The Chapters

Lady Russell came to Kellynch the next morning with a paper in her hand, and the comfortable conviction of having made duty agreeable. She had been considering figures till she had almost ceased to dislike them; and had discovered, in the course of her calculations, that a great deal might be saved by persons who would consent to want a little less. The discovery was not new; but its application to Sir Walter Elliot required all the delicacy of friendship.

Mr Shepherd was already there. He had brought papers likewise, but had not opened them. He was a man who understood the advantage of allowing a disagreeable truth to be first advanced by somebody whose consequence could protect it; and Lady Russell’s arrival relieved him from the necessity of determining how much longer the weather might properly detain them.

They were assembled in the breakfast-room. Elizabeth sat near her father; Anne, who had been desired to find a letter relating to one of the accounts, had remained when it was found. Nobody had asked her to stay; but as nobody wanted the chair she occupied, there was no immediate reason for her removal.

Lady Russell began with the prosperity of the estate. Its value was unquestionable, its resources considerable; the difficulty arose merely from the expenditure having, for some years, exceeded the income.

“An exceedingly unpleasant way of stating it,” said Sir Walter. “One should suppose that I had been extravagant.”

Lady Russell trusted that no person acquainted with his situation could misunderstand her. There were expenses inseparable from an establishment like Kellynch; there were claims upon its owner which a private gentleman might escape. She had allowed for all these. Her object had been to preserve every thing essential, and to suggest only such abatements as might be made without injury to his proper consequence.

She then laid her plan before him. The annual visit to London must be suspended; two carriage-horses might be spared; the table, without losing any of its hospitality, might be regulated with greater exactness; and several occasional expenses, which acquired importance only by being repeated, must be entirely discontinued. A certain sum was to be set apart every quarter for the discharge of debts. With steadiness, and no fresh engagements, she hoped that six years would restore him to a situation in which he might again feel perfectly at ease.

“Six years!” Sir Walter repeated. “You propose that I should live in this manner for six years?”

“It would be a period of increasing satisfaction. Every quarter would give you the pleasure of knowing that something substantial had been effected.”

“And what horses do you mean should be sold?”

Lady Russell had not presumed to choose the horses.

“Then you have not considered the matter. There is not one which can be spared. If I were to keep an inferior carriage, or Elizabeth were to be seen with a pair of horses where she has always appeared with four, every body would know what it meant. As to London, our visit is already so short that I can hardly call it going to town at all. We scarcely see any body. I cannot reduce it.”

“The reduction, Sir Walter, would consist in not going.”

“Yes; and that is precisely what I object to. I cannot accept any part of such a plan. It would destroy all the comfort of my life, and answer no purpose.”

Lady Russell folded her paper, with a composure which cost her something. She had expected objections to particular sacrifices, and had prepared to yield upon one or two; but a refusal to distinguish between any of them left her nothing to defend. She looked towards Mr Shepherd.

He was immediately ready. He entirely comprehended Sir Walter’s feelings. A residence so distinguished as Kellynch Hall could not be subjected to ordinary rules. There might, however, be another way of approaching the subject; and he begged permission to submit a few observations.

His proposal was less severe upon present enjoyment. The London visit need not, perhaps, be absolutely relinquished; the horses might remain. He would recommend closing a portion of the house during the winter, reducing the number of servants by not replacing those who left, and suspending entertainments of expense. He believed that arrangements might be made with the principal creditors for payment by instalments, upon a longer calculation than Lady Russell’s. Some timber, properly selected, might assist the first payments. He had taken care, in all his estimates, to preserve a sum for Sir Walter’s personal expenses which he hoped would be thought liberal.

Sir Walter took the paper. His eye passed over several articles with tolerable tranquillity, and stopped at the servants.

“Do you know how many servants are kept at South Park?”

Mr Shepherd could not undertake to say.

“They have two more than I have. I was struck by it when I was last there. Their establishment is by no means upon the same scale, and yet they have two more servants. You propose that I should have fewer still.”

“Only as vacancies might occur, Sir Walter.”

“A vacancy must be filled. That is the use of a vacancy. And shutting up rooms! What rooms are to be shut up? I do not build a house, or inherit a house, to shut it up. The timber is out of the question. There are trees which my grandfather particularly valued.”

