shall have you delirious, and that won’t do.”

Her cheeks flamed and she looked away.

“Now, it’s all right,” he went on. “I’m going away, but I’m going to give you my address. I shall write to you, of course.”

He went to the table and wrote his address on a slip of paper.

“Here’s the address. And yours is?”

She told him, and he noted it carefully.

“You may have to come down to see me, Vera. That could be managed, I take it.”

“It wouldn’t be easy.” Her voice was a whisper.

“Of course, you’ve a job. Perhaps at the weekend?”

“Yes, but——”

“No one would know. You do everything I tell you—and it will be all right. I’ve had some expenses owing to all this, but you can send me a few pounds later on to cover that. Yes!”

He hesitated, but her attitude was so submissive that he went to her and put his arms round her.

“You’re all right, I take it?”

“Yes, I’m all right.”

He lowered his clasp and pressed her to him. She yielded herself so abjectly that victory intoxicated him and he kissed her on the lips.

Meanwhile, in Rendell’s room, Mrs. Frazer stated a number of facts, clearly and concisely.

The nurse had gone. She was going to attend to Trent, and a friend would take her place in the house. Her husband was going away. She implied that Trent wished these arrangements, and was paying the extra expenses involved. He continued to be very excited, slept most of the day, and the doctor still visited him. He could see no one, and all his letters remained unopened.

Also Mrs. Frazer was making other changes. Miss Ratcham, the lady journalist, was not well and was going to her people in Devonshire for some weeks. Incidentally, she was furious with Frazer for not giving her the paragraph about Trent—and was also furious with the latter owing to her failure to interview him.

Mr. Archibald Fortesque, the handsome student in the room opposite Miss Ratcham’s, had been summoned home to account for his extravagance and laziness—and Mrs. Frazer did not propose to have him back, in view of the number of complaints she had received concerning him.

Also, and finally, she had given notice to all undesirable tenants, every one of whom her husband had admitted when she was absent.

She ended by saying:

“I’d rather be empty than have such people. And the lady who calls herself a palmist is also leaving. I’m telling you all this because you are friends of Mr. Trent’s—and because you may know of respectable people who want rooms.”

Marsden instantly announced his intention of taking Mr. Archibald Fortesque’s apartment, when that restless and musical gentleman vacated it. Also he thought he could find some lodgers for Mrs. Frazer.

It was at this point that Vera and the Captain returned—the former very flushed and the latter very truculent.

“Now, my lady, I’m off. And I’m not coming back. That’s clear, I take it. So good-bye, Mrs. Basement, and——”

“Oh, shut up, Frazer!” Marsden exclaimed angrily. “We’re talking about important things. We’ve all had quite enough of you.”

The Captain drew himself to his full height, then looked down on Marsden with an air of triumph which astonished him.

“You said, I believe, that you had had enough of me. You are a wit, my good man, a wit!”

Marsden replied angrily, and Frazer became insulting. Then, when everyone in the room was shouting—except Wrayburn—the door opened and Rendell appeared.

“Hullo! A committee meeting!” he exclaimed. “I thought I’d come into the wrong room.”

Mrs. Frazer’s attempts at apologies were drowned by the Captain and Marsden, who continued to insult each other, while Vera—desperate—vainly tried to restore harmony.

This went on for some minutes, then Frazer, fearing to compromise his victory over Vera, diverted his anger to his wife and began a stormy tirade as to his wrongs and the shortcomings of No. 77.

Interruptions were frequent till eventually—when all were talking simultaneously—the servant opened the door and announced:

“A lady to see Mr. Rendell.”

A dramatic silence descended.

Then Rosalie Vivian came into the room.

III

She stopped on the threshold and looked round, greatly bewildered. Rendell, who was vaguely aware that her extreme pallor was not the only change in her, crossed the room swiftly and held out his hand.

“I’m so glad you’ve come. I was expecting you.”

The commonplace words recalled the others to the necessities of the situation. Mrs. Frazer went out of the room, murmuring apologies, followed by the model, who had contributed little to the discussion. Captain Frazer, who was impressed by Rosalie’s appearance, drew himself to his full height, shook hands with Rendell, saying that he was leaving town immediately. Then, with a glance at Vera, he marched out—Marsden and Vera following him.

Only Denis Wrayburn remained, who now rose, gave an almost imperceptible bow to Rosalie, then said to Rendell:

“I came only to say that I find that Sunday after dinner will suit me better than Monday. You have the address? That’s all right, then. Sunday—early. That’s to-morrow, you understand.”

He looked at his watch, gave a peculiar kind of shiver, then went swiftly out of the room.

“Who are all these people? Why are they all here?”

“There’s been a bit of a disturbance,” Rendell replied, “and——”

“Are they friends of Ivor’s?”

“Yes, most of them.”

She looked up at him quickly.

“That very dark woman—why was she trembling?”

“Was she trembling? I didn’t notice. I’d only just arrived.”

“What is her name?”

“Vera Thornton.”

“And the woman with the red-gold hair—who is she?”

“She’s a model, I believe. I’ve never seen her before.”

Rosalie pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes as if to protect herself from all external impressions.

“I can’t stay,” she went on quickly. “I came because—because—wait! Yes! You said you’d be in every afternoon at three for a week. I cannot come here again for some days. Will you be in all next week at three? Could you do that?”

“Yes, of course. I’m so sorry all those people were here when you came.”

He paused, glanced at her, then exclaimed:

“But you’re in mourning!”

“My husband is dead.”

He stared at her.

“Which day was I here?” she asked.

“Tuesday.”

“He died on Tuesday. Last Saturday he was taken ill suddenly with influenza. He became worse every hour. He died on Tuesday—while I was here.”

“While you were here!”

“Yes—here.”

Rendell was about to speak, but she silenced him with a quick movement. When she spoke again her voice was a whisper.

“He was buried yesterday. . . . Gone! There’s his room, his clothes, his golf-clubs, my photograph on his writing-table—all waiting. But he’s gone. Shall I tell you something? Yes. I will tell you. When he was alive, I lived with him—I understood him. But, now he’s dead, he’s someone else. Do you know that? Someone else. He was commonplace, kind, indulgent, rather stupid—and always the same. And now he is—terrible! He’s become a part of every silence.”

“Now, listen to me,” Rendell said abruptly, in the manner of one about to make an authoritative statement, though he scarcely knew what he would say next. “You’ve had a dreadful shock. You loved him and——”

He got no further. She shook her head so decisively that he broke off.

“No. I did not love him.”

She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Ah, if you knew the relief of saying that—at last! I have never dared to say that to anyone, not even to myself. I have crushed that knowledge down—down into a dungeon. I dared not admit it. I told myself that I did love him. I repeated it—to prove it. I repeated it, hoping it would become true.”

She gazed at him with such suffering in her eyes that Rendell looked away. But she seized his arm with sudden nervous intensity.

“Tell me this—do the dead know the secrets of the living? Do they discover what we never dared to tell them? And if they know, do they care? Do the dead suffer? Tell me that.”

“I do not know,” Rendell replied. “How should I know?”

She looked up at him with unseeing eyes, then said slowly:

“I do not think the dead suffer. They discover our secrets, but they do not care. Perhaps, to them, life here seems very distant and infinitely small—a game of children in a nursery. They only smile at the secret which frightens us. And, anyhow, they would forgive, don’t you think? Surely the dead would forgive the living?”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Rendell replied. “You’ve a vivid imagination. Well, all I can tell you is that I do not think I’m a coward—physically. I’ve been in danger more than once. But my imagination frightens me—and I’ve little enough of it. But, look here, we’ve got to be practical. You’re not alone, are you? You’re with friends?”

She studied him for some moments with a meditative expression.

“What a nice person you are,” she said at last. “So nice—and so stupid. Why should I come to you, a stranger, if I had friends? You see how stupid you are? I am alone. I have left his flat. It’s all just as it was, but it is locked up. The eight-day clock is still ticking in the sitting-room. I can hear it. Tick . . . tick . . . tick. I shall never go there again, and I shall sell everything, or give it away. I’ve a suite in a private hotel in Knightsbridge.”

“But——” Rendell began, but she waved him into silence.

“His friends think I’ve gone to the country. Only his lawyer knows where I am. There’s business to be done, you see. He’s left me everything, do you know that? But I don’t want it—I have enough money without his. But I can’t stay any longer. I must go.”

“And you will come one day next week?”

“Yes, next week.”

She looked round the room, as if to convince herself of its actuality, then went slowly out, followed by Rendell.

They walked to the street in silence. A large car was waiting. She got in and drove away without saying another word.

As he returned to the house, Rendell discovered that she had not asked how Trent was.

IV

Wrayburn had so stressed the necessity for early arrival on the Sunday that Rendell dined at seven o’clock and reached 4, Waldegrave Road, Fulham, soon after eight.

The house was the gloomiest of a gloomy row. It was tall, menacing, and few of the windows were illuminated. Opposite it, instead of houses, was an abnormally high wall—enclosing some institution—which overshadowed the pedestrian and created the atmosphere of a barracks or a prison.

Rendell pushed open a rusty gate, groped along a cobbled path, and mounted narrow steep steps. Then he pulled the bell, thereby awakening a melancholy peal in a crypt-like basement.

The door was opened by a breathless woman, resembling a barrel, who asked what he wanted.

“I have come to see Mr. Wrayburn.”

“Have you now! Well I never! Come in.”

Rendell went in. The hall was dimly lit, but, nevertheless, he gained a clearer view of the woman who was regarding him with heaving curiosity. She had a round puffy face, mottled with red patches, and black eyes like boot-buttons. Distrust had branded her features. Possibly she was unconsciously aware of the fact, for she always assumed a jovial expression.

“Come to think of it, I don’t know if he’s in.”

This remark, like those which had preceded it, was uttered in the tone of one making a joke.

“Best way to find out is to go up and see. Seeing’s believing, so they say. I’ll show you his room.”

Rendell followed her, convinced that this offer proceeded from curiosity rather than courtesy. They mounted slowly to the top of the house. A proceeding which occupied some time, and one which developed a complicated wheeze in the landlady.

She groped to a door and opened it. Darkness.

“There! He ain’t in! What did I tell you?”

She switched on the light and Rendell went into the room.

Its appearance surprised him, for it contradicted the expectations created by the exterior of the house, and those collected on the long ascent to the top of it.

It was a large oblong room with pale green distempered walls, which were entirely bare. The uneven boards were stained black. There was no carpet, but several rugs of varying sizes formed a geometrical design on the floor. In a corner was a divan bed. Near the window stood a writing-desk and within arm’s length was a row of dictionaries, ranged on a shelf fastened to the wall. A card index-cabinet, numerous bookcases, a typewriting-table, and a compactom were arranged with mathematical exactitude. Order predominated—every effect was calculated. There was nothing to offend, and nothing to distract—nothing to charm, and nothing to repel. Logic had frozen everything into a final unity.

“Didn’t expect to see a room like this, I’ll warrant. No more don’t I, as you might say. All his doing—not mine. Did everything himself, he did. Stained them boards, distempered them walls, brings his own furniture! And all as cool as you like. Say-nothing sort, he is. Does for himself, too. Yes, believe it or not, I never come in here. Makes his own bed! I said to him once, I said: ‘Some woman’s missed a treasure in you—what a husband you’d make,’ Lor, he did give me a look.”

She laughed noisily, then went on:

“Sure he’s expectin’ you? Precious few come to see him.”

Rendell said nothing, hoping she’d go.

“You’re looking at that gas-fire—and well you might! Ever see such a big one in all your born days? Well, I daresay he wants it. A colder-looking feller I never did see. Fair gives me the shivers to look at him. But that there gas-fire! I have to laugh whenever I see it. It’s what they call an Oxo size in the shops.”

A slight movement at the open door made them both turn. Wrayburn stood in the entrance surveying them with passionless enmity.

The landlady crossed to him, talking noisily, but two swift movements of his hand towards the stairs were too contemptuous to be ignored. Her chatter died and she went out, looking over her shoulder at him with an expression of frightened astonishment.

While she descended the stairs laboriously, Wrayburn stood in the doorway listening. When all was still, he said to Rendell:

“Now that the hoofs of that animal can no longer be heard, we can sit down. You’re not in a hurry, are you? You’re not! That’s all right then.”

He pressed his hand to his forehead and stood motionless with closed eyes.

“I say!” Rendell exclaimed. “You’re not feeling ill, are you?”

“The vibrations of that quadruped are disruptive,” Wrayburn replied slowly. “Also, it’s cold. You think it’s cold, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Rendell lied, finding the evening a pleasantly warm one. “But tell me this,” he went on. “Are you sure you’re not overworking?”

“I am not working. I finished a bout with the world a few weeks ago. A bout with the world is my term for a job, you understand. I’ve saved some money. When it’s gone, I shall re-enter the arena—probably.”

The pause before the last word, and its emphasis, isolated it in much the same manner as a spot-light gives prominence to one figure in a crowd.

Rendell glanced at his companion, not knowing what to say. Wrayburn had stretched himself limply in the arm-chair opposite him, but the tightly-clenched hands testified to some act of inner compulsion—some rallying of the will.

Two or three minutes passed in silence.

Suddenly Wrayburn leaned towards the fire and rubbed his hands. The light had returned to his eyes. He then consulted his watch and announced:

“Eight minutes past eight. That means we’ve the whole evening. That’s satisfactory, very satisfactory.”

“Time seems to interest you very much,” Rendell remarked. “I’ve noticed it before.”

Wrayburn flushed swiftly, making a convulsive movement with his whole body.

“Time, my good man, is something that has to be organised—like bouts with the world, money, landladies, and other horrors. But before we go on to something else,” he added, with lightning rapidity, “I want to make one or two statements about Ivor Trent. Just one minute, though.”

Wrayburn removed his shoes, put on slippers, then offered Rendell a cigarette.

Now, this last action surprised the latter, for he knew that Wrayburn never smoked, and disliked others doing so in his presence. Also Rendell noted that the cigarette offered was a specimen of the brand he preferred.

“Thanks very much, Wrayburn. You notice everything—even the kind I smoke. Really good of you.”

“And now,” Wrayburn began, with that flick of the hand which signified the dismissal of a subject, “I want to warn you not to form opinions of Trent on those preposterous friends of his you are meeting.”

“Why on earth not?” Rendell demanded.

“Because they represent his time-killing activities.”

“Time-killing activities!” Rendell echoed.

“Do you mind,” Wrayburn replied, separating each word, “not repeating a sentence of mine? I find it peculiarly exasperating. You don’t mind? You’re sure? Excellent! You must understand that Trent amuses himself when he is not writing. And he does that because he refuses to achieve his destiny. Wait! I’ll explain that.”

Wrayburn rose, leaned against the mantelpiece, so as to derive the heat of the fire at its maximum intensity. Then, by way of preface to what he had to say concerning Trent, he gave Rendell a brief summary of the state of the world—as he saw it.

Rendell had never listened to anything in the least like it. He had reason to know, from his own experience, that conditions everywhere were chaotic, but Wrayburn’s lightest assumption went infinitely deeper than that.

He announced as a platitude his belief that the structure of society had collapsed. He stated that dictators, economic theories, and militant nationalistic movements were only the convulsions of a civilisation on its death-bed. He asserted that all talk about “recovery” was the chatter of fools or charlatans. And he ended with the statement that, when the Stock Exchange was regarded as the national pulse, the end was not near—it had come.

“Good God!” Rendell exclaimed, “you do see the writing on the wall.”

Wrayburn writhed. Any hackneyed quotation caused him physical suffering.

“The writing on the wall, my good Rendell, ceased long ago. Writer’s cramp was the reason.” Then, after a brief pause, he added: “Surely all I’ve said is commonplace enough, isn’t it? Do say, of course. But, if not, it’s rather tedious. I mean, really, it is so obvious—so drearily obvious.”

He looked at Rendell with puzzled curiosity.

“You read the papers, reports of public speeches, and so on, don’t you?” he asked at last.

“Yes, I do,” Rendell replied.

“Then surely you’ve detected the death rattle? Anyhow, anyhow,” he exclaimed, moving both arms in a swift horizontal gesture, “assume it, my good man, assume it! I’m only asking you to accept the fact of disintegration—which is yelling for acceptance everywhere.”

“Still,” Rendell objected, “there are some signs of recovery.”

“You think the nations are slowly climbing back to the pinnacle of 1914, do you? Possibly you are right. There is a minor boom in armaments at the moment.”

Rendell put his cigarette out and lit another. The fact that Wrayburn held such opinions interested him more than the opinions themselves. His detachment from the fate of all things human was so absolute that he might have been a spirit from Jupiter, sent to the earth to survey its conditions, who would return in due course and render his report. For, to Rendell, Wrayburn seemed a consciousness, not a man—a consciousness which watched human destiny, untroubled by any feeling for humanity.

He glanced at the slender body, the narrow head, and the dank little beard.

“He’s a dead man, bar his brain,” was Rendell’s final conclusion.

“But what’s all this to do with Trent?” he asked impatiently, hoping to narrow Wrayburn to the personal.

“Just one minute, if you don’t mind,” he replied in a tone which would have been unendurable in anyone else. “You’re so extraordinarily ignorant that certain additional preliminaries are necessary.”

Wrayburn then proceeded to give an account of the activities of different groups of people to-day who, finding themselves confronted by disintegration, are seeking to create some values to give life substance.

He described briefly every type of modern Movement:—every Group, every Cult—sacred, profane, economic, artistic, political—till Rendell’s brain reeled. He revealed their aims, theories, beliefs, dogmas, aspirations with such definite knowledge that it was evident he had been associated with each—either as adherent or investigator. To Rendell many of these Movements seemed fantastic, but Wrayburn convinced him that each and all existed—and that each passionately believed that it held a panacea for all ills of the human spirit.

He ended by saying:

“Nothing new in all this, of course. It must have been very much the same in Alexandria in the year 200.”

“What I can’t make out about you,” Rendell said explosively, “is that you seem to be outside everything. I’d rather you believed in Russian Communism than nothing.”

“Russian Communism, my good man, is only Peter the Great’s experiment carried to its logical confusion.”

Then, a moment later, Wrayburn added:

“Just one minute. Then I’ll come to Trent.”

Wrayburn got a kettle, which he filled and put on a gas-ring, then cups and various utensils. Rendell took this opportunity to move a good yard further away from the enormous gas-fire, which had long since roasted him. Then, having unbuttoned his waistcoat, he watched Wrayburn fascinated.

Intent on his activities, he proceeded with punctilious care. He studied each cup, every spoon, jugs, and so on till convinced of their cleanliness. They were then arranged in logical sequence. At a precise moment, cups, teapot and jugs were warmed. Ingredients were exactly measured. He might have been a priest performing a rite.

Finally, China tea was prepared for himself—and a cup of black coffee handed to Rendell with the statement:

“I know you find this poison innocuous, so I give it to you with equanimity.”

Rendell was astonished. First the cigarettes—and now the black coffee! There could be only one explanation. This was Wrayburn’s method of stating that he welcomed him and wanted him to come again.

This discovery revealed the extent and degree of Wrayburn’s isolation. Rendell lacked vanity, and therefore realised that it could only be his physical presence that Wrayburn needed. Mentally, they spoke different languages. That was definite. What Wrayburn regarded as truisms were nightmares to Rendell. To listen to him was to watch the solid shrink to the spectral—the sane dissolve into the mad—and the living stiffen into the petrified. Yet this wisp of humanity, this mental waif, this unique being wanted him—Rendell!—to sit in his room and to listen to him!

“He wants a human gas-fire as well as the other one,” was Rendell’s private analysis of the situation.

But, aloud, he said:

“Devilish good of you to remember I like black coffee. It’s first-class, too. Better not spoil me, or I shall be here too often.”

“It’s all right then, is it? Really? Excellent! You’d better have the cigarettes near you.”

Wrayburn curled up in his chair and looked round approvingly.

“I like this—just this! Everything shut out. Yes, very pleasant—eminently satisfactory!”

He looked at his watch.

“Nine-twenty-two. You said you weren’t in a hurry. That’s all right then.”

There was silence for some minutes. Wrayburn seemed to be exploring the rare sensation of satisfaction in much the same manner as a frozen tramp—suddenly finding himself before a fire—surrenders to the investigating warmth.

“Coming to Trent,” Rendell said at last, but was instantly interrupted.

“I was coming to him. The essential quality in him can be stated in a sentence. Potentially, he is the New Man.”

“The what?”

“The New Man,” Wrayburn repeated coldly. “Even to you it must be a commonplace that the only deliverance for humanity lies in a new order of consciousness. Everybody knows that nowadays. The old consciousness and all its works is toppling to ruin. Nothing can be done with that. It will just go—and it is going.”

Wrayburn paused, but as Rendell said nothing, he went on:

“The only salvation lies in the coming of the New Men. Four-dimensional men, if that phrase helps you. Potentially, Trent is one of them.”

“But—well—damn it!” Rendell exploded. “I’m quite out of my depth, of course, but—well—what will these New Men be like?”

“They will think and feel from a new centre. They will have new motives, new aims. They will be priests of a new vision. They will possess a cosmic consciousness. But, frankly, Rendell, I wouldn’t try to understand, if I were you. I’d just accept the idea. You’ll find it simpler.”

“That’s undoubtedly true,” Rendell agreed. “So tell me what you meant when you said earlier on that Trent’s friends represent only his time-killing activities.”

“So they do—so does his writing, on another level. Trent is strong. He has Being. But he evades his spiritual destiny by amusing himself with that hulking Vera—who is as repressed as a bomb—and dear Peter Marsden, to whom he once gave two ideas. Our Peter rattles them about in his empty skull like two sixpenny-bits in a money-box.”

Rendell laughed, somewhat against his will.

“You’ve heard him rattle them, haven’t you?” Wrayburn inquired judicially. “He rattles them, and then looks at you as if to say: ‘Hear what I’ve got’”

“You couldn’t say what they are, I suppose?”

“Definitely! One is something about the spiritual structure of a book. He’s always rattling that one. The other one is Trent’s belief that man contains in himself the potentiality of a new being. Our Peter doesn’t rattle that one so often. He’s not certain that he knows what it means. Also, I gave him an idea once. I told him that Trent’s books were only a by-product of an intense interior activity.”

Rendell was too startled to reply. He remembered that Marsden had used these three phrases when he had dined with him—exactly a week ago.

His thoughts ran on till eventually he asked:

“What about Rosalie Vivian?”

“She’s a point better,” Wrayburn conceded grudgingly. “At any rate, she feels what is going on in the world, although she knows none of the facts. She’s rather like a seismograph. She vibrates when there’s an earthquake, although she does not know what an earthquake is. That’s why she’s a psychic invalid.”

“But is she a—psychic invalid?”

Wrayburn leaned forward and peered at Rendell. His expression suggested that he had had immense experience of idiots, but was now confronted by an unknown type.

“Can’t you see that?” he asked at last. “Can’t you see she lives in a psychic thunderstorm?”

“She’s certainly very nervy.”

“Nervy!” Wrayburn’s tone made the word ridiculous. After a long pause he went on: “Yes, Rosalie is a point better. And so is Elsa.”

“Who is Elsa?”

“That model with the hair. But Trent ought not to loiter with any of them. It’s an evasion of his destiny.”

“And you’re not interested in the fact that he never told you he had rooms in No. 77?”

“Not in the smallest degree,” Wrayburn replied contemptuously. “I’m not interested in where people’s bodies are. I’m interested in their potentialities.”

Neither spoke for some moments, then Rendell reverted to an earlier phase of their conversation.

“Do you regard yourself as one of the New Men, as you call them?”

“No, my good man, I do not. I am a wholly negative person. I cannot make any organic contact with humans. One reason is that I regard small talk as the babble of articulate apes. I am like a bubble. I can only maintain my shape by remaining in the void. Trent is different. He has Being. He might be a link between the Old Order and the New—if any link is possible.”

Wrayburn gave the flick of his hand to indicate that this subject was dismissed.

He rose and began to wander about the room, giving Rendell excerpts from experiences encountered in his bouts with the world. He had a dossier relating to every job he had had which contained an exact account of his duties, the amount of his salary, and descriptions of the people with whom he had had to associate. The last were very penetrating character studies. Wrayburn called them “psychological evaluations.” Rendell spent some time reading them, impressed by their insight, repelled by their inhumanity.

“Good Lord, Wrayburn,” he exclaimed, “you analyse these people as if you belonged to a different species.”

“I do. If I were a dictator, I would exterminate them. Never mind about a managed currency. What we need is a managed pestilence. Whole hordes of people ought to be obliterated. Nothing can be achieved owing to their deadly inertia. They rivet themselves to the skeleton of tradition. Also, they breed with fearful fecundity. They spawn and cumber the earth with their replicas. And I fancy that dear Peter and the bulging Vera will shortly enter holy wedlock and perpetuate their insignificance in a herd of dense-faced brats. Devouring bodies, my good Rendell, devouring bodies.”

Rendell decided to make a frontal attack.

“I’m not sure I’m not a devouring body myself. Anyway, I’d like to know this: why does it interest you to see me?”

Wrayburn flushed, then said quickly:

“One reason is that you are a disturbed person. When you were happy, you must have been totally uninteresting. But now you’re disturbed you’ll have to make some move. Probably you’ll marry again—but it will be a dangerous sort of affair this time. Or you’ll do something quite stupid. Possibly become a Fascist.”

Rendell laughed.

“Well, if I become a Fascist, I promise to come and drink black coffee here in my black shirt.”

“When Fascism comes to England, my good man, its adherents will not wear black shirts. Incidentally,” Wrayburn went on quickly, “it’s interesting that men have ceased to be men and have become shirts. Red shirts, black shirts, brown shirts, blue shirts—but men no longer. That’s interesting. An age is known by its symbols.”

“But why not black shirts for English Fascists?” Rendell demanded.

“Because England creates its own emblems—it does not import them. My private theory is that English Fascists will wear boiled shirts. In fact, I’m certain they will. The Boiled Shirts! A Middle-Class Militant Movement to Crush Bolshevism. Imagine that, my good Rendell. A chance for the bourgeois to die in evening dress. The Boiled Shirt would be a real national symbol. It would signify Middle Class Social Snobbery, the Public School Spirit, Playing the Game, and all the rest of it. Labour members would rush to join. It will be an inspiring spectacle—the Back Bones of England in Boiled Shirts.”

“That’s very amusing, Wrayburn, and now——”

“Before you go,” Wrayburn cut in, startling Rendell by this anticipation of what he had been about to say, “you may have wondered why I gave no sign of recognition when Rosalie Vivian came into your room yesterday.”

“I did think it odd, because I knew you had met her.”

“I guessed she did not want the others to know that she had come to inquire about Trent.”

“But—but——” Rendell began, greatly perplexed.

“It was also obvious that she had called to inquire before—and had made herself known to you. Otherwise the servant would not have announced her as a lady to see you.”

“You’re uncannily quick about some things, Wrayburn.”

“People who live on a tight-rope have to be quick, as you call it. You can explain to her, if you like, though I am completely indifferent as to that.”

Rendell rose.

“You’re going now?”

“Yes,” Rendell replied, “I think I ought to get along.”

Wrayburn hesitated, then asked in a tone of measured precision:

“Do you think you might walk some of the way to Potiphar Street?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought of it. But I’ve no objection. I’d rather like some air.”

“Then I think I’ll come, too.”

“Of course. Why not?”

They put on their overcoats, then went down the gloomy stairs in silence. Directly they reached the street, however, Wrayburn began a long and intricate account of how he was postponing his next bout with the world until the last possible moment.

He walked with Rendell till they were within a short distance of Potiphar Street. Then he said good night and left him.

Rendell had gone perhaps fifty yards when he felt a hand on his arm. As he had not heard anyone behind him, he started violently, then came to a standstill.

It was Wrayburn.

“I only wanted to know whether you’ve been bored. You haven’t? You’re certain? That’s all right then—that’s all right.”

V

It was Rendell’s custom to glance at the envelopes of his letters during breakfast, but not to open them till it was over. Then he would light a cigarette and give them all his attention.

On the morning following his visit to Wrayburn he received more letters than usual. He turned them over, guessing their contents, as most of them had been forwarded either from the club or his office. But there was an exception, and it baffled him.

He studied it minutely, but this scrutiny only convinced him that the handwriting was unknown. Had he seen it before, he would not have forgotten it—of that he was certain. It was a sensitive, nervous hand—the epitome of a personality.

He stood the letter against the sugar-basin, then propped The Times in front of him, intending to read it while he breakfasted. But, more than once, his attention reverted to the envelope till, finally, he left the leading article unfinished and speculated concerning his unknown correspondent. Arriving at no conclusion, he finished the meal abruptly, lit a cigarette, and opened the letter.

It was from Rosalie Vivian.

He found it necessary to read it twice in order to master its brief contents, for the satisfaction created by hearing from her so dominated the first reading that it dulled his understanding.

At last he put the letter down. She wanted to see him, but could not come again to Potiphar Street. Hence she asked him to go to her hotel in Knightsbridge that afternoon. If he did not telephone, she would expect him.

The inner satisfaction created by this request not only surprised Rendell, it also made him realise how persistently Rosalie had haunted his thoughts since their first meeting. Simultaneously, he discovered that the prospect of seeing her had transformed the day. The tentative arrangements he had made shrivelled to insignificance. Also, for the first time for nearly a year, he gave a thought to his clothes.

Nevertheless, these reactions disturbed him. It was true that Rosalie stimulated him, that even the thought of her quickened his imagination, but it was also true that he was slightly afraid of her. She was like a magnificent creature in a cage. He admired her, pitied her—but the thought of sharing her captivity alarmed him.

He began to pace up and down the room, surprised by the nature and intensity of his thoughts. Then, suddenly, he remembered a sentence Wrayburn had said to him the night before.

“Probably you’ll marry again—but it will be a dangerous sort of affair this time.”

Rendell came to a standstill, then stabbed his cigarette to death in an ash-tray.

“I’ll have to take a pull on myself,” he announced angrily. “I’m losing balance. Damn it, I’ll become as queer as the people I’m meeting if I’m not careful.”

He arrived at Rosalie’s hotel soon after three-thirty. He had some difficulty in finding it, as it was off the main thoroughfare and had rather a narrow entrance. He passed through a courtyard, then paused—aware of the presence of the unfamiliar. The quiet of seclusion surrounded him.

“Clever of her to find this,” he said to himself, “I’d never heard of it.”

Directly he gave his name at the bureau, a page was summoned, and he was conducted to a lift, which deposited him on the third floor. Then he went down a broad, thickly-carpeted corridor till the page stopped at a door and knocked.

She rose to greet him as he entered a small round-shaped room, the intimate atmosphere of which surprised him. The means by which she had imposed her individuality on it escaped his masculine intelligence. He was aware only of the result. The curtains were drawn, but concealed lighting softly illuminated the room.

“I have shut out the day, I hope you don’t mind,” then, noticing his interest, she added: “You like the room?”

“You might have been here for years.”

He sat down, then made a number of commonplace remarks, to which she did not reply. Rendell, too, was only dimly aware of their purport, for his essential attention was occupied wholly with her appearance.

Till now, he had seen her only in outdoor clothes, and the absence of hat, fur coat, and gloves seemed to intensify the disturbing element in her beauty. Also, for the first time, Rendell became aware of her figure. It was lithe, perfectly proportioned, and sensitive to a degree so removed from his experience that only an extravagant comparison seemed appropriate. It suggested an instrument fashioned to transmit an unknown music. Her black clothes emphasised the pallor and frailty of her features. But, in repose, no less than in animation, an aura of intensity invested her. The unexpected seemed imminent in her presence.

Rendell’s commonplace chatter flickered out, and he felt—and looked—embarrassed.

“There ought to be more people like you,” she said slowly in her rich deep voice.

“Why? What do you mean?”

“It was imaginative of you to talk about the weather—to say the hotel was quiet—that it was clever of me to find it. It was your way of telling me that, if I wished, this meeting could be formal—unlike those at Potiphar Street.”

“Well, perhaps,” he stammered, “I really don’t know.”

“Although you must know perfectly well,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “that I asked you to come here because I wanted to tell you everything. Didn’t you know that?” she added, after a pause, as Rendell said nothing.

“Well, I suppose it did occur to me.”

“I have to tell you everything—or not see you again. I either trust people entirely, or not at all.”

A long silence ensued. To be alone with her in this intimacy lulled Rendell in an odd interior kind of way. He felt he had entered her world, and that each moment yielded one of its secrets.

She sat cross-legged, her hands clasped round her right knee, her head thrown back. When she spoke it was as if she were continuing a reverie aloud.