Mr Shepherd ventured to explain that he had referred to some distant plantations, of which the thinning had already been recommended.

“I shall have nothing cut down. I reject the whole proposal. It is quite impossible that either of these plans should be adopted.”

There was a silence. Sir Walter returned the paper with the air of a man who had disposed of the difficulty by discovering the error in its treatment. Elizabeth looked out of the window. Lady Russell was considering whether friendship required her to speak more plainly, when Anne, who had been attending to both statements with a distress which their reception increased, addressed her father.

“Would it not be better, sir, to determine first what must be paid every year, and to consider only afterwards what we can afford to spend?”

Sir Walter looked at her; but she had begun, and must go on.

“If the interest and a sufficient part of the debts were put aside before any thing else, we should know what remained. We might give up London entirely, and all company except such friends as would dine with us without preparation. We might keep only the horses absolutely wanted, and live in fewer rooms; and if the sum were still too small, we must lessen our own expenses again. There could be no new furniture, and very little new dress. I am sure I could require nothing.”

“My dear Anne,” said Lady Russell, “your principle is perfectly right; but there are considerations—”

“And I think Anne is right,” said Elizabeth.

No observation made that morning had produced so much effect. Lady Russell turned towards her with an expression of gratified astonishment; Mr Shepherd ceased arranging his papers; Sir Walter stared; and Anne, who had prepared herself for every species of discouragement, found encouragement almost too surprising to be understood.

“I think her plan the best,” Elizabeth continued. “If we are to be uncomfortable, let it be of some use. I do not see the advantage of six or eight years of saving, with every tradesman sending in his bill all the time. I would rather have no company at all than be obliged to calculate what every dinner costs.”

“You cannot mean that you would give up London,” said her father.

“Yes, indeed, I would. We might say that we did not intend going. There is no necessity for giving a reason.”

“And the carriage?”

“If we do not visit, we shall not want it so much.”

Anne looked at her sister with a warmth of pleasure which she had seldom been permitted to feel. There was something beyond good sense in such a declaration; there must be a willingness to endure, a concern for their father’s peace, which she had not sufficiently allowed for. She was already reproaching herself for injustice, when Elizabeth added—

“But every body must save. I should insist upon that. I will not sit at home in an old gown merely that other people may have the credit of being charitable.”

Anne’s pleasure was checked, but not destroyed. A useful determination did not cease to be useful because it was imperfectly founded; and Elizabeth had offered sacrifices which nobody had expected her to name.

Lady Russell, recovering from her surprise, endeavoured to secure the advantage. Miss Elliot’s willingness must remove much of the pain from any arrangement. Some particulars would require consideration, but with such a spirit in the family—

“I have heard quite enough of spirits and arrangements,” said Sir Walter. “Anne knows nothing of these matters; and Elizabeth cannot have reflected. I will not live like a person who has no pretensions. If people are to be invited here, they must be received properly; and I am not going to tell the whole neighbourhood that my house is closed.”

Elizabeth coloured. She had meant to make a considerable sacrifice, and to be distinguished for making it. To be dismissed with Anne was a consequence for which she was wholly unprepared. She took up her work, and determined that she would not be the first to speak again.

Mr Shepherd allowed the pause to continue long enough for it to be felt. He then observed that, where the expense of a great house was the principal obstacle, there was sometimes a means of preserving the property without requiring its possessor to make those daily sacrifices which were naturally most repugnant to him.

Sir Walter’s attention revived a little.

“It is not a suggestion,” Mr Shepherd proceeded, “which I should venture upon without the greatest respect for your feelings. But there have been instances, in families of the first consideration, of an estate being materially relieved by letting the mansion for a limited period. A suitable tenant for Kellynch Hall—”

“A what?”

“A gentleman of fortune, Sir Walter, whose habits and connexions—”

“I desire that the word tenant may never be spoken again in my presence.”

Mr Shepherd bowed.

“Kellynch Hall is my residence. I suppose that is understood. My family have lived here for generations; and I am to be turned out that some person who has made money may sit in my drawing-room! I should like to know where you imagine I am to go.”

Mr Shepherd had no wish to pursue a subject which was disagreeable to Sir Walter.

“I forbid its being mentioned again. There must be some other method. You have the accounts, Shepherd; you must discover something in the accounts.”