She told him of her childhood in an old house surrounded by a great rambling garden, circled by trees, twenty miles from London. She was an only child, and her parents had spoiled her. From the age of twelve she had been educated by governesses, as her parents did not approve of the schools in the vicinity—and refused even to contemplate sending her away.

Swiftly, vividly, she evoked the spirit of the old house with its tree-ringed garden. The world of her childhood emerged—not as a memory, but as something still existent. She seemed to walk back to it, becoming, on the way, the child who had inhabited it. Then, with a few sentences, her parents came to life. Rendell saw the invalid father, who went for a drive each morning at eleven, each afternoon at three, when the weather was fine, and who spent the rest of his time reading Gibbon, or studying the financial columns of the newspapers. A kind, rich, too-indulgent man, who clung to a rigidly-defined code, not permitting a thought to stray beyond its orthodox limits. Rosalie revealed him as he had appeared to her when she was fourteen: a bent, wizened man, in an old smoking-jacket, puffing his pipe, and shuffling round his large untidy study—cursing the Germans and the air-raids, and endlessly proclaiming the Decline and Fall of the British Empire.

Then, with a sentence or two, Rosalie conjured up her mother, A frailly-built, beautiful woman, whose Trinity consisted of her husband, her daughter, and her home. She moved about the house like the spirit of tranquillity, dowering each room with a dreamy radiance.

“I was fifteen when the war ended, and during the next few years I discovered—most unfortunately—that I was a talented person.”

“Why unfortunately?”

She gazed at him with blue, frightened eyes for some moments—then laughed.

“I had a gift for drawing, and a gift for acting. I was told that I ought to have my voice trained, and that I ought to study dancing. I was excited, several careers seemed to be beckoning me. Money was poured out in an endless stream for lessons. Every morning the car took me to London. For a year I studied drawing. Then I gave that up and spent a year at a dramatic academy. They said I was most promising. But I gave that up, too. Then for some time I went from one voice-producer to another. But, eventually, I decided I was destined to be a dancer. That lasted some time. And then, suddenly, I gave that up—and stayed at home and began to study Spanish.”

“But why didn’t you stick to anything?”

She looked at him enigmatically.

“Because I discovered that each meant work—and I hadn’t the will. Work—endless work—month after month, year after year! And the greater one’s gift, the greater the necessity for work. I was done for, directly I had reached the limit of what I could do naturally. I was a dilettante, a gifted amateur. And I was surrounded by students who had to achieve something. A car did not bring and fetch them.”

“Well, and then?” Rendell asked, as she remained silent, staring at the fire as if she had forgotten his presence.

“I stayed at home and read. I was about twenty-one then. I read all sorts of books. I had no method—I just read anything that came my way. I drugged myself with reading. I didn’t want to go out into the world—it reminded me of my failure. I lived for three years in a kind of trance. Then—Paul Vivian turned up.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes. Over a minute passed before she continued.

“My father met him through some business or other. He was years older than I was—nearly forty. He began to come to the house frequently—so kind, so solid, so reliable! But, somehow, you could not believe he had ever been a child. But my people became very fond of him. And then—he fell in love with me.”

She rose slowly, then stood looking down—the firelight kindling her features and dark curly hair.

“He fell in love with me,” she repeated. “Soon, he asked me to marry him. I refused. Then he asked again—and again—and again! Still I refused. He wasn’t fiery, he was—patient. So were my parents. They wanted me to marry him. They were a little worried about me. They thought I was a trifle wayward. That was their word. And here was Safety First—proposing regularly each month.”

She knelt down swiftly and peered into the fire.

“I can see a face!” she exclaimed, with the sudden gaiety of a child. “I’ll show you. No! It’s gone!”

She remained crouched before the fire. It was some moments before she went on.

“So there I was with the three of them. And the three of them were willing the same thing. I could feel their united will closing round me like a contracting iron ring. I began to feel depleted. I spent whole days lying on a sofa. Twice a week Paul came to dinner. Every day he sent flowers. And mother began to say: ‘Don’t you think, darling, you’d be happier if you settled down?’”

She leaned her head back and laughed—a joyous, rippling laugh.

“And I said to her: ‘I don’t love him.’ And she said: ‘That sometimes comes afterwards.’ And I asked: ‘After what?’ But she didn’t answer.”

Again she laughed.

“And then, at last, weary of it all—and not knowing what to do with my life—I said I’d marry him. I told him I didn’t love him, but that didn’t seem to worry him. It would have terrified me. Everyone was radiant. Paul dined with us nearly every night. At the week-ends he took me out in his large car—and told me what a glorious and thrilling thing common sense was.”

After a pause, she said softly: “My God!”

Instantly, however, she raced him:

“And then we bought clothes—such lovely clothes!—and then the wedding. The bride, a little pale and trembling, perhaps, but then—well, you understand—she would be quite different—afterwards. And then, the departure for the honeymoon. Tears. Fluttering good-byes. ‘You will be good to her, Paul?’ A manly hand-shake. And then an invalid old man and a frail woman craning out of the window to see the last of the receding car.”

Then, after an imperceptible pause, she turned to Rendell and asked:

“Would you like some tea?”

“Tea!” he almost shouted.

“Yes, why not? People drink tea in the afternoons. Some take milk, some sugar, some neither—and some take one or the other. Some have China tea, some Indian, some Russian—but tea they all have. It’s one of those things that are definitely done.”

“I could not drink tea to save my life,” Rendell announced emphatically.

“Very well. Well have sherry later. Smoke a cigarette, and let me know when you would like the next instalment of the serial.”

“What an incalculable being you are!” he exclaimed involuntarily.

“Well, don’t worry too much—there won’t be any more like me soon. But that’s an idea of Ivor’s, and he comes—later.”

Neither spoke for some moments. Rendell gazed at her crouching in the firelight. She looked like a child who somehow possessed a woman’s body.

“Now we continue the serial.”

She pretended to pick up an imaginary book, opened it, then spoke as if she were reading aloud.

“The bridal pair, still thrilling with the raptures of first and passionate love, in due course returned to the mother country. Glamorous visions of golden Italy still quivered within them, but life—alas!—is not one long romance. So they settled down in the large commodious London flat—and each day Paul went to his prosperous business in the City. But what of little Rosalie? Ah! what of her?”

“Don’t,” said Rendell suddenly.

“Don’t what?” she demanded.

“Don’t tell it like that.”

“Sorry! Do you want to know what it was really like?”

“Yes.”

“It was hell. For a few months I hoped I’d have a child. I didn’t want one particularly, but it was my last chance. Do you understand that? No! You won’t understand that. Anyway, it didn’t happen. I had a nervous breakdown instead. Consternation! The family summoned! The great panacea of afterwards had failed. Physicians arrived. Injections were pumped into me. One young doctor said I needed ‘an outlet.’ He was sacked immediately. Two eminent greybeards then approached. One said nothing, and the other agreed with him. Loaded with guineas, they heavily vanished. Then, having refused to have all my teeth out, and having refused to have my appendix removed, I was sent to a nursing home on the East Coast—in the winter. Do you know the East Coast well? No? Then you should go there—in the winter. The air is—really—very remarkable.”

“Still, I got better slowly,” she went on. “Paul only came at week-ends. And I met a woman there I liked: grey-haired, very lined, with eyes that were saying good-bye to life. I sobbed my story out to her one night. ‘Tell me, what can I do?’ I kept saying. She took me in her arms and kissed me. That was all. Then she went away. So I spoke to another woman. And she said: ‘Learn to love your husband—it’s your only chance.’”

“Well—and then?” Rendell asked, as she remained silent.

“What? Oh yes! I came back to London and began to try to love Paul. Have you ever tried to love anyone?”

“No. I imagine it’s not easy.”

“There are several methods—and I tried them all. One was to keep repeating all Paul’s virtues. He was so kind, so indulgent, so solid, so dependable, so punctual! That list became my rosary. But, somehow, this method wasn’t a scintillating success, so I tried another. I kept telling myself how fortunate I was, I had a home, food, cars, lovely clothes, jewels, servants. I kept telling myself that I was free because I had such a large cage. Then I began to wander about the streets, staring at old women selling matches—or crouching in corners, covered with rags. I tried to become happy by studying the misery of others. But, somehow, it didn’t work. Then I stayed in the flat and tried to imagine what it must be like to live in a slum. And I discovered that I was living in a slum—of a different kind. Then I became religious, and tried to believe that my marriage was the will of God. But that didn’t work either, because I knew it wasn’t. It was the united will of my parents and Paul. And then—well, then—I had another nervous collapse. Rather an unpleasant one.”

She put her hand to her forehead, a shiver rippling her body.

“I—I felt queer—mentally. It was odd, rather frightening. Sometimes I forgot I was married. Once, when Paul came to see me in the nursing home, I asked who he was. But that wasn’t all. I was terrified of that day when I should look back across the flat, monotonous years and be forced to say: ‘Yes, that was my life. I have lived like that, and—before long—I shall die. It is nearly over, and it has been—that!’”

She paused for a moment, then went on:

“Also, I began to be afraid of air-raids. When I was fourteen, a bomb had fallen near our house. Still, I got better—slowly. The doctor kept saying that what I needed was ballast. I suppose that was why, eventually, Paul took me for a long sea trip.”

She leaned back and laughed, stretching her hands toward the fire.

“Don’t get impatient,” she continued, “the climax approaches. We returned to England, and then, soon—just as my third nervous collapse was approaching—I met Ivor Trent.”

“How long had you been married then?”

“About three years. I was twenty-seven. I had read Ivor’s books, of course. Some people we had met on the trip asked us to dinner, and he was there. He was in the hall when we arrived. While Paul was taking off his overcoat, we stood motionless, looking at each other.”

There was silence, till she said slowly:

“Somehow I’ve got to make you understand.”

Then she described graphically her life with Vivian—its regularity, its monotony. The oppressively solid luxury of the flat: Paul’s City friends: the same conversations endlessly repeated in different words: the restaurants they visited: the plays they saw—everything defined, everything organised, everything hardened by habit. Not only did she evoke her life with Vivian, and the atmosphere investing it, but she also made Rendell feel the numbing effect of this repetitive existence.

“That was my life when I met Ivor. And I had had two nervous collapses as a result of it. And I was on the way to a third.”

“I shall tell you everything,” she said slowly. “The night I met Ivor I felt we were alone, although I hardly spoke to him and scarcely looked at him. He talked a good deal and I—heard my own language again. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of his power over me. When we said good-bye, I dared not look at him. The next afternoon he rang me up.”

“He rang me up,” she repeated, “and asked me to go to his flat. I obeyed like a slave. He seemed to know everything about me without being told. I went again to his flat—and again—and again. And then he took me as easily as you could take a cigarette from that box.”

“But when was that—exactly?” Rendell asked involuntarily.

“Three years ago.”

He was glad she was not looking at him. The discovery that Trent had made Rosalie his mistress just at the time when Vera Thornton had entered his life, so bewildered Rendell that he dared not speak lest his tone should betray him. So, for a considerable period, Trent had been intimate with these two women—neither of whom was aware of the other’s existence.

“When I was with Ivor, I had no regrets, no remorse, nothing! It seemed inevitable that we should be lovers. I went to his flat every other day. If I had not met him I should have lost my reason. I know that is true! He saved me—and he saved my marriage. I know that sounds odd, but it’s the truth, all the same.”

Rendell was about to speak—but she sprang to her feet and stood before him, gesticulating wildly.

“But—Paul! You understand? Paul! Had he known about Ivor, his world would have flown to pieces. To live with him, day after day, night after night, knowing that! And he was happier than he had ever been because I was returning to life under his eyes. Was I to tell him that Ivor was the reason—that when Ivor took me in his arms I sobbed like a child because the ice round my heart was melting? Was I to tell him that?”

“Look here,” Rendell began, “you mustn’t excite yourself——” but she silenced him with a gesture.

“I made Ivor come to the flat. I—I liked the three of us to be together. I can’t explain. Paul wasn’t surprised by my friendship with Ivor. He knew I’d dabbled with the arts. Above all, he trusted me entirely. That’s a dreadful feeling—to be trusted entirely! No woman could stand it indefinitely.”

“But what about Trent?” Rendell asked. “How did he see it?”

Rosalie hesitated, then said slowly:

“He—well—he thought it was inevitable, and he made me feel it was. He’s a very powerful personality, you know that. No, of course, you don’t know that! Well, he is. He controlled me completely. If, when I was alone, a sudden fit of terror or remorse seized me, I telephoned him—or went to him—and he made me calm again.”

Rendell said nothing. The knowledge that Vera had also visited Trent during the first year of his liaison with Rosalie—and that he had treated her very differently—made Rendell feel that he was becoming Trent’s accomplice.

But, fortunately, Rosalie seemed to have forgotten him. She had sunk into a chair and was now gazing in front of her, seeing the memories she had evoked.

“How long were you lovers?” Rendell asked at last.

“Three years. He had just finished a book when I met him. Listen! Only a few days ago, he suddenly said he was going abroad to work again. I begged him not to go, but it was useless. He seemed not to listen. I was terrified of being left alone with our secret. I knew I’d become hysterical and tell Paul. But, almost immediately, Paul became ill. He got worse and worse. Then, on that Monday night, I saw that paragraph in the paper.”

She made a movement with her hands as if thrusting aside something she feared to face.

“If I had not met you, when I came to Potiphar Street, I should have gone mad. Do you know that? Ivor was delirious!, I was certain he would betray our secret to strangers. I was afraid of blackmail. I was afraid of everything. My God, that Monday night! I never dreamed that Paul was going to die. I thought he would discover everything. Ah, you don’t know what I went through that night!”

“I’d like to ask you one question,” Rendell said, after a silence, “though I suppose it’s an odd one.”

“Ask me anything. You know everything now.”

“When Trent is better, would you marry him—say, in a year?”

“No—not now. I thought I was everything to him, but I found I wasn’t.”

“Because he wouldn’t give up going away when you asked him?”

“Yes.” Then, suddenly: “Do you despise me?”

“No.”

“Not even if I tell you I am glad Paul is dead?”

“No. We all go through hell, sooner or later, and—afterwards—we don’t feel like judging others.”

She did not reply. Rendell glanced at her. She was lying back with closed eyes, looking like a child asleep in the firelight. He did not know which disturbed him more deeply—her pathos or her beauty.

“I’d better go,” he said gently. “You’re tired.”

“No, no! Please don’t go. You—you must have some sherry. I’ll get it.”

“No, really!” Rendell exclaimed. “I don’t want any. You are exhausted and need a rest, and so I’d better go.”

They had both risen. Suddenly she put her hand on his arm.

“Stay here and dine with me. I shall be alone otherwise. And I’m afraid of being alone. I’ve a maid with me—but she’s out to-night. Do stay. Please stay.”

The appeal in her eyes embarrassed Rendell, and he looked away.

“Very well, but——”

“You will! You’ll dine with me! And you’ll tell me about yourself. And why you are in that horrible house. And—and everything!”

“Yes, on one——”

“Ah, you are kind! I was afraid of to-night—afraid of sitting alone by that fire, hearing voices and seeing things! But now I shall be all right. Then, perhaps, I shall sleep to-night.”

“I’m staying on one condition,” Rendell announced firmly, “and that is that you have a rest now. I’m going to pull that sofa nearer the fire and you’re going to have an hour’s sleep.”

“Very well. And you’ll sit there and smoke. Wait!”

She ran into the bedroom, returning almost immediately with an eiderdown.

“Look!”

“Good! Now, down you go!”

She obeyed him and he covered her with the eiderdown.

“Now go to sleep at once. Not another word!”

“What a nice person you are!”

“To sleep at once,” Rendell repeated, switching off the lights.

He sat down in an arm-chair with an air of finality.

Ten minutes later the sound of regular breathing haunted the room.

VI

Rendell’s visit to Rosalie created an intimacy which transformed his days so swiftly that the process was effected before he was aware of it.

During the next month they met almost daily, and most of these meetings were of long duration. Frequently they would spend the whole day together, the result being that he obtained a deeper knowledge of her than a greater number of briefer meetings, over a longer period, would have afforded.

Soon he half believed that several different women inhabited her body in turn—one yielding possession to the next with bewildering rapidity.

The range of her emotions; the lightning transitions from mood to mood; her sudden exaltation; her swift relapse to inertia, all fostered the belief that although, physically, she was one woman—psychically, she was a dozen.

He would leave her, apparently tranquil as a child, intent on some problem relating to clothes. He would return and discover an hysterical being, lashed by memories and fears. As any attempt at consolation precipitated a new crisis, he learned to say nothing—and to wait. And he learned this from her maid, whose devotion to Rosalie beggared every example of loyalty known to Rendell. She loved and served her with the self-immolation of a saint.

“How on earth do you stand this!” Rendell exclaimed on one occasion when his patience had collapsed.

“She makes you forget it all with a word or a look,” the girl replied, with the conviction of experience.

Again and again, Rendell had reason to remember Wrayburn’s statement that Rosalie was a “psychic invalid,” but as this diagnosis ignored her fascination, it gradually lost its significance. She quickened Rendell’s imagination, thereby making the world more beautiful and more mysterious. He began to feel life as she felt it. And he learned that although she had no mental consistency, she possessed an emotional logic which revealed itself only to sympathy. He began to respect this, although her actions often dismayed or embarrassed him.

Impulse ruled her. Lacking it, she lapsed into inertia. Prompted by it, she would act instantly and with a total disregard of the conventions. At its bidding, she would rise and leave a restaurant, speak to a stranger, or do some deed which demanded considerable moral courage. Her sensibility to atmosphere—her penetration into the characters of people, with no data other than their appearance—fascinated and bewildered Rendell till he could not decide whether he had been blind before meeting her, or whether he, too, was becoming a psychic invalid as a result of her influence.

Her demands, therefore, were many and varied, but he yielded to all of them. She was experiencing freedom for the first time and was determined to indulge its privileges. This determination expressed itself in a number of ways, one being that she wanted to explore a London she had only glimpsed from the security of Vivian’s car. She had known only the thoroughfares, she now made Rendell take her into the by-ways. It was her reaction to her husband’s orthodoxy. The sheltered life had been a cage—a warm, spacious, luxurious one—but a cage none the less. Also, this penetration into an unknown London set a gap between her and her memories. It created the illusion that a long period of time separated her from them. As nothing recalled the past, it receded.

Often, however, Rendell found her impulsive acts embarrassing.

One night, when they were walking down Bond Street, she suddenly became interested in a street walker, who was hanging about with a dog on a lead.

“Why does that woman have a dog?” she demanded.

“I don’t know, Rosalie, just a whim, I expect.”

“Perhaps she loves the dog—perhaps it’s the only thing she does love. I’m going to ask her.”

She turned and went up to the woman, Rendell having no alternative but to follow, which he did very reluctantly.

“Why do you have that dog with you?”

“I’ll soon tell you that,” the woman replied. “You see, it’s like this. If a policeman sees me speak to a man, he thinks twice about doing anything if I have a dog with me.”

“But why—why?” Rosalie demanded.

“Well, if he takes me up for soliciting, he has to take me to Vine Street—and the dog to Battersea. So he thinks twice.”

She laughed noisily.

Rosalie stared at her, then thrust a note in her hand and walked away quickly.

But, almost immediately, she stopped.

“You’re laughing!” she exclaimed indignantly.

“I was,” Rendell admitted. “I was amused by the inventive genius of the underworld.”

“It’s horrible! This whole town is horrible! We’re all dead people—just dead people walking about. There’s nothing in front of us. You ought to be able to feel the Future. Do you know that? You ought to be able to stretch your hands out and feel it. But if you do stretch them out, there’s nothing—nothing! We’re ghosts in a fog, looking for life.”

“You can’t see things like that, Rosalie.”

“Looking for life,” she repeated.

But these excursions into an unknown London were intermittent. Sometimes, for days together, she refused to leave her hotel. She would sit silent, hour after hour, thereby giving Rendell ample opportunity to review the situation.

His first discovery was the extent to which his association with Rosalie had banished Trent to the background of his mind. But it was the change in her attitude to him which chiefly interested Rendell. She seldom referred to him and, if questioned, only repeated that his refusal to remain in London—just before her husband’s death—had convinced her that their relations were not what she had imagined. Even Rendell’s revelations that Trent had had rooms in Potiphar Street for years, and that he had lied about going abroad, did not greatly disturb her. She was of those who trust absolutely or not at all. Trent’s refusal to stay in London had half-undermined her faith in him. Rendell’s revelations completed that process.

But although she seldom referred directly to Trent, she would sometimes ask questions which related indirectly to him.

“That day I came to your room and found it full of people,” she once said suddenly. “There was a woman there. She was very agitated. What did you say her name was?”

“Vera Thornton,” Rendell replied.

“Vera Thornton,” she repeated.

Rendell waited but, as she remained silent, he began to speculate concerning her affair with Trent.

The more he reconstructed this drama, the more Trent’s part in it amazed him. To make a neurotic woman his mistress—a woman who had had two nervous collapses and was on the threshold of a third—to maintain that relationship for three years, visiting her flat and meeting her husband—was an enterprise so outside the boundaries of Rendell’s imagination that the attempt to bring it within them only revealed the impossibility of any understanding of Trent. Leaving aside all other considerations, why had Trent added risk to risk till they piled mountain-high round him? And what type of power must he possess to have been able to control Rosalie during those three years? Only one thing was certain—his belief in that power must have been absolute, otherwise he would not have dared to leave her, intending to stay away for a year.

And, during a great part of this period, Trent had been in involved relations with Vera Thornton.

It was at this point in his speculations that Rendell finally surrendered all hope of elucidating the mystery of a man capable of such complexities.

What touched him more nearly, however, was his own relations with Rosalie. His daily association with her affected him in a number of ways, none of which reassured him. He was becoming more sensitive, more alive and alert to aspects of people and places of which formerly he had been unaware. Her influence probed all that was dormant in him. He found himself confronted with everything he believed was behind him. Old impulses challenged him. Established certainties became less solid. A strange light slowly invaded his world, altering perspectives, and transforming past and present. He felt life more vitally, responded to it more organically, and so discovered riches even in the commonplace. But, also, he began to experience an irritability which flamed into being with an intensity wholly disproportionate to its cause. More and more frequently he found himself reacting to trifles in a manner which dismayed him.

But Rendell did not realise Rosalie’s power over him till it was established. His defences crumbled before he knew he was besieged. Rosalie’s fascination differed from that of many women in that it was most potent in her absence. When Rendell was with her, he was aware of her weakness. It was when he was alone that he discovered his fetters.

Hence, although the desire for her companionship increased progressively, it was shadowed by a deepening uneasiness. Consequently, while wanting it to continue, he hoped that it would end.

“You can’t stay in this hotel much longer, can you?” he asked, one night when they were dining together. “What about your people?”

“I can’t make plans.”

“But you’ll have to, Rosalie!”

“I can’t! I’m stunned—and I want to remain stunned. My mother keeps writing to ask when I’m going to join her in Italy. I told you, didn’t I? that my father died a year ago, and since then mother practically lives in Italy with her sister. She spends nothing and keeps sending me money. But I can’t go to her yet.”

“But why not?”

“It will make the past real again. When I am with you, it does not exist—because you had no part in it. But, with her, I shall remember. I shall see faces and hear voices. Then I shall be ill again. Don’t you understand yet that I’m afraid?”

Rendell said nothing and a moment later she added:

“I shall have to go—soon. And then—explanations, lies, hypocrisy! Two women talking across an abyss!”

She was silent for the rest of the evening and Rendell regretted having questioned her.

But, a week later, she announced the date of her departure with characteristic suddenness, and in somewhat dramatic circumstances.

It was a Thursday. Rendell was to dine with Rosalie at eight o’clock. He had had a business appointment which had occupied most of the afternoon and returned to Potiphar Street to dress soon after six-thirty.

To his surprise, he found a letter, addressed in Rosalie’s writing, in a prominent position on the mantelpiece.

He tore it open and read:

Ten minutes later he entered her sitting-room, but instantly came to a standstill and looked round in astonishment. The room was a chaos of trunks and clothes.

She waved her maid to the bedroom, then crossed swiftly to him.

“Wait! Don’t speak! I’ve seen her!”

“Seen whom?” Rendell demanded.

“That woman—Vera Thornton.”

“You’ve seen——”

“Yes, yes, yes! I’ve just told you so.”

“But where?”

“At Potiphar Street. Listen. Do listen! Suddenly—this afternoon—I knew I’d have to go to Italy. I cabled, saying I was leaving to-morrow. Then, I couldn’t be alone. I wanted to see you. I thought you might be back earlier than you expected. So I—are you listening?”

“Of course, I’m listening!”

“So I got a taxi and went to Potiphar Street. I was just going to knock, when the door opened and—there she was. I told her I wanted to speak to her. I made her come into your room.”

“Well?”

“I made her sit down. She’s ill—did you know? She’s been unable to work for some days. Then I told her about myself and Ivor.”

“You mean you told her——”

“Everything! She looked like a ghost. At first she didn’t believe me. Then she told me that while Ivor and I were lovers, she had been visiting his flat regularly. And then I didn’t believe her.”

She paused, then raced on.

“But she was afraid of me. Wasn’t that odd? I said to her: ‘You were his lover too?’ And she blushed and said she wasn’t, and that she hated him. I thought she was going to faint. She stared at me as if she had never seen anyone like me.”

“I’ll bet a lot she hasn’t,” Rendell cut in, but Rosalie went on as if he had not spoken.

“Then, suddenly, she seemed to regret having told me she’d been to Ivor’s flat. She made me promise not to tell anyone. And then she began to cry. She sobbed—and I knelt and put my arms round her.”

“There’s no one in the least like you anywhere.”

“And I told her I was going away to-morrow. And that I would never tell anyone about her and Ivor. I don’t count you. And I also told her I should never see Ivor again.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes—never! That woman wasn’t lying. She had been to his flat regularly. She’s hopelessly in love with him—and she’s terrified of something. Help her, if you can, won’t you?”

“Yes. Did she mention me?”

“No. But help her—do help her. She’s not far from a collapse. I know the signs. Tell me, why did Ivor lie to me?”

“Did he—in so many words?”

She stared at him with blue bewildered eyes.

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Did he say you were the only woman?”

“No, but——”

“You assumed it. And so did Vera Thornton. And there may be others.” Rendell paused, then added: “You’re right not to see him again.”

“Never! But, whatever he is, I shall be grateful to him—always. He saved me. Nothing alters that.”

“How did you leave Vera?”

“I told her I would help her, if I could, and that you would have my address. Then I left her. But, in the hall, I ran into that woman with the lovely hair. You said she was a model, didn’t you?”

“Yes; Elsa. Did you speak to her?”

“No, it was all rather odd. Directly I saw her I stopped. We stood and gazed at each other. I felt I’d known her always. She smiled, then opened the front door for me. And I took her hand and said good bye.”

“But——”

“Later, later! I’m terribly busy.”

She knelt down and began to rummage in a trunk, then called her maid, and an endless conversation began concerning what she should wear on the journey. No sooner was a decision reached than it was ridiculed and the discussion renewed. Half-filled trunks were ransacked, drawers and wardrobes pillaged, till the room resembled a shop that had been struck by lightning.

Rendell stayed till nearly ten o’clock. He returned the next morning at eleven—when Rosalie informed him that she would not be able to go as she had no stockings. He was about to refer to the dozens of pairs he had seen the night before, but a sign from the maid silenced him. He agreed that the journey to Italy must be postponed. The three of them then remained seated on trunks, listening to the ticking clock, till Rosalie suddenly became helpless with laughter. Finally, she leapt up, kissed the maid, said she was a darling, and announced that she would go to Italy. After which, she swung round to Rendell and asked if there would be time to buy a Dachshund puppy she had seen the day before in a Bond Street window. He replied that the presence of a small dog might complicate the journey. But, as this new difficulty was regarded as an overwhelming reason for not going to Italy, Rendell promised to inspect the Dachshund the next day and purchase it—if he found its attractions irresistible.

They then discovered that Rosalie had not bought the tickets.

So Rendell, having ascertained that Milan was their destination, went out and returned in due course with the tickets.

The question of passports then precipitated a new crisis. The maid said Rosalie had them. Rosalie replied that she had never seen them—and that only criminals required them. She then asked Rendell to go and buy some. Half an hour later they were found at the bottom of the only trunk packed by Rosalie.

The whole of the hotel staff were then tipped—not on the basis of services rendered, but according to whether or not Rosalie regarded them as nice people.

Then, having dissuaded her from buying a new hat—and having given her some French, Swiss, and Italian money—Rendell began to regard her departure as a possibility.

They left the hotel soon after one o’clock: Rosalie and Rendell in the car, the maid following in a luggage-laden taxi.

He said little during the drive to Victoria. She was going—and he did not know whether they would meet again. Although they had met almost daily for a month, she had never referred to the future. For Rendell, however, it was a fundamental issue. He knew that if their companionship were renewed, he would become wholly dependent on it. He would ask her to marry him. He knew he would do this, although his logical faculty regarded such a proceeding as worse than folly.

But, if they did not meet after to-day, sanity would prevail—and he would escape.

He glanced at her. She was leaning forward, gazing at the thronged street with an expression that was half curiosity and half bewilderment. It seemed to him that she had no part or place in the world, that her physical presence in it represented a cruel caprice on the part of destiny. She was an outcast, endlessly seeking the realm from which she had been banished. And so, to her, the normal was the unreal; the extraordinary the familiar.

On reaching Victoria, Rendell was fully occupied till ten minutes before the train left. Then he joined Rosalie on the platform, leaving the maid to attend to the arrangement of the light luggage in the carriage.

Rosalie took his arm and they walked up and down the platform. She disassociated herself so entirely from the bustle surrounding her that she created an illusion of solitude.

Up and down they went, while she talked quietly on a number of subjects in no way connected with the journey. Rendell forgot time, place, circumstances. The sound of her voice, the pressure of her hand on his arm, the rhythm of her movement hypnotised him.

Porters began to bang doors.

“You’ll have to get in, Rosalie.”

They returned to the carriage and Rendell held out his hand.

“You’ll come—in a month?” she asked, as if referring to a long-established arrangement.

“In a month!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, to bring me back.”

“And then?” he heard himself ask.

“Oh, then we’ll just go on as we have done. You’ll take me to places and show me things.”

He did not reply. Her hand remained in his.

“You’ll come—in a month?” she repeated.

A whistle blew.

“Yes, I’ll come—and bring you back. Jump in! Quick!”

She got in a second before the train started.

As it began to move, she leaned from the window and beckoned him. He had to run to keep up with her.

“Don’t forget to go and look at that puppy.”

She waved her hand and vanished.

Rendell stood motionless till the train had disappeared.

At last he turned and walked slowly towards the barrier—a sentence of Wrayburn’s circling in his mind.

“Probably you’ll marry again—but it will be a dangerous sort of affair this time.”

VII

One result of Rosalie’s departure was Rendell’s rediscovery of Time.

During the last month, time had been an ally: now it re-emerged as an adversary. The hours no longer flitted past like dancers. Each seemed a cripple in a never-ending queue.

Rendell’s next discovery was the changes which had occurred at Potiphar Street. It is true that these had been effected some weeks ago, but as he had done little more than sleep in his room during the last month, he had remained unaware of them. Now he realised their extent and effects.

Captain Frazer was still at Ramsgate and no indication was obtainable as to the probable date of his return. Most of the undesirable lodgers had also departed. Mrs. Frazer continued to devote the whole of her time to Trent, her former duties being executed by Elsa, who, nevertheless, remained invisible—a feat which intrigued Rendell and one which continued to intrigue him. But, above all, Marsden was now a lodger. This fact had not affected Rendell during Rosalie’s regime, but, with her departure, it became increasingly prominent owing to Marsden’s importunity.

At first Rendell resented the casual manner in which Marsden assumed that his company would be welcome, but this resentment was short-lived, for Marsden was perplexed—and this perplexity began to interest Rendell.

In the first place, Marsden’s curiosity concerning Trent no longer existed. He seemed to have forgotten that Trent was still in his rooms at the top of the house. Marsden was obsessed by Vera, and to such a degree that to confide in Rendell was a psychological necessity.

The first night Rendell spent in his room, Marsden appeared soon after nine o’clock.

“So you are in—at last! What the devil have you been up to lately? I’ve been here well over a fortnight now, and haven’t caught a glimpse of you. I began to think you must have gone.”

“No, not yet—but I’m going in a month.”

Marsden lowered himself into a chair, then put his crutches on the floor.

There was a silence, then he announced abruptly.

“I’m worried.”

“What about?”

“Vera.”

Rendell moved uneasily, then began to fill a pipe. To discuss Vera with Marsden was a disturbing prospect—in view of his inside information concerning her. There are circumstances in which even to listen is hypocritical.