The accounts, which had hitherto been considered the source of the misfortune, were thus required to furnish its remedy. Mr Shepherd promised a further examination; Lady Russell said little; and the consultation ended with no other settled result than that every practicable proposal had given offence.

Lady Russell remained a few minutes after Mr Shepherd’s departure, but could gain nothing from a private appeal. Sir Walter was hurt that she should have listened to such a suggestion under his roof. She left him with more concern than hope, and Anne accompanied her to the door, receiving a pressure of the hand which acknowledged both her exertion and its failure.

Anne had scarcely returned when a servant brought a letter from Uppercross. The man who had delivered it was to wait for an answer. It was directed to her, and contained the following:—

“My dear Anne,—I have been very unwell all the morning, and am sure I shall be worse before night. I cannot understand why you never come to see me, when you know how little I am able to be alone. Charles says he thinks I should be better if I went out, but he does not know what I suffer. He has been out himself a great part of the morning. The children are so noisy that I can hardly write, and nobody thinks of keeping them away from me. Mrs Musgrove has sent to ask how I do, which is very kind, but I do not see what good a message can be. I wish you would come directly, or at least early to-morrow, and stay some time. There can be nothing to keep you at home. I am sure Elizabeth can do very well without you.—Yours affectionately, “Mary Musgrove.”

Anne’s first feeling was of concern; her second, of relief at finding that concern capable of directing her to something which could be done. Mary might not be seriously ill; the letter afforded no certainty of it; but she was uncomfortable, and Anne knew that her presence would lessen the discomfort.

“Mary wants me at Uppercross,” she said. “She is not well.”

“Mary always writes as if nobody had ever been ill before,” said Elizabeth. “What does she say is the matter?”

Anne gave what information she could.

“Then it is nothing particular. You had better go, however. She will only write again.”

Sir Walter, on hearing of the application, observed that Mary should be careful not to acquire a habit of looking ill. It was very injurious to a young woman. He had no objection to Anne’s going; but she must not suppose the carriage could be sent for her whenever she chose to return.

She asked for no such arrangement. An answer was written, promising that she would come the next morning, and the messenger was dismissed.

Elizabeth’s resentment survived the afternoon, but her resolution did not obtain a second hearing. Once, when they were alone, Anne attempted to thank her.

“I only said what appeared reasonable,” Elizabeth replied. “There is no occasion to talk of it. If nothing is to be done, I suppose we may as well be silent.”

They were silent accordingly; and at dinner Sir Walter spoke of a family in the neighbourhood who were believed to have purchased their plate at second hand.

By evening the papers had been removed from the breakfast-room, and every visible preparation for economy had disappeared. The house was as spacious, the attendance as numerous, and its master as little reconciled to reduction, as before his friends had been summoned.

Anne went early to her own room. A few preparations for Uppercross required little time; and when they were finished, she sat alone beside the open window, with Mary’s letter in her hand. She could leave Kellynch without imagining that her absence would interrupt any measure of usefulness. This was a sad liberty, but it was liberty still. At Uppercross there would be complaints to hear, children to quiet, and perhaps some actual suffering to relieve; she had resolved to go, and the promise gave a direction to the morrow which the present day had wanted.

Below her lay the grounds which no one would consent to relinquish, belonging to a house which no one would consent to maintain within his means. She could see no alteration in their difficulties, and scarcely any opening for hope. She folded the letter, and remained at the window till the light had faded from the lawn.

Robert accommodated his step to Madame Ratignolle’s with a solicitude which she found excessive.

“You need not walk as if you were carrying a glass of water,” she told him. “It is only when I first get up that I am so stiff. Presently I shall be able to run away from you.”

“I have spent the morning being run away from. I should like to know what I have done.”

“You have done nothing. That is sometimes quite enough.”

She laughed, and stopped to shake a little sand from her shoe. Robert looked back toward the children’s tent. Mrs. Pontellier was seated upon its edge, with one knee drawn up and her hands clasped about it. The boys were bringing her things which they had found in the sand. She received each treasure gravely, laying it beside her upon a fold of her dress.

“Mrs. Pontellier looks sometimes as if she were listening to something which the rest of us cannot hear,” he said.

Madame Ratignolle turned her head, but from where they stood she could distinguish little more than the outline of her friend’s figure.