“To begin with,” Marsden went on, “I don’t mind telling you I’m in love with her.”

He shot an angry glance at Rendell, evidently fearing that the latter might regard this information as amusing. Marsden was morbidly sensitive concerning his physical disabilities.

Eventually he continued:

“I mean, really in love with her. I want to marry her.”

“Have you told her so?”

Marsden writhed with irritability.

“No, I have not! It’s not so simple as all that, my dear Rendell. You see——”

He broke off abruptly. When he went on, it was evident that he was not saying what he had originally intended.

“I mean—damn it all! you can’t ask a woman to marry you when you can see she’s ill and worried. But what bothers me is this—what the hell’s the matter with her.”

“Have you asked her?”

“Of course I’ve asked her! She says it’s only nerves. And that before long she thinks she’s going away for a week-end to get some air. It’s all damned unsatisfactory. But thank the Lord for one thing—she doesn’t care tuppence about Trent. Never mentions him. At one time I thought she cared quite a bit for him. But I was wrong. I fancy they were little more than acquaintances. In fact, I’m almost certain they were. After all, I only met her once at Trent’s flat.”

At this point Rendell discovered that his pipe wasn’t drawing properly. He knocked it out, cleaned it, and refilled it slowly. But Marsden was not expecting any comment from him. He was evidently considering whether or not to tell Rendell something, for he kept glancing at him, then at the fire, thereby revealing a state of considerable indecision.

“Look here, Rendell,” he burst out at last, “there’s something I’ve got to explain. I’ve meant to tell you before. It’s this. That foggy Sunday we dined together, you remember?”

“Of course I remember. The place was empty and we talked about Trent while we dined.”

“Yes—well—it’s not easy to explain. You see, it’s like this. I hadn’t seen you for some years and——”

“And you’d every reason to think it would be years before you saw me again,” Rendell cut in.

“Well, I don’t know. Still, perhaps you’re right. Yes, I think you are right. Well, what I mean is, I believe I talked as if I owed Trent quite a lot.”

“You certainly did.”

Marsden twisted uneasily on his chair.

“I—I was romanticising. That’s the point I want to make. I believe I told you some schoolboy incident about a bully. And—and one or two other things. Well, I exaggerated. I want you to know that.”

Rendell said nothing. Marsden’s manner irritated him even more than his remarks. He was convinced that Marsden had told the truth when they had dined together—and that now he regretted it. Why this should be so Rendell could not imagine, but it was very clear that the necessity for this conversation—whatever that necessity might be—was a whip to Marsden’s vanity.

“Why are you telling me all this, Marsden? What does it matter to you what I think about your relations with Trent?”

Marsden started a sentence, then abandoned it. He began another—and broke off. After which he fidgeted with his tie till Rendell’s patience exploded.

“Oh, for God’s sake say what you’ve got to say—or let’s cut the whole thing out!”

He almost shouted the words.

Marsden stared at him in astonishment, but there was a respectful note in his voice when he said:

“I say! You’ve altered. You used to be a collected person. What have you been doing lately?”

Rendell put his pipe down, then got up and took a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece.

“I don’t want you to tell me anything, Marsden. But, if you want to, then say it—or leave it alone. So I ask again: what does it matter what I think about you and Trent?”

“It does matter,” Marsden replied emphatically. Then, after a pause, he exclaimed angrily: “Do you think I want all that nonsense I told you repeated to Vera?”

“Oh, so that’s it?”

“Yes—that’s it! I don’t want her to think I’d be a nobody if I hadn’t met Trent.”

“You can count on me not to say anything to her.”

“Then you’ve not told her what I said that Sunday?” Marsden asked eagerly.

“Not a word of it.”

“Good! That’s all right. And you don’t think she’ll want to discuss Trent with me?”

“But you said she didn’t.”

“I know, but I mean in the future. Supposing we married, I don’t want to be cross-examined about Trent.”

“I’m sure she won’t want to be either. You can put the whole subject out of your head.”

Marsden settled himself more comfortably.

“Good! I shall wait till she’s a bit better and then I’ll ask her to marry me. But I tell you again—there’s something odd about her. I was at her place the other night and—when the postman came—she went as white as a sheet. I’m damned if I know what’s wrong.”

This was the first of several conversations, none of which enhanced Rendell’s opinion of Marsden. What did interest him, however, was the news concerning Vera, for Rendell could not imagine what could have produced this new frenzy of fear. She had seemed satisfied that her secret was safe when he had left her that night at her flat. What had happened since? Did she regret her confession to him? Possibly. Anyway she was avoiding him. That was certain.

But, apart from Vera and Marsden, there was Denis Wrayburn—a deeper problem than either and one which touched Rendell’s conscience.

He had only seen Wrayburn two or three times during the last month and, on each occasion, Rendell had made the meeting a brief one. It was easy to explain this neglect by enumerating the demands made by Rosalie, but this explanation would have been more convincing if Rendell had felt that he wanted to see Wrayburn now he was free. But he did not. He saw little of him, despite a deepening premonition that he was necessary to Wrayburn, in some mysterious way.

In the first place, the house in Waldegrave Road depressed him. There it stood, the gloomiest in the gloomy row, in a narrow badly-lit street which seemed eternally shrouded in mist. The high wall opposite the dreary houses made oppression more oppressive. To walk down Waldegrave Road was to experience the monstrous sensation that one was the only mourner at one’s own funeral.

Wrayburn’s room, too, began to affect Rendell unpleasantly. The mathematical precision dominating every detail created a non-human atmosphere. Rendell felt that the room was inhabited by a brain, not a man. And although he attempted to dismiss this new sensibility as an effect of Rosalie’s influence, he became more and more subject to it. Soon, every visit to Waldegrave Road represented a definite act of his will. And every visit created a deeper dislike of the road, the house, and Wrayburn’s room.

But the chief fact was that Wrayburn himself interested him less and less. This discovery shocked Rendell, for their first conversations had been stimulating. Subsequent ones, however, lacked substance. To sit listening to theories, criticism, and abstract ideas made Rendell feel he was suspended in a void haunted by a voice. Every thing familiar disappeared. Wrayburn was the eternal onlooker. He stood, remote and removed from the arena-watching, assessing, defining. He was not alive, he was a commentary on life. He haunted the human scene, notebook in hand. He saw everything—and felt nothing.

Often, Rendell ceased to listen. The pedantic voice went on, but Rendell would begin to think about Rosalie. Sometimes he seemed to see her beauty hovering behind the chair in which the inert Wrayburn sprawled. Then he would marvel that one world could house two beings so dissimilar.

The first meeting after Rosalie’s departure bored Rendell. This fact emerged like a mountain from a sea of mist. But, to Rendell’s dismay, he somehow knew that Wrayburn had expected and feared the advent of this boredom. And, knowing this, Rendell realised that the experience was not a new one for Wrayburn. It had happened again and again. He had had hosts of acquaintances—but to-day he was alone. Rendell knew, although he was never told, that he was Wrayburn’s only visitor. And this knowledge disturbed him, for it imposed a responsibility for which he felt totally inadequate.

But it did more than this. During the last year Rendell had imagined that he had experienced loneliness. A glance at Wrayburn convinced him that he was a stranger to it. Rendell had only felt lonely. Wrayburn was loneliness. It enclosed him like a coffin of ice.

So although Rendell visited him two or three times after Rosalie’s departure, it was at the prompting of pity. But Wrayburn was not deceived. He had known that Rendell was bored long before the latter had realised it. Wrayburn was familiar with recurring decimals.

But he said nothing. He withdrew into himself as if making a final demand on inner reserves.

Then, one night, Rendell received a postcard. It was the first communication he had had from Wrayburn. It consisted of a line, written in a thin spidery hand.

Precisely at eight o’clock Rendell reached 4, Waldegrave Road and pulled the bell, then stood listening to its sepulchral summons in the dark depths of the basement.

In due course, the barrel-shaped landlady appeared. She was breathless, as usual, but somehow her round puffy face with its red patches seemed especially repellent.

Rendell attempted to hurry by her, but she planted herself resolutely in the narrow hall, thereby barring the way very effectually.

“Oh, it’s you, is it? Well, you can tell young Touch-Me-Not that he can’t kid me. See? I know he’s ill—and won’t say so. Shivering up there like a rat, he is, although that gas fire of his is going fit to roast an ox.”

She scowled malignantly at Rendell.

“Take the trouble, I did, to go up all them stairs yesterday to see what had happened to him. Door locked, if you please! It’s only me,’ I calls out. But no reply from Hoity-Toity. It’s me—Mrs. Munnings!’ I fair shouted. I did straight. And what do you think he says? ‘Go away.’”

Her little eyes flashed with anger.

“‘Go away!’ There’s a gentleman for you! I’ll go,’ I says, ‘but don’t say I didn’t come, when you get worse.’ I was put about, I can tell you. I know his sort. Snake in the grass, if you ask me.”

Rendell escaped and hurried to Wrayburn’s room, the door of which had been unlocked at eight o’clock precisely.

Wrayburn was in bed. He did not speak, or give any sign of greeting when Rendell entered the room, the atmosphere of which was that of an oven. Rendell glanced at him, at first casually, then apprehensively. Illness had accentuated the narrowness of the face to an alarming degree. He lay motionless, staring through Rendell with cold implacable eyes, while the latter fully realised what a stick of a man Wrayburn was. The bedclothes did not reveal the contour of a body. The head on the pillow was the only evidence that the bed was occupied.

“What’s wrong with you?” Rendell began, but he got no further.

“Just one moment.”

Wrayburn raised himself, slowly and with difficulty, then produced a notebook from under his pillow, which he handed to Rendell.

“I want you to get the things listed there—and to bring them here to-morrow morning at ten o’clock.”

The list related chiefly to food, with precise details of the shops at which it was to be procured and the price to be paid.

“I’ll do that, of course, but——”

“I shall then be independent of that animal downstairs. Tell her if she comes to this room again, I shall instantly give her a week’s notice.”

He leaned back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

“But look here—I can’t leave you like——”

“Please go now. Lock the door after you, then push the key under it.”

The tone was so final that Rendell obeyed. He glanced again at Wrayburn. He seemed like a man whose will was turned wholly inward.

Rendell went out, locked the door, pushed the key under it, then went downstairs. He gave Mrs. Munnings Wrayburn’s message, ignored her angry comments, and left the house. The next morning he returned at ten o’clock with the stores Wrayburn required. He accepted them in silence, then waved Rendell out of the room.

Several days passed, during which Rendell’s anxiety increased till he was about to go to Waldegrave Road, if only to ascertain whether Mrs. Munnings knew how Wrayburn was. But, knowing that Wrayburn would deeply resent any interference, he decided to wait another day before making any inquiries.

At nine-thirty that night, however, when Rendell was alone in his room, writing to Rosalie, the door opened and Wrayburn appeared.

Rendell was so intent on his letter that he remained unaware of Wrayburn’s presence till he looked up and saw him standing in the doorway.

It might have been the shock of thus discovering him, or something spectral in his appearance, but a sudden chill invaded Rendell as he sat looking up at him.

He rose slowly and took a step towards him.

“Hullo! Are you——”

“Could you oblige me with a bottle of whisky?”

Wrayburn spoke with icy precision.

“Yes, of course, I’ll get it.”

Rendell turned, not sorry to escape from Wrayburn’s steely scrutiny. The request amazed him, for Wrayburn never touched alcohol. Presumably he wanted the whisky for medicinal purposes.

Rendell shot a glance at him unobserved. Wrayburn was no better—that was certain. Only his will was maintaining him.

“There you are,” Rendell said, handing him a bottle. “Anything else? Or are you all right now?”

“I’m all right—now.”

Rendell turned and bent down, intending to lock the cabinet from which he had taken the bottle. He had always locked it when Captain Frazer had been in the house and continued to do so from habit.

Hearing no movement behind him, he assumed that Wrayburn had gone, so he took the opportunity to arrange the bottles in the cabinet before locking it.

Nearly a minute passed.

“Good-bye, Rendell.”

He started violently. He had been certain that Wrayburn had gone. He rose quickly and turned round.

But the room was empty.

“Well, I’m damned! I suppose he’s all right. Anyway, you can’t ask him anything.”

He returned to the table and tried to continue his letter, but it was useless. Wrayburn haunted him. He kept looking up to see if he had returned.

At last he abandoned the letter, and began to pace the room, reviewing his relations with Wrayburn from their first conversation in that restaurant to their extraordinary meeting to-night.

Finally, he went to bed. But he slept abominably, owing to a succession of bad dreams—in every one of which someone called to him in a language he did not understand.

VIII

The next morning Rendell left the house soon after breakfast and was out the whole of the day.

He returned at six o’clock to find Marsden in his room—a pale gesticulating Marsden, who brandished a newspaper frantically.

“Wrayburn!”

“Well, what’s wrong?”

Marsden thrust the paper at him.

“Look! . . . There!”

Rendell took the paper mechanically, but continued to gaze at Marsden incredulously. “For God’s sake, read it, Rendell!”

The print became a blur and the paper fell from his hand.

“Wrayburn?”

Rendell did not recognise his own voice.

“Yes, yes! Read it!”

Rendell picked up the paper.

He read slowly—frequently finding it difficult to understand the simplest words.

He learned that at twelve o’clock that morning a Mr. Scott—who was a lodger in 4, Waldegrave Road, Fulham—thought he detected a faint smell of gas on the top floor. He knocked several times on the door of a room occupied by a Mr. Denis Wrayburn, but could obtain no reply. Becoming alarmed, he went downstairs and informed the landlady, Mrs. Munnings. She went with him to the top floor and he knocked again more violently, but with the same result.

Then, with great difficulty, Scott broke the door in. The room was full of gas. Wrayburn was lying fully dressed on the bed—dead. He had been dead for some hours.

Scott immediately telephoned the police, who arrived a few minutes later. Soon after their departure a reporter appeared, to whom Scott gave a graphic account of his discovery.

On a little table by the bed were three pound notes, and a bottle of whisky—half empty. But what amazed Scott were the elaborate precautions taken by Wrayburn to ensure that no gas should escape from the room. Windows, door, fireplace, were covered with thick close-fitting felt. Even the cracks in the boards were plugged with wadding. “It must have taken him hours,” was Scott’s final statement.

Rendell folded the paper carefully and put it on the table. Then he picked up his hat.

“Why—what—where are you going? Rendell!”

Marsden shouted the last word, for Rendell had turned and was going out of the room.

A moment later the front door closed behind him.

He began to walk rapidly, unaware of direction. The rain which had been threatening all day was now falling heavily, but he did not notice it. On and on he strode, conscious only of a necessity for speed. . . .

That gas fire . . . that huge gas fire . . . the bottle of whisky—half empty. . . . He had plugged the cracks in the floor with wadding. . . . The cold grey eyes, intent on their task. The long slender fingers—

Wrayburn!

Long-forgotten incidents flashed upward from his memory, like sparks. That first visit to Wrayburn’s room—the cigarettes, the black coffee. Wrayburn had walked back with him that night. Yes, nearly to Potiphar Street. Then they had parted. And—a few moments later—he had felt a hand on his arm. “I only wanted to know whether you’ve been bored. You haven’t? That’s all right then—that’s all right.”

(The rain was blinding him. He couldn’t see where he was going.)

Lying fully dressed on that bed. Dead for some hours. That’s what the paper said. . . .

When was it he had come for the whisky? Last night? Yes, last night.

“Could you oblige me with a bottle of whisky?”

“Yes, of course, I’ll get it.”

. . . . How many days had passed since he had taken those things to Waldegrave Road at ten o’clock that morning? Four days? Five days? Five days! He had been alone in that room for five days—his body an arena where Will had wrestled with Illness. And yet, had he been ill—physically? Or had his Will had Loneliness for adversary?

Courage! Wrayburn’s courage! To pit himself alone against a world—to make no concessions—to take his stand on himself. What a Will had been sheathed in the fragile scabbard of that body!

. . . . The way he used to flush suddenly . . . the quick flick of his hand to dismiss a subject . . . the slender body . . . the narrow head . . . the dank little beard.

Wrayburn!

There was something rare about him; something beautiful, with a non-human beauty; something unique.

Thrown away on a rubbish heap! A spirit to whom the world was a wilderness. A spirit, seeking its kindred and finding them not. A spirit doomed to come to earth—perhaps to expiate the dark acts of its pride. The Stranger—the Solitary—the Alone.

Wrayburn!

That gas fire—the rugs arranged on the floor in a geometrical pattern—the way he studied each cup to make certain of its absolute cleanliness—the row of dictionaries on that shelf—the divan bed. . . .

And he had become bored by him. He had visited him less and less frequently. Only to listen had been asked of him—but he had refused even to listen. The last human being had deserted Wrayburn. Each day his money grew less. (Three pounds on the little table by the bed!) Every hour the necessity for another “bout with the world” came nearer. For five days he lay on that bed and watched it come nearer—nearer.

And then—his last bout with the world. . . .

The rain must be heavier than ever. He had run into something. It was a tree. He was on the Embankment. His clothes were drenched.

That night at the restaurant! Wrayburn had given his hat and coat to the waiter, telling him precisely how they were to be dried.

His clothes—Wrayburn’s clothes.

“Wouldn’t you guess, from their general neatness and all that, that this rig-out is the only one I possess? Wouldn’t you—wouldn’t you?”

That is what he had said.

Were his clothes still in that room at the top of the house?

Mrs. Munnings!

Wrayburn—Mrs. Munnings. . . .

But, of course, all this would pass. This storm of emotion and memory would not last. He would forget. Days would become weeks, weeks—months. He would go to Italy. (Rosalie! Yes, yes, of course—Rosalie!)

And yet, perhaps, sometimes—suddenly—he would remember a night of rain on the Embankment.

Rain, rain, endless rain—drenching him, blinding him!

Wrayburn!

IX

During the next few days Rendell became the chief actor in the last two scenes of Wrayburn’s tragedy—the inquest and the funeral.

He gave evidence at the former, but was not required to identify the body, as Mrs. Munnings performed that duty with an exuberance which amounted to gusto.

After which, she steeped herself in the grim squalor of the inquest with the liveliest satisfaction.

Nevertheless, unwittingly, she rendered a service, for her evidence revealed a rock-like certainty that insanity was the cause of Wrayburn’s suicide. In fact, she hotly contested the suggestion that his insanity was of a temporary nature. She dogmatically asserted that Wrayburn had been mad the first day she ever set eyes upon him—nearly a year ago.

“The morning he took the room, I said to Mrs. Marks—‘You mark my words,’ I said to her, ‘there’s a screw missing somewhere.’ And she says to me: “Then don’t you take him, but—there!—no good talking to you. Always helping others, you are. But I says to her——”

Mrs. Munnings, being restrained by the coroner at this point, concluded her evidence by giving her account of the five days preceding Wrayburn’s suicide.

Frequently her voice sank to a whisper in order to italicise her more dramatic statements.

“I told him he was ill. But—no!—he must know best. Door always locked—and never a sound. No doctor, and him getting what meals he had. Yes! believe it or not, that’s what he did. I’d creep up all them stairs and listen. Lor! I could hear my own heart beating. I could straight. Then I’d put my ear to the keyhole. Nothing! One evening I called out: ‘You all right, Mr. Wrayburn?’ Not a sound! I stood there all gooseflesh.”

A brief pause.

“Up I went again the next morning. Don’t you think I neglected him! Not me! I always feel sort of motherly to me lodgers. Silly, I daresay, but I do—it’s me nature. So up I went next morning—and there was an envelope pushed under the door. Lor! I thought, here’s a change! And what do you think it was? A week’s notice.”

Mrs. Munnings looked at the jury—her little black eyes extended to their maximum capacity.

“A week’s notice! It stabbed me to the heart. God forbid that I should say a word against the departed—no, not me! Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. And then, the next night, I think it was, anyway it was the night, I happened to be in the hall about nine o’clock, I should say. And I heard someone coming downstairs.”

A long pregnant pause.

“It was him. Lor! I thought it was a ghost. Step by step, he come down them stairs. I can see him now. He looked that queer I thought he was walking in his sleep. I did straight. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going out a dirty night like this.’ I says to him. Scared I was, and I don’t mind owning it. He passed me—as near as that—and never a word. Opens the front door and out he goes.”

Mrs. Munnings nodded her head repeatedly and significantly.

“Well, I went down to wash up some things, and then I go up and into a room off the hall—and stay there, in the dark, with the door ajar. And then before so very long I hear a latch key. There I stood in that dark room, holding the door open an inch or two. He never knew I was in that room, watching him. I see him go up the stairs slowly—carrying a bottle of whisky. Lor! I said to myself, here’s a change. Up he goes, but he stops once and leans against the banisters. Then he goes on, and I never see him——”

Mrs. Munnings collapsed, and received the ministrations of Mrs. Marks.

Rendell was the last to give evidence.

He explained that he had known Wrayburn only a few weeks; that he was a highly-strung sensitive man of considerable intellectual capacity; and one who held the most pessimistic views concerning world conditions. Wrayburn was a thinker and a student. He had no friends—apparently no relatives—and no money. He had gained a precarious living in a number of jobs—all of a temporary nature. He was ill—and the necessity for obtaining employment preyed on his mind. He was very independent and would have refused any offer of financial help. Also, and above all, he was terribly lonely. It was impossible to over-emphasise that fact.

“I blame myself bitterly,” Rendell concluded, “for not seeing him more often. I knew he was lonely, but I failed him. As I said earlier, Wrayburn apparently had no relatives, but I shall, of course, make myself responsible for the funeral.”

Suicide While of Unsound Mind.

This verdict did not satisfy Mrs. Munnings. It was too familiar to be dramatic. She had expected something sensational. She did not know the meaning of Felo-de-se, but she liked the sound of it. Also, her sense of reverence was outraged by the knowledge that Wrayburn would receive Christian burial. Mrs. Munnings didn’t like that at all—and she was confident that God wouldn’t like it either.

Still, she recovered. And the chief cause of that recovery was Rendell.

Till now, Mrs. Munnings had regarded him as a nobody. The fact that he was Wrayburn’s friend had convinced her of his social insignificance. But the proceedings in the Coroner’s Court transformed this opinion. He was going to pay for the funeral! Clearly, therefore, he had money to waste. A pauper’s funeral was quite good enough for Wrayburn. Also, the coroner had treated him with respect. Yes, there was something impressive about him—although he was living in a Chelsea lodging-house.

Mrs. Munnings became cringingly obliging to Rendell. Then, as that was not an outstanding success, she adopted a confidential motherly manner, referring to Wrayburn on one occasion as “our poor boy.” But, as Rendell remained unresponsive to these solicitations, Mrs. Munnings consulted Mrs. Marks. The latter, however, had not been idle. She had made certain underground inquiries at No. 77, and was therefore in a position to report that Rendell was a proper gent who had money to burn.

Mrs. Munnings’ next move was to hint—in the pleasantest manner possible—that Rendell might find Waldegrave Road more comfortable than Potiphar Street. She even suggested that, as Wrayburn’s room was now vacant, he might care to take it—for old times’ sake.

These attentions infuriated Rendell, but he was forced to conceal the fact, for he was determined that Mrs. Munnings should not attend the funeral. As that lady anticipated that function with ghoulish cravings, diplomacy was essential. And friendly relations are conducive to successful diplomacy.

“About the funeral, Mrs. Munnings.”

“Lor, Mr. Rendell! You’ve taken the very words out of my mouth.”

“You could help me quite a lot, if you would.”

“Anything to oblige you, Mr. Rendell.”

“It’s like this. I’ve put an announcement in the papers, of course. Among other things, it says: “Flowers to 4, Waldegrave Road,’ and——”

“Flowers! There won’t be no flowers! Why, the pore feller hadn’t a relative and——”

“We don’t know that,” Rendell cut in. “He may have some in the North. So I think it would be better if you and Mrs. Marks stayed at home—in case of unexpected arrivals. It would be a great relief to me if you did.”

“Well, I’ve said it before and I say it again—anything to oblige you, Mr. Rendell.”

But her tone lacked conviction, for disappointment paralysed her. Rendell’s request created civil war in Mrs. Munnings. Determination to please him conflicted with her desire to attend the funeral. But her greed was greater than her morbidity and so it triumphed. It was, in fact, so much greater that she accepted Rendell’s flimsy fiction, concerning the possible arrival of relatives, in a wholly uncritical spirit.

That night Rendell went to Marsden’s room and briefly reported his success. He ended by saying:

“So there will only be the two of us at the funeral to-morrow. We leave here at twelve.”

“But—I’m not coming!”

“You’re not!”

“No. Funerals depress me.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes, frightfully. But, I say,” Marsden went on quickly, “did you actually put an announcement in the papers, mentioning flowers, and all that?”

“Yes, of course. Wrayburn’s known hosts of people in his day. Surely to God someone will turn up—or send a wreath—or do something!”

“I doubt it,” Marsden replied judicially, “people are pretty callous nowadays. Personally, I’m not sending a wreath, but then—of course—we didn’t hit it off. That’s the fact—and there’s no point in being sentimental.”

“None whatever.”

Rendell left it at that, and went down to his own room.

So, at twelve the next day, a hearse—with one wreath on the coffin—and a car, with one occupant, left Chelsea.

It was a blank anonymous day, grey with frost, but Rendell scarcely noticed it. He was in that state in which nothing seems so fantastic as facts. He was attending the funeral of a man called Denis Wrayburn. He was paying for it. He was the solitary mourner. A few weeks ago he had not known of Wrayburn’s existence. He had met him because of Ivor Trent—a man he did not know, and had not seen. Those were the facts, but they seemed like fictions. Rendell felt he was watching himself.

Then, incontinently, he remembered a remark of Rosalie’s concerning Wrayburn. He had asked her what she made of him and, after a silence, she had said:

“Have you ever seen a photograph of a polar landscape?”

“Yes—why?”

“I saw one once—and it reminded me of Wrayburn.”

That was pretty good, in its way. Terror—isolation—beauty. Yes, he knew what she meant. . . .

It would take some time to get to the Crematorium. It was odd how he had instinctively decided on cremation. They had asked him about an urn and a plaque. He had not replied—and the man had said:

“Some people decide to have the ashes scattered in the garden.”

And, again, he had known instinctively that this was appropriate. Then nothing would bear witness to Wrayburn’s sojourn on earth. Somehow that seemed right to Rendell. . . .

He looked out of the window. A man had taken his hat off and now stood staring at the hearse with apathetic interest. He had a round red face, with fish-like eyes, and a heavy corpulent body. Nevertheless Rendell felt grateful to him. He had become Wrayburn’s mourner for ten seconds.

At last the car drew up at the Crematorium, Rendell went to the chapel, confident he would find someone who had known Wrayburn. But it was empty.

A few minutes later the brief service began. Rendell occupied the pew for the chief mourners, but he heard and saw nothing. He was alone. That fact dominated him. No one else had come, or sent a flower.

At a given point in the service, the coffin slowly moved from its resting place and disappeared through a narrow aperture. Rendell watched it vanish, feeling that a fantastic dream had reached its climax.

The service ended—and the parson shook hands with him. Then an official appeared and asked.

“Would you care to see the garden, sir?”

“Thank you. Yes, I should.”

They walked in silence till they reached a long colonnade, facing a garden.

“It doesn’t look its best to-day, sir, I’m afraid, but it’s a beautiful garden.”

“I am glad to have seen it. Thank you so much.”

And now? Well, now, of course, he would drive back to Chelsea. It was over. There was nothing more to be done here.

He went to the car and said to the driver:

“Take me to 4, Waldegrave Road, Fulham, will you?”

After all, he would have to see Mrs. Munnings once more.

Meanwhile, Mrs Munnings was awaiting him in a state of prostration, the day having proved an unfortunate one for her.

In the first place, she and Mrs. Marks had made certain preparations for the refreshment of Wrayburn’s relatives. Tea had been laid in Mrs. Munnings’ room, and a large cake—coated with magenta-coloured icing—stood proudly in the centre of the table.

But time had passed and no one had arrived. This in itself was irritating enough, for Mrs. Munnings had rehearsed a long speech—dealing with her devotion to the departed—and was anxious to deliver it. Mrs. Marks, too, eagerly anticipated this event—having heard the speech three times, and not wishing the experience to be repeated indefinitely.

But the non-arrival of relatives was not the cause of Mrs. Munnings’ prostration. In fact, she had forgotten it. It was a scratch—and Mrs. Munnings had just received a blow.

She had been out most of the morning with Mrs. Marks, and certain of her lodgers—who were most anxious to see her—had remained ignorant of her return till nearly one o’clock. Then three of them burst in on Mrs. Munnings and Mrs. Marks and announced that they must speak to the former on a matter of urgent importance.

Two were elderly women, the third being an old man with a jovial expression, who drank a bit, but always paid his rent regularly. They represented Mrs. Munnings’ oldest and most reliable lodgers. Also, and above all, each of them was afraid of her.

But now they trooped into her room—very excited, very scared, and all talking simultaneously. It was some time therefore before Mrs. Munnings could elicit a coherent statement, but, first by shouting them down and then by cross-examining each in turn, she managed to learn the facts.

Briefly summarised, these were to the effect that, since the night of Wrayburn’s suicide, they had slept very badly. At first they had thought this was only nerves, but—last night and the night before—each of them had heard sounds in Wrayburn’s room. Yes they had! Mrs. Munnings could say what she liked, but they had. Sounds of hammering—then a curious sound as if someone was on hands and knees plugging the cracks in the floor. And that wasn’t all! Last night Miss Wilkins—the elder of the two women—had heard someone in the passage outside her room. She got up and opened the door—and there was a Figure on the stairs with a bottle of whisky in its hand. Oh yes there was! She saw it with her own eyes, and seeing was believing, so she had always been told. And Miss Wilkins wasn’t staying any longer in a haunted house. No, she wasn’t—not likely! And neither were the others. They were all frightened to death—and they were all going now. They had packed and were leaving immediately. And here was a week’s rent. And if Mrs. Munnings took their advice she’d get rid of the house just as soon as she could.

They then trooped out of the room, leaving the house a few minutes later—all three having crowded with their belongings into one taxi.

For nearly a minute Mrs. Munnings stood like a waxwork staring at Mrs. Marks, then collapsed into a chair as if she had been pole-axed.

Mrs. Marks glanced at her, realised it would be some time before she became articulate, and therefore decided to continue a complicated piece of knitting which she kept for emergencies. But, as she worked, she sniffed more and more frequently. Her opinion of Mrs. Munnings had fallen to zero. Fancy her believing that nonsense about the house being haunted! Haunted me foot! Those three lodgers had wanted to give notice for years, but hadn’t had the pluck. Wrayburn’s suicide had given them their chance—and they had taken it. And Mrs. M. had believed them! Fancy her being that soft! She—Mrs. Marks—would have shown ’em! Haunted, indeed! She’d have given ’em haunted.

Mrs. Munnings prostrate: Mrs. Marks knitting. This was the tableau presented when Rendell entered the room.

“No one turned up then,” he said briskly, seeing nothing but the magenta-coloured cake in the centre of the table.

Mrs. Munnings rose slowly—in a manner suggesting the birth of a mountain.

Mrs. Marks put down her knitting.

A menacing silence descended.

“Well, there it is, can’t be helped,” Rendell went on. “You’ve been to some expense, I see. Perhaps that will cover it.”

He put a pound note on the table.

“Cover it!” Mrs. Munnings gave a shrill laugh, then turned to Mrs. Marks. “Here am I—ruined!—and he gives me a pound note and says perhaps that’ll cover it.”

Mrs. Marks sniffed, then said she was sure that the gentleman meant no harm.

“Ruined!” Rendell exclaimed. “Who’s ruined?”

“Me three best lodgers gone! Gorn! There’s their week’s rent lying on that table! And all because of him—the little rat!”

“But why——”

“’Cos they say the house is haunted! That’s why! Didn’t I know it—didn’t I say to you, Mrs. Marks, didn’t I say he done it just to spite me? The little rat—the little rat!”

Her voice rose to a falsetto scream of rage.

“And me sitting here waiting for his relatives! The little bastard was likely to have relatives! He knew this would happen. He’s ruined me! He’s ruined me!”

She trembled so violently with anger and self-pity that Mrs. Marks was impelled to inform her that it didn’t do no good to carry on like that.

“Quarter day comin’, and me three best lodgers gone! And all the rest will go! Yes, they will—every one of ’em! I’ll be empty! Everyone will say: ‘Don’t you go to No. 4—it’s haunted.’ I’ll be begging on the streets! Me—Sarah Munnings! Yes, I shall, I tell you! And he knew it. The little rat knew it! It’s his revenge!”

Fury so possessed her that Rendell thought she was going to have a fit. The patches on her puffy face had turned purple; the little eyes were black points of hatred; the barrel-shaped body shook convulsively.