“Perhaps she is only tired of hearing you, Robert.”

“That would account for her expression when I am talking. It does not account for it when I am silent.”

“You must ask her, then. How can I explain what another woman thinks about? I have enough trouble remembering my own thoughts. I have forgotten whether I told the nurse to change the little girl’s shoes.”

She began to walk more briskly, and before they had reached the house her anxiety concerning the shoes had displaced all recollection of the stiffness in her limbs.

Edna remained with the children until the strip of shade beneath the tent had grown so narrow that they quarreled for possession of it. Raoul wished to carry home a broken crab, which his brother declared to be still alive. The dispute was submitted to her. She examined the creature with an attention quite disproportionate to its importance, and decided that it must be left where it was. Raoul accepted the decision with a look of injury which she remembered after she had ceased to remember its cause.

A telegram was awaiting her at the cottage. The folded paper lay upon the table beside her husband’s box of bonbons, of which only the lower layer remained. She opened it standing, with her hat still on.

“Detained by business. Cannot come Saturday. All well. Léonce.”

She read it twice. There was nothing in it to occasion uneasiness; yet the little sheet gave her a sense of some alteration in the day which she could not immediately define. She had been thinking that morning of a book which she wished him to bring, and of certain small purchases for the children. These now seemed matters which might easily be dispensed with.

She put the telegram beneath the box, leaving one corner exposed, and went in to change her dress for dinner.

At table Madame Lebrun asked if Monsieur Pontellier had sent good news. The boy who brought the message had delivered it first at the house, and its existence had naturally become known.

“He is very well. He cannot come out Saturday.”

“Ah! those men and their business!” exclaimed Madame Lebrun. “They cannot persuade themselves that the world will turn round if they cease to push it.”

Robert offered to obtain anything Mrs. Pontellier might need from the city. There were people coming down every day; it would be the simplest matter. She thanked him, but said there was nothing. She was conscious, in saying it, of a slight pleasure which seemed to belong less to the absence of a want than to the discovery that she could have none.

After dinner Madame Ratignolle came to the cottage for a pattern which she had left there. She found it beneath a newspaper, and remained a few moments, spreading its irregular pieces upon her lap to assure herself that none was missing.

“Robert made a very pretty speech about you this morning,” she said. “I meant to tell you at dinner, but Madame Lebrun was giving us the history of her cook.”

“About me?”

“He said, ‘Mrs. Pontellier looks sometimes as if she were listening to something which the rest of us cannot hear.’ There! What do you think of that? I told him perhaps you were tired of listening to him.”

Edna smiled, looking down at the scissors which she had taken from the table.

“What made him say it?”

“We were looking back at you under the tent. He was offended because we had escaped him. You know how Robert must be amused.”

“Was he offended?”

“Only as a child is offended when one shuts a door. Give me those scissors, dear; there is a thread here which I shall pull and ruin everything.”

Edna handed them to her. She would have liked to hear the words again, but could discover no reasonable pretext for asking it. Madame Ratignolle presently gathered up her pattern and went away, holding the papers against her breast lest the wind should scatter them.

The afternoon seemed very long. The children had gone with their nurse to play near the house, where there was shade. From one of the cottages came the sound of a piano, a passage repeated with conscientious uncertainty. Edna tried to read. At the bottom of a page she found that she knew nothing of what she had read, and turned the leaf nevertheless.

At length she rose and took her bathing things. She did not call for Robert, nor inquire where he might be. The thought of going to the water had presented itself as something so simple that to speak of it would have given it an unnecessary consequence.

The sandy path was hot beneath her feet. Here and there the camomile had been crushed by persons passing, and its odor rose from the warm earth. She walked slowly under her sunshade. There was no one upon the little gallery of the bath-house when she reached it.

The wind still fretted the water, though less violently than in the morning. Farther along the beach a man was drawing a boat above the reach of the waves. He went away before she had finished dressing.

Edna had made many attempts to swim. She had listened to explanations, had submitted to being held and directed, and had invariably regained her footing with a haste which left her breathless and humiliated. There was always a moment when the supporting hand seemed the one substantial thing in a world suddenly grown treacherous.

To-day she walked out only a little way. The water was warm about her ankles and cooler where it rose against her body. She stooped, wetting her shoulders, and stood again, pushing the damp hair from her forehead.