Rendell, feeling genuinely sorry for her, was about to suggest some monetary compensation, but Mrs. Munnings—noting the change in him—abandoned hysteria a little too abruptly and made a frontal attack.

“It’s no good your standing there staring! It’s gospel truth I’ve told you, as Mrs. Marks knows. The least that you can do, seeing as how you had a hand in all this, is to take rooms here yourself. And take ’em at once. And pay a good rent for ’em.”

“Quite out of the question,” Rendell replied curtly. “I’m going to Italy soon.”

Italy! Soon!

Mrs. Munnings’ last hope collapsed.

“And what’s to happen to me?”

“I don’t know.”

He turned and began to walk towards the door.

“You can’t leave me here—ruined! You can’t do it.”

She ran after the retiring Rendell and seized his arm.

“His furniture! The little rat’s furniture! That’s mine, anyhow. And I’m going to sell it. See?”

“Oh sell it—and be damned to you!” Rendell shouted, then went out, banging the door behind him.

X

The next evening Marsden went to Rendell’s room at about seven o’clock and, finding it empty, proceeded to make himself as comfortable as possible. Noticing that the cabinet in which Rendell kept his whisky was unlocked, he mixed a drink—took a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece—then lit the fire. After which he lowered himself carefully into an arm-chair, put his crutches on the floor, and surrendered himself to comfort.

He closed his eyes and drifted imperceptibly into a day-dream. Gradually the actual Marsden receded. The man he would like to be slowly emerged. This dream-Marsden became clearer and clearer till the man in the arm-chair identified himself wholly with him.

This dream-Marsden was rather an impressive person, being tall, slender, handsome—and a first-class athlete. He had played Rugby for England and was now a famous golfer. Fortune had been prodigal to him on every level. He was rich, well-born, a member of half a dozen good clubs, and a prominent figure in smart society. Women went mad about him.

This dream-Marsden had a house in town, a place in the country, and went abroad frequently to the right places with the right people. He had a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley. Also, Vera was his wife. He had married her because it was obvious that her life depended on him. He was her idol. He derived his subtlest pleasure from stretching her on the rack of jealousy. Naturally, he wasn’t faithful to her. That was scarcely likely when half the loveliest women in London were crazy about him. And, of course, he made no attempt to conceal his infidelities from Vera. On the contrary, he paraded them in order to torture her. When jealousy made her desperate, and she began to abuse him, he would threaten to leave her. Having thus brought her literally to her knees, he would forgive her. Then he would go away for another week-end in order to assert his freedom. She had forgotten that she had ever known Ivor Trent. She——

But at this point Marsden’s day-dream ended abruptly, for Rendell came into the room.

This sudden return to the actual irritated Marsden. The contrast between his imaginings and the facts was too wide to be bridged in a. second. A swift transition from the dream-Marsden to Marsden the cripple was very unpleasant. It martyred his vanity.

He looked up at Rendell with a smile resembling a scowl.

“Hullo! I wanted to see you last evening, but thought I’d better not, as you’d been to the funeral. Did it go off all right?”

“Yes, it—went off all right.”

“Good! No one else there, I suppose?”

“No one,”

“Any wreaths?”

“No.”

“I thought not. Well, that’s that! Now, look here, I’ve not come to chat. It’s pretty important really. I want your help.”

Rendell got a drink then sat down opposite Marsden. He felt tired and depressed, consequently the prospect of a conversation with Marsden was not inviting.

“What is it you want? I’m not feeling too good and——”

“It’s about Vera. I’ve got to settle things with her one way or the other. I can’t go on like this, and neither can she. She’s worse than ever.”

“I daresay, but I don’t see what all this is to do with me. You say you want to marry her. Well, why don’t you ask her? That will settle things one way or the other.”

Marsden fidgeted, then said jerkily:

“Yes—of course. But—well—you see—I’ll put it like this. I haven’t a lot to offer. In one way, I mean. That is, I’m not rich. I’ve a little private money, but—we’d have to live in my cottage in the country.”

“Well?”

“And—and that means, of course, that she’d have to give up her job.”

Again, Marsden hesitated. Manner, tone, gesture, plainly revealed how he resented the necessity for stating facts.

“And, of course,” he went on, “I’m not all I might be—physically.”

He gave a shrill little laugh, then added:

“Well, you don’t say anything.”

“I’m waiting to hear what you want me to do,” Rendell replied.

“I see. Well, briefly, it’s this. I want you to sound Vera. I—I want you to tell her the facts and see if she’ll marry me. Mind you,” he went on quickly, “I think she will. I want to marry her immediately. I’ve got a special licence and——”

“You want me to ask her if she’ll marry you!”

“Yes, I do. And I want you to go to her place to-night. She expects me at eight-thirty, but I want you to go instead. Then you can tell me to-morrow what she says. I’ll be here about this time.”

Rendell did not reply for some moments. If he refused, he would not see Vera before he left for Italy. Perhaps it would be better to go. Rosalie had asked him to help her if he could.

“Very well. You said eight-thirty?”

“Yes.”

Rendell finished his drink, then rose.

“I’ll have to go, Marsden. I’ll get a sandwich or something on the way.”

“Good! And I’ll see you—here—about this time to-morrow.”

“Yes, all right.”

Rendell put on his overcoat and left Marsden without another word.

He reached Vera’s flat just before eight-thirty, pressed the bell, and waited. Over a minute elapsed, then he rang again.

A few moments later a light was switched on in the hall and the door opened.

“You!”

She stared at him incredulously.

“Yes—Rendell.”

He tried to speak in his normal tone, but her appearance alarmed him. Her face was swollen and deep lines circled her eyes.

She invited him to enter with a movement of her hand and he followed her into the sitting-room.

He noticed a half-filled suitcase on the table and was about to ask if she were going away, when she turned to him and demanded:

“Why have you come?”

“It was Marsden’s idea.”

“What does he want?”

“He wants me to put certain facts up to you—and then to ask you a question. If your answer is ‘yes,’ he will come here himself to-morrow night.”

“I shan’t be here to-morrow night. I’m going away for the week-end.”

Rendell glanced at her. She flushed crimson and said angrily:

“I suppose I can go away for the week-end if I want to, can’t I?”

“Of course, but you don’t sound as if you do want to.”

Her anger flickered out and her mouth began to tremble. Then she sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands.

“Now, this won’t——”

“Oh, go away! For God’s sake go away! I can’t stand this for another minute!”

“That’s all very well, but——”

She sprang up and faced him. “I’m going to spend the week-end with Captain Frazer!”

“Captain Frazer! What on earth are you talking about?”

“Listen! You must listen! You remember that day at your room—the day he left for Ramsgate?”

“Yes, well?”

“I discovered—that day—that he knew about me and Ivor. Yes he does! I went down to that room of his and found out that he knew. He frightened me and I promised anything. Then he wrote to me——”

“You damned little fool!”

“I tell you he knows! He wrote asking for money. I sent it to him. Then he wrote again—and again. And then—then he said I’d got to go and spend a week-end with him, or——. I said I couldn’t get away. I said I was ill. But, now, I’ve got to go. And I’m going to-morrow.”

“You damned little fool!”

“But I tell you——”

“And I tell you,” Rendell cut in, “that Frazer knows nothing—nothing whatever. He saw you were frightened about something—and traded on it. Show me his letters.”

“But, but——”

“Get me his letters. We’ll soon settle this nonsense. I only want to see how far he had the nerve to go.”

She went to the bedroom, returning almost immediately with a small pile of letters.

Rendell read them carefully.

“I’ll keep these two,” he said at last, handing her the others.

“But what are you going to do? You mustn’t tell him I’ve shown these to you. I’m afraid of him. I daren’t quarrel with him.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, but listen to me. I shall go to Ramsgate——”

“You!”

“To-morrow and bring back a statement, written and signed by Frazer, saying that he knows nothing against you and that he is most grateful for the money you’ve lent him. Also, that he’ll repay it as soon as he can. You’ll have that statement tomorrow night.”

“He won’t give it to you.”

“Yes, he will. I understand Frazer pretty well. He’ll do what I want.”

“You really believe that?”

“I promise it. And I suppose this is why you’ve been avoiding me. You’ve plenty of brains, Vera, but—emotionally—you’re a bit of a fool.”

She sank into a chair and began to cry.

“But I suppose you were so frightened you didn’t know what you were doing. Was that it?”

“Yes.”

He went over to her and took her hands in his.

“Come on. I’m going to put you into a more comfortable chair.”

He raised her gently, then led her to an arm-chair near the fire.

“Now, have a cigarette.”

“Why are you so good to me? I was nearly mad to-night.”

“Then why didn’t you send for me?”

She did not reply, and he went on.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Tell me—have you had anything to eat?”

She shook her head.

“Then I’ll go out and get something.”

“No—really!—I couldn’t eat anything.”

There was a long silence. Eventually Rendell asked:

“Do you feel up to discussing Marsden?”

“Yes, I suppose so. What does he want?”

“He wants you to marry him.”

“Then why did he send you to ask me?”

“Because he feels a bit awkward about it,” Rendell replied. “And for these reasons. He hasn’t much money. You’d have to live in his cottage in the country. You’d also have to give up your job. And—he’s a cripple.”

“And I don’t love him,” Vera added.

“No, but he doesn’t know that.”

“Oh well, you can tell him I’ll marry him.”

Her tone was so casual, and yet contained such weariness, that Rendell did not reply immediately.

“You’re as indifferent as all that?” he asked at last.

“Yes. You were right when you said I was a fool emotionally. I’ll be safer behind bars. So I’d better marry Peter, and the sooner the better.”

“Well, you can marry him at once, if you want to. He’s got a special licence and——”

“Do you like him?” she asked suddenly.

Rendell hesitated.

“Do you like him?” she demanded irritably.

“No.”

“I knew you didn’t, but I wanted to make you say it. He’s weak, mean, and vain. Did you think I didn’t know that? But I’m not going to marry him if he’s going to cross-examine me about Ivor.”

“He won’t want to.”

“How do you know? Are you certain?”

“Quite certain,” Rendell replied. “He’s afraid that you will want to cross-examine him about Trent. You needn’t worry about that, but——”

He broke off.

“Well, but—what?” she demanded.

“I was going to say that, frankly, to live with Marsden in a cottage isn’t going to be too easy.”

“I know that. But there might be a child.”

She rose and began to wander about the room. Some minutes passed, then she paused near him and asked:

“You know I met Rosalie Vivian?”

“Yes. Why did you mention her?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She’s very lovely.”

Then, after a pause, she added:

“You think she’s lovely, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’d give anything to have her beauty. It’s power, and I worship power as only the weak can worship it. Will you see her again?”

“I’m joining her in Italy soon.”

She turned quickly to him.

“You’re—you’re joining her in Italy?”

“Yes, why?”

“Oh nothing! Then, you’re very fond of her?”

“Yes.”

She began to wander about the room again.

At last Rendell said he thought he had better go. He rose and she came over to him.

“You’re certain about Captain Frazer?”

“Quite certain. I will bring you that statement lo-morrow.”

“No, seal it, and drop it through the letter-box. I—I can’t see you again after to-night.”

“Very well. And I’ll tell Marsden.”

She went to the hall with him, waited while he put on his overcoat, then took his hands impulsively.

“You’ve saved me. You know that?”

“Oh well——”

“Yes, you have. And, somehow, I don’t mind what you know about me. I could tell you everything.”

She leaned down, kissed his hand, then ran back into the sitting-room, leaving the door open.

Rendell hesitated, then went out and down into the street.

XI

Two days later Rendell was alone.

As he had anticipated, the interview with Frazer was brief and conclusive. A hint that he had blackmailed Vera—a suggestion as to possible consequences—so frightened the Captain that he wrote a statement at Rendell’s dictation and signed it. The only difficulty was to convince him that, having done so, he had nothing to fear.

Rendell was back in London by six o’clock, and went straight to his room, where he found Marsden waiting for him. The latter, however, left directly he learned that Vera’s answer was favourable.

Rendell did not see him again. Marsden gave up his room the following day and went to the country—without saying good-bye, and without leaving a message.

At first this lack of courtesy puzzled Rendell, but eventually it made him appreciate the subtle demands of Marsden’s vanity.

It had been necessary to state his position before asking Vera to marry him, but this he had been unable to do in person. To stand revealed on the background of the facts was too humiliating. He wanted to dominate Vera, not to plead with her. He wanted her to regard him as he would like to have been, not as he was. But to tell the truth about himself was not the only indignity which menaced him. A darker shadow gloomed across his imagination—she might refuse him. Marsden winced at the possibility of hearing himself rejected.

Hence he had made Rendell his ambassador. And he bitterly regretted the fact directly he learned that Vera had accepted him. For—now—he instantly assumed that she loved him desperately, and that, therefore, there had been no necessity either to state the facts or to employ an advocate. He had humiliated himself unnecessarily, and he regarded Rendell as the cause of that humiliation. He was determined, therefore, not to see him again. Hence his hurried departure from Potiphar Street.

So Rendell was alone, and this solitude gradually revealed past and present in clearer perspective.

In the first place, he discovered that he had been at No. 77 for nearly seven weeks. Also, that his experiences there grouped themselves roughly into four distinct periods. The first concerned his arrival; the mystery of Trent’s presence in this extraordinary house; and adventures with visitors. This first period had occupied just over a week. The second was the month he had spent with Rosalie. Wrayburn’s tragedy was the third. And the fourth related to his dealings with Marsden and Vera.

Nearly seven weeks!

And all this had happened to him because of Ivor Trent! Trent—whom he had almost forgotten! Yet all this time he had been in those rooms at the top of the house. No one had seen him, no word had come from him. He had remained as invisible and as mute as destiny.

Why should this stranger have altered the map of his world?

The question found no answer, but others jostled on its heels. If he had known what had awaited him at No. 77 would he have come? Was it madness even to consider marrying Rosalie? Had his mental balance been destroyed as a result of suddenly finding himself in the vortex of Trent’s relations with others?

But as these questions, too, remained unanswered, Rendell now tried to assess his own responsibility for what had happened to him.

In one mood, it seemed that two impulses had altered his life. The first had been his letter to Marsden, which had resulted in their dining together on that fog-shrouded Sunday in order to discuss Trent. The second was his sudden determination—that night in the club—to go to No. 77 and inquire about him.

But, in another mood, these impulses seemed secondary, for a prior event had occasioned them. That event was the reading of one of Trent’s books. He had read it in Germany, when he was alone and lonely, and it was because he had discovered a deep knowledge of loneliness in the novel that he had become interested in its author.

Often, however, these guesses as to the origin of his experiences at Potiphar Street seemed childish. They had happened. That was the fact. How and why they had happened was a mystery as deep as life itself.

But Rendell was not concerned only with the past during this period of solitude. The present situation in the house intrigued him, chiefly because he heard nothing of Trent. He knew that Mrs. Frazer had been his nurse for some weeks but, even so, it was curious that he never saw her. Rendell realised that this was less extraordinary than it appeared, as he had practically only slept in his room during the last few weeks. But, now that he was in most of the day, there was no sign of her.

As to the lodgers, the majority were recent arrivals, and it was doubtful whether they knew that Trent was in the house. The servant, Mary, had left. There remained only Elsa, the model, who had taken over Mrs. Frazer’s duties, but it seemed to Rendell that she avoided him. He encountered her only on rare occasions and then she passed him with only a formal greeting.

One morning when he was pacing the room a sudden thought brought him to a standstill. Soon, he was leaving for Italy. He would bring Rosalie back to London for a time, then, possibly, they would marry—and live abroad. If that happened, he would probably never meet Trent, never unravel the mystery of his relations with others, never discover why he came in secret to Potiphar Street to work. He would remain in his present ignorance. He would never even see the man who had altered the whole of his life.

“It can’t end like that!” he exclaimed irritably. But as he began to pace the room again, he became more and more convinced that this was how it would end.

In the evening he went to the long bar of the Cosmopolitan, hoping to see Rummy. He had been in twice since his first visit, but on this occasion he learned that she had been off duty for some days as she was ill.

Rendell decided he would walk back to Chelsea, and then write to Rosalie. Since her departure she had written two or three times a week and although these letters consisted only of a single sheet, they evoked her image so vividly that Rendell seemed to see her confronting and claiming him.

He reached home at about nine o’clock, then sat by the fire to smoke a cigarette before writing to Rosalie.

The cigarette was half-finished when the door opened slowly.

He looked up and saw Elsa. She stood motionless, watching him intently, her lips slightly parted.

“Thought I’d come to see how you’re getting on.”

“Very glad you did,” Rendell replied as he rose. “Come in and sit down, if you’ve time. I hoped I’d see you before I went away.”

“You’re not busy?”

“No, not in the least.”

She sank into a chair by the fire. Rendell noticed that she relaxed the whole of her body directly she was seated.

“You sit as if it were a luxury,” he said with a smile.

“So it is—if you’re used to being terribly tired. I’ve been a model for years—you knew that? I’ve often posed for hours when I did not know how to stand.”

A silence followed. Rendell did not speak, as he assumed that at any moment she would explain why she had come. Also, a change in her appearance puzzled him, though he could not decide whether she had actually altered, or whether—on former occasions—all his attention had been captured by the beauty of her hair.

She was not looking at him, and he glanced at her repeatedly. She had the eyes and features of a child—but a child who had known privation. It had tautened the face, thereby accentuating cheekbones and chin. But the suffering that had marred her beauty had also individualised it. It was wholly hers, for it epitomised her history.

As the minutes passed Rendell discovered that to be silent with her did not embarrass him. She lay back, outstretched in her chair, with eyes nearly closed. Rendell felt that this physical abandonment expressed her recognition of a kinship between them which had no need of speech. To him, therefore, this silence possessed a unique quality. During it they ceased to be strangers.

Then, suddenly—and inevitably as it seemed to him—he began to tell her about himself. He spoke quietly, without looking once in her direction. He told her about his profession, what he had done, where he had been. Words presented themselves with unaccustomed readiness. In a few swift sentences he revealed the quality of the life he had lived before his marriage.

“I was that type—roughly. It’s a common enough one, of course—certain amount of ability, fair amount of money, keen on adventure. And a real admiration for only one quality—courage. I was free. I took what I wanted, if I could get it. I barged about the world, doing my job, and meeting all sorts of people. I knew quite a lot about men. I had to. I knew nothing about women, because, in those days, they were only a physical necessity. And you don’t learn a lot about them that way.”

He paused for a moment, then went on:

“Well, eventually, I married. I’d just returned to England after a long absence. She was some years younger than I was, and pretty frail. Half a child, really. God alone knows why she married me! Anyway, her health was bad from the beginning, so it was more like a brother and sister relationship than anything else. In two years she was dead.”

“I said just now,” he continued, “that courage was really the only quality I admired. Well, during those two years, she showed me a type I knew nothing about. I knew only the kind that goes out to meet danger. She showed me the courage that lies still, and watches—and waits. Well, she died. That was a year ago. And I found that my old way of life was over. Then I discovered that there was such a thing as loneliness.”

He then explained how he had come to Potiphar Street, and gave an edited account of his experiences there during the last few weeks. He ended by saying:

“I’m going to Italy soon, but this is what beats me. I suppose it’s why I’ve told you this rigmarole. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s this. Trent’s altered my life—yet I shall probably never meet him, probably never see him.”

“What do you want to know about him?” Elsa asked slowly.

“That would take a month. So tell me just this, if you can. Why has he had rooms here for years without telling any of his friends?”

“Because he can only write in those rooms upstairs. He didn’t tell his friends for several reasons. One was that he didn’t want to be disturbed. But, apart from all that, he belongs here.”

“Belongs here!” Rendell echoed.

“Yes. You’ll understand everything before long.”

“I doubt it! But you seem very definite about Trent. Have you known him long?”

“For ten years.”

“You mean, you’ve known him since he first came here?”

“Yes. The house was full of writers and artists in those days. That was an experiment of Captain Frazer’s. I was one of them. Ivor was another. Why do you look so surprised?”

“I don’t know. There’s something queer about all this. I feel that, underneath, you’re excited about something.”

“Tell me,” she said impetuously, leaning towards him, “have you ever waited for something, longed for something, year after year, till you felt that if it ever happened you just wouldn’t be able to bear it?”

“No, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as much as all that.”

Rendell rose, took a cigarette and was about to light in, when he suddenly exclaimed.

“You’re laughing!”

“I can’t help it. I’m terribly happy to-night. Sit down and I’ll tell you one or two things.”

She was silent for a minute, then went on:

“I was twenty when I came here, ten years ago. I hadn’t a farthing. My father was an Austrian, but he died when I was fifteen. Since then I lived with my mother who had an annuity. She died suddenly, when I was twenty. I had no money and knew nothing. Then an artist who admired my figure said he’d pay me to sit for him. So I became an artist’s model.”

“And that was the position just before you met Trent?”

“Yes. I took a box of a room here. Ivor stayed here for a year, writing Two Lives and a Destiny.”

After a pause she added:

“I knew nothing about men—then. I’d never met anyone in the least like him, in appearance, personality, or anything else. I was crazy about him. It was I who suggested he should write Two Lives and a Destiny. It was a great success. Then he took that flat near Cork Street. That was the end of him.”

“You mean, you didn’t see him again?”

“No, hardly ever.”

“But why did he leave you like that?”

“That’s a long story. But it wasn’t very surprising, do you think? Nearly every artist, when he becomes successful, is irritated by the people he mixed with when he was unknown. Still, there were special reasons in Ivor’s case. But that doesn’t matter.”

“And what happened to you?” Rendell asked as she remained silent.

She rose slowly, then leaned against the mantelpiece and looked down at him with an odd expression.

“What do you suppose happened? I was twenty-one, and an artist’s model. Times were bad, and got worse and worse. I starved sometimes—I’d have starved altogether if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Frazer. The world just knocked me about, rolled me in and out of the gutter. I got used to watching things happen to me—pretty grim things, some of them.”

“And you never even saw Trent?”

“I’d run into him in the street sometimes, but he avoided me. Anyway, I didn’t want to meet him.”

“All I can say is this,” Rendell said slowly, “the more I hear about him, the less I understand him. In fact I gave up trying to make him out long ago. But I would like to know this. How is he now?”

Elsa looked at him enigmatically.

“You’ll have to ask Mrs. Frazer.”

“But I never see her nowadays.”

“You will—soon.”

“What makes you think that?”

Elsa laughed.

“You’ll see her—soon. I suppose you wonder why I’ve told you all this.”

“Yes, in a way. But I feel you’ve a reason, though I’m damned if I know what it is.”

“Perhaps well meet again one day.”

“Are you going away then?”

“I only came to help Mrs. Frazer while she was looking after Ivor. I’m not here permanently. I’d better go now. I’ve a good deal to arrange.”

Rendell rose then stood looking at her intently.

“Well?” she asked.

“Rosalie said she felt she had always known you. I know what she meant.”

“She said that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad. She’s very lovely.”

They stood facing each other for nearly a minute.

“There’s something very odd about all this,” Rendell said at last.

“About what?”

“You—this conversation—everything!”

Elsa laughed.

“I’ll have to go now.”

Rendell held out his hand.

“Very well. Good night.”

“Good-bye.”

He went to the door with her, then began to pace slowly up and down the room.

XII

A Sunday, three days later. . . .

Mrs. Frazer glanced upward through the basement window, then—seeing no one—she hurried into the passage and called up the stairs:

“Lily!”

She waited, then called again.

This time a voice from the top of the stairs answered her.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time! Is Mr. Rendell back yet?”

“No, Mum.”

“Have you been into his room to see?”

“He wasn’t there a few minutes ago——”

“See if he is now.”

A moment later Lily informed her that Rendell had not returned.

“Well, mind you tell me directly he does. I want to know the moment he comes in.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“What’s the time now?”

“Nearly twelve o’clock, Mum.”

With minor variations, this dialogue was repeated every hour till six o’clock—Mrs. Frazer’s agitation becoming more apparent with each repetition. Finally, at five o’clock, Lily was ordered to stand sentinel in the hall so that she could report Rendell’s return directly that event occurred.

Just before six, Lily hurried to the top of the basement stairs and called into the depths below.

“Mr. Rendell’s just come in, Mum!”

Mrs. Frazer ran up the stairs, pushed past Lily, then rushed into Renders room without pausing to knock.

“Mr. Rendell!”

“Hullo! Haven’t seen you for a long time.” Then, after a glance at her, he added: “What’s wrong?”

“He’s gone!”

“Who’s gone?”

“Mr. Trent!”

He turned to her quickly.

“Do you mean he’s gone without saying he was going?”

“Yes.”

“Well I’m damned!”

“But that’s not all. I’ve never had such a day! She’s gone, too—Elsa!”

Rendell stared at her.

“With him, do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything!”

“Tell me what happened—exactly.”

“I went up to Mr. Trent at nine this morning. I passed Lily on the stairs and she said you’d gone out very early. Well, I knocked on his door. No reply. I knocked again several times. Then I got scared, so I went in. The bedroom was empty. The door leading to the study was open. I went through. Empty! Then I looked in the bathroom. Not a sign of him! I tell you I was scared. So back I go to the study. And there I found a note. And what do you think it said?”

“Haven’t an earthly,” Rendell replied.

“It just said he’d gone, thanked me for all I’d done for him—and a cheque for a hundred pounds was enclosed. But that wasn’t all. There was a P.S. which said: ‘Mr. Rendell can have my rooms for his last week—if that would interest him.’”

“What the devil does that mean?” Rendell demanded.

“I’m sure I don’t know. Still, he knew all about you.”

“You mean—he knows what you’ve told him.”

“No, I don’t, sir, I told him weeks ago you were in the house, and he said that he knew of you, though he’d rather I didn’t mention it. Then he went on to say that you had dined with Mr. Marsden on that Sunday he was taken ill.”

“Then Marsden must have seen Trent and told him.”

“Oh no, sir! Mr. Trent’s seen no one.”

“But he must have!”

“I know he’s seen no one. Why, he’s not even opened one of the letters that have come for him. He’s been alone ever since he came here. And that’s eight weeks ago to-day.”

Rendell thought intently for a moment, then asked:

“Did Elsa see him?”

“Oh yes, sometimes. During the last week or so, she’d take in his tray when I was busy.”

“Then Marsden must have told her that he dined with me on that Sunday—and Elsa must have told Trent. That’s the only possible explanation. Well, go on. What did you do after you’d read Trent’s note?”

“I went to Elsa’s room. It was empty, and all her things had gone. You could have knocked me down with a feather.”

“I believe you. But this is what I want to know, Mrs. Frazer. When did Trent cease to be seriously ill?”

“Well, sir, if you ask me, he’s been perfectly well for weeks.”

“What!”

“Ever since I became his nurse. I’m certain of it. And I’m certain of this, too—he’s been working.”

“How do you know that?”

Mrs. Frazer hesitated.

“I wouldn’t have you think I’m the sort that spies on her lodgers, because I’m not. But I got this idea that Mr. Trent was well, and that he was working. So, one night—or early in the morning, rather—I went out into the street. He had not drawn the curtains properly in his study—and I saw a light. That happened more than once. There’s a mystery in all this, Mr. Rendell.”

“There’s a mystery, all right. But tell me this. Did he ask you questions about the people in the house?”

“Yes, he did.”

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“And did he ask about my visitors? Did he know that Mrs. Vivian, Miss Thornton, and Mr. Wrayburn came to see me?”

“Yes, he asked a lot of questions. And I answered them. The doctor told me to encourage rational conversation. I didn’t think there was any harm, and what else could I——”

“And he knew that Mr. Marsden had a room here for some weeks?”

“Yes, sir, he knew that.”

“All very interesting,” Rendell said slowly. “Now, tell me again, will you? the exact wording of that P.S. to his letter.”

“That I can do, for I know that letter by heart. I’ve read it fifty times, I should think. This was the P.S. ‘Mr. Rendell can have my rooms for his last week—if that would interest him.’”

“Well, it does interest him! And I’ll go up now. It’s six o’clock. I’m dining late to-night, so I’ll spend a couple of hours in Trent’s rooms and think things over. Lily can tell anyone who calls for me that I’m out, though I don’t expect anyone will call.”

“But what do you make of it all, Mr. Rendell?”

“I don’t know what to make of it, and if I were you, I would not puzzle my head about it. Why not go and see a friend for a couple of hours and get a change of atmosphere?”

“I think I will. I do, indeed. I’ve plenty to worry about. I suppose I’ll have to get my husband back now.”

“I shouldn’t hurry about that.”

“Oh, I don’t mean till you’re gone, sir. Here’s the key to Mr. Trent’s door. The door at the bottom of the stairs, I mean,” she added, seeing that Rendell did not understand. “He’s got really a flat to himself up there. He spent a lot of money making it quiet and one thing and another. It’s completely cut off, as you’ll see.”

“Right! I’ll go up directly you’ve gone.”

She left him, and a few minutes later the front door closed behind her.

He picked up the key, went into the hall, and began to climb the stairs.

XIII

Rendell encountered no one on his ascent. Previously he had not penetrated further than the second floor, consequently on reaching the third he paused and looked round. Then he went on to the foot of the stairs leading to the fourth floor—and found himself confronted by a door.

Trent!

He inserted the key, turned it, but the door did not yield. To his surprise, he found that some exertion was necessary in order to open it. He forced it back and discovered that behind the door was another, covered with thick green baize.

“No wonder he didn’t hear the noise.”

Rendell entered, closing the doors behind him.

Darkness and silence.

He struck a match, then switched on the light. A stairway, flanked by white banisters and covered with thick carpet, was revealed. Rendell stood gazing at it for a moment, then slowly ascended.

On reaching the top he paused again. A broad passage faced him with three shut white doors, one on his right and two on his left. He had the odd sensation that everything was waiting for him.

Eventually he opened the door on his right, thereby discovering a bathroom, but not one which his experience at No. 77 had caused him to anticipate. Even by Rendell’s normal standards, it was rather luxurious.

“Does himself pretty well, evidently.”

He crossed to the room on the left near the top of the stairs.

It was the bedroom. Rendell glanced round, noting the perfection of its simplicity, then went through the communicating door into the study and switched on the lights.

A whistle of amazement escaped him.

It was a low oblong room, the walls of which were covered with bookcases. Near the window was a writing-desk on which stood a curiously-shaped green idol. Parchment-coloured curtains hanging in deep folds obliterated the outside world. Concealed lighting dimly illuminated the room.

But what had occasioned Renders amazement was not the room’s contents, but its atmosphere. It was impossible to believe he was in 77, Potiphar Street. He stood motionless, listening to the silence. Somehow this silence was not the mere absence of sound. It was not explained by the material facts of the double windows and the thick pile close-fitting carpet. This silence was alive. Rendell began to believe that the real furniture of a room is the thoughts and emotions of its occupant. This silence disturbed him. It made him feel an interloper, yet, simultaneously, it claimed him.

He looked round. Four large waste-paper-baskets, piled high with unopened letters, were ranged by the wall near the door. On a little table an open book lay face downwards. Under it was a cutting from a newspaper.

So it was here Trent had written his books. Two Lives and a Destiny had been written in this room. Here he had lived and worked in secret.

He went to the writing-desk, then stood looking down at it. Nearly five minutes passed. At last he crossed to the fireplace, switched on the electric fire, then stood with his back to it, as if anxious to have the whole room in view.

Gradually he became aware of an intensity in the atmosphere which affected him unpleasantly. It raised his thoughts to a new vibration, quickened his sense of personality—yet, simultaneously, seemed to rob him of it.

“I’m not staying here for my last week, Mr. Trent.”

But the sound of his own voice jarred. Then, feeling that he must create contact with the familiar, he went to the window, parted the curtains, and looked out.

Lights gleamed and flashed on the turbulent river. A tram glided over Battersea Bridge. A naked tree writhed under the lash of the wind. But no sound rose to him. He felt like a deaf man looking at the world.

He was about to return to the fire, then, changing his mind, he went again to the writing-desk and stood looking down at it fascinated. Then, scarcely aware of what he was doing, he tried the top drawer on the right.

It yielded, and a pile of manuscript paper was revealed—on which was a sealed envelope, addressed to A. Rendell, Esq.

He picked it up and read his own name a dozen times in order to convince himself of its reality.

So this was why Trent had written that P.S. He wanted him to come to this room—and find this letter!

He slit open the envelope and read:

The letter fell from Rendell’s hand.

Overheard his conversation with Marsden that Sunday! . . . Why, the place was empty! . . . There was a hell of a fog and . . .

He picked up the letter and read on.

Rendell read this letter three times.

Then he took the manuscript and sat down by the fire.

He stared in front of him for some minutes, then started to read.