She could see the sand through the moving water. A small shell below her foot appeared to advance and retreat without changing its place.

It occurred to her that she need not go farther; that whatever there was to be learned might begin here, where she could stand whenever she chose. She stretched her arms before her and suffered her body to incline upon the water. At once she put down a foot. The bottom was there, firm and reassuring.

She tried again.

For a moment she was occupied wholly with the awkward business of her arms. Then her feet left the sand, and she made a stroke, another, and a third. The water bore her. She felt it pass along her body with a strange, intimate pressure. There was no hand beneath her, no voice bidding her take courage. A little wave broke against her mouth, and she stood up, coughing and laughing softly.

She had gone scarcely farther than the length of her own body. The beach was almost absurdly near.

Yet she looked toward it with surprise, as if she had returned from some distance which could not be measured by the few yards of water between herself and the shore. She did not repeat the attempt. After standing a while, she waded back, lifting her feet carefully over the uneven sand.

When she came out of the bath-house, dressed, the lady in black was upon the neighboring gallery. Her prayer-book lay closed beside her. Edna had never before heard her voice addressed to herself.

“Have you the hour, madame?”

“I have no watch. I think it must be nearly five.”

“So late! One does not know it here.”

“Have you been waiting long?”

“No. I came to sit a little.”

The lady took up her book, keeping a finger between its leaves, but did not open it. Edna lingered to fasten her sunshade.

“The water is pleasant this afternoon,” she said.

The lady in black looked out upon it.

“It seems always to be moving,” she answered.

Edna could think of nothing further to say. They exchanged a slight inclination of the head, and she went away. The commonplace little conversation remained with her for a time, chiefly because it was the first that had passed between them.

At supper she was hungry and ate with enjoyment. Robert asked where she had hidden herself all the afternoon. He had looked for her to propose a walk.

“I went down to bathe.”

“And you did not send for me!”

“You were not necessary,” she returned, with a laugh which softened the words.

He assumed an air of deep mortification, and presently amused her with an account of some dispute between himself and Victor. She listened readily. Of the few strokes which she had taken in the water she said nothing.

That night the boys were slow in falling asleep. They called for water, and then for their mother, and then disagreed concerning something which had occurred during their play. Edna sat with them until their voices ceased. One small hand lay open upon the sheet. She looked at it a moment before lowering the lamp.

She went out alone upon the gallery. Robert had remained at the house, where there was music. It reached her faintly, broken by the distance and the stirring leaves.

The children slept behind her. She settled into her chair, letting her hands fall loosely in her lap. When she closed her eyes she felt again the brief yielding of the water beneath her body; but it was Adèle’s voice that she heard, repeating Robert’s words: “As if she were listening to something which the rest of us cannot hear.”

When she opened her eyes again there was a light shining close to her face, and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her by the shoulder.

“Now then,” she said, “wake up. We’re here, and you must get out.”

Mary had been dreaming that she was trying to make a servant bring her something and that he would not come because he had no face. She was so angry with him that she was angry with Mrs. Medlock also. She sat up and stared at the window. It was quite black, except where a station lamp made the wet glass glitter.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“At Thwaite. Give me your bag.”

There were very few people upon the platform. The rain was falling more softly, but it dripped from the roof and lay in shining patches upon the stones. Mary stood beside a pile of luggage while Mrs. Medlock spoke to a porter. She felt stiff and cold and wanted some one to take her somewhere at once.

Then Mrs. Medlock turned round and made such a sudden movement that the purple flowers in her bonnet shook.

“Mr. Craven, sir!” she exclaimed.

A gentleman in a long dark coat had come from the shadow beyond the lamp. He was thin, and one shoulder seemed higher than the other. His face was not old, but it looked as if he had been very tired for a great many years and had never found any place where he could rest. He glanced at Mrs. Medlock and then at Mary.

“This is Miss Mary, sir,” Mrs. Medlock said, in a voice quite different from the one she had used in the railway carriage.

Mary looked straight at him. So this was her uncle. She had not expected to see him, and she did not know what she ought to do. Nobody had told her whether she was to shake hands.

“Come,” he said.

That was all he said to her.

He turned away, and Mrs. Medlock took hold of Mary’s arm and hurried her after him. A carriage was waiting outside the station, with two lamps which made the horses’ wet backs shine. Mr. Craven got in first. Mary was put in opposite him, and Mrs. Medlock tucked a rug round her knees with a great deal of attention, though she had not troubled herself much about Mary’s knees before.

“I hope we have not kept you waiting, sir,” she said.

“No.”

“Her boxes are being put up.”

He made no answer to this, and Mrs. Medlock said nothing more.

Mary thought it very queer that a person should make Mrs. Medlock quiet merely by sitting in a corner. She sat very quietly herself, but she watched him when a light from outside passed across his face. He did not look at her again. Once he put his hand over his eyes, and after that she could see nothing but his hand and the dark outline of his head.

At first they drove through streets where there were lights in windows and little shops which were being shut. Then the houses grew farther apart, and presently there were no houses at all.

The carriage rocked and splashed through pools. Something beat softly against the glass, and Mary thought at first that it was a branch; but it was only the rain, which the wind drove now upon one side and now upon the other. Beyond the lamps there was a great blackness. It was not like the darkness outside her nursery in India. There had always been things there which she knew were there, even when she could not see them. Here she could not guess what there was.

“Is this the moor?” she whispered to Mrs. Medlock.

“Yes.”

“What is on it?”

“Heather and gorse and such like. Miles and miles of it.”

“Are there people?”

“Not where we are now. Sit back under your rug.”

Mary sat back, but she did not cease looking out. She could not see the heather or the gorse. Sometimes she thought she saw something rise up beside the road, and then it was gone. The wind made a long rushing sound, and the carriage seemed a very small thing to be carrying them through so much emptiness.

Suddenly the horses stopped.

Mrs. Medlock leaned forward. There was a man’s voice outside, and one of the horses stamped and shook its harness. The carriage door was opened by the coachman, whose hat and shoulders shone with wet.

“What is it?” said Mr. Craven.

“Sheep across the road, sir. There’s one down by the wheel-track, and the others won’t stir past her.”

Mr. Craven got out. The coachman went towards the horses, taking one of the lamps with him. Mary could see its light moving over wet stones and over something pale which stirred and disappeared.

“Stay where you are,” said Mrs. Medlock. “I must find your travelling shawl. It has slipped down somewhere.”

She turned and began to feel about upon the seat behind her. The carriage door had not been quite shut. A gust pushed it wider, and Mary looked out through the opening.

She had never stood upon a moor. She had scarcely ever been anywhere without being carried or led or told to sit down. Perhaps it was because she had been sitting down so long that she suddenly wanted to stand upon the ground. Perhaps she wanted to see what a sheep looked like when it stopped a carriage. She did not ask herself why she did it. She slipped off the seat and climbed down.

The wind caught her at once. It pushed her skirt against her legs and seemed to put cold fingers under her collar. She took two steps away from the wheel, and one of her shoes sank into something soft.

It was a most extraordinary feeling to be standing there. The carriage lamp behind her showed a little piece of rough ground, with low dark bushes and water trembling in a hollow. Everything beyond it was black. Yet she knew now that the blackness was full of things growing, and that it went on and on without any room or house to stop it.

A sheep came suddenly into the light. It had a wet face and looked at her with pale, stupid eyes.

“Go away!” said Mary.

The sheep moved past her, and another followed it. She heard the coachman calling and the quick little knocking of their feet upon the road. Farther off her uncle stood holding the lamp low while a man in a rough coat bent over something on the ground.

Then Mrs. Medlock discovered that Mary was gone.

“Mercy on us! What are you doing?” she cried. “Come back this instant! Do you want to be lost?”

“I am here,” said Mary disagreeably.

She had been out scarcely a minute, but when Mrs. Medlock pulled her into the carriage her cheeks felt quite different. They tingled, and she was obliged to breathe quickly.

“Of all the tiresome children!” Mrs. Medlock exclaimed, rubbing the muddy shoe with a corner of an old newspaper. “Walking straight out into the moor at night!”

“I wanted to get out,” said Mary.

“That’s plain enough. You’ll keep your wants to yourself another time.”

The sheep in the road had been lifted to its feet. Mary saw it limping away beside the man in the rough coat. Mr. Craven returned, the door was shut, and they drove on. He did not ask why she had got out or whether she was cold. Mary was rather glad that he did not. She did not want Mrs. Medlock to tell him that she was tiresome.

After a long time the sound of the wheels changed. They rolled more smoothly, and trees rose out of the darkness on either side. Mary could see their trunks when the lamps passed them. Then the carriage turned, and there was a great house before her, with only a few windows lighted in its broad black front.

The door was opened before they reached it.

Mary was taken into a hall so large that the fire burning at one end seemed too far away to be of any use. There were strange shapes of furniture in the shadows and faces looking down from pictures. She was tired enough to feel as if all the faces were watching her because they knew she did not belong there.

An elderly manservant stood by the door. Mr. Craven spoke to him in a low voice and went across the hall. Mary watched until he passed through a doorway and was gone.

“Come along,” said Mrs. Medlock.

“Is he going away?” Mary asked.

“You’ve nothing to do with where he’s going. Your room is ready.”

They went up a broad staircase and along a passage, and then up a smaller staircase and along another passage. Mary thought that she could never find her way back. Their footsteps sounded plainly, and when they stopped for Mrs. Medlock to open a door the silence seemed to have followed them and stopped also.

The room they entered had a fire and a bed with curtains. A table had been drawn near the hearth, and there were two candles upon it. The light made the room look comfortable until Mary looked beyond it and saw how deep the window was and how dark the heavy furniture stood against the walls.

“You’ll have your supper here,” Mrs. Medlock said. “Take off your things.”

Mary waited for her to take them off for her, but Mrs. Medlock was examining the bed. So she unbuttoned her coat slowly and dropped it upon a chair. She was pulling at the strings of her hat when there was a knock.

A manservant came in carrying a tray. He was a broad, elderly man with sandy whiskers and a face which looked as if it had been rubbed very hard with a towel. He set the tray upon the table and lifted a cover.

“Here’s summat hot for thee,” he said. “Tha mun get it etten whilst there’s a bit o’ heat in’t. It’ll put some heart into thee after yon ride.”

Mary stared at him.

“What did you say?”

“Ah said tha mun fall to. There’s nowt like a good supper when th’ wind’s been through thee.”

“I don’t understand what you say,” said Mary. “You talk so queerly.”

The man looked at Mrs. Medlock, and his whiskers moved as if he were smiling underneath them.

“She’s never heard Yorkshire before,” said the housekeeper. “Tell her to eat her supper, if you must tell her anything.”

“That’s what Ah’m telling her,” he answered cheerfully.

He drew the chair out for Mary and pointed to it.

“Sit thee down, then.”

She understood that, though she did not like being told to do it. But the covered dish had contained sliced chicken and potatoes, and she found that she wanted them. She sat down.

The manservant went away, and Mrs. Medlock busied herself with the things which had been brought up from the carriage. Mary ate more than she had expected to eat. It might have been the journey or the cold air which had made her hungry. She did not think about it at all.

When the supper was finished Mrs. Medlock helped her to undress. She was not gentle, but she was quick, and Mary was too sleepy to object very much. The bed had been warmed, and when she was put into it she thought for a moment that she would fall asleep before the candles were taken away.

Then she heard the sound.

It came from somewhere beyond the room—a slow, heavy sliding sound, followed by two little knocks. Mary lifted her head.

“What is that?” she said.

Mrs. Medlock, who was gathering up her clothes, stopped with the black dress over her arm.

“What is what?”

“That noise.”

“The wind,” said Mrs. Medlock. “You’ll hear enough of it here.”

Mary listened. The wind was blowing round the corner of the house, and she could hear it plainly. But presently, beneath its rushing, came the other sound again. Something seemed to scrape a little way and stop.

“That,” she said. “There it is.”

“Old houses make noises in rough weather,” Mrs. Medlock answered sharply. “It’s the wind, as I told you. Lie down and go to sleep.”

She carried the candles to the door.

“You’ve everything you want, and you’re not to get up again.”

Then she went out.

For a little while the fire showed a red patch upon the ceiling. Mary lay looking at it and listening. She was accustomed to being told that she could not have things, now, but she was not accustomed to believing everything people told her.

The red patch grew faint and disappeared. She could no longer see the bed-curtains. Somewhere a door shut, very far away.

Mary lay in the dark with her eyes wide open. She did not know what had scraped and knocked in the house, but she had decided that she would find out for herself.

The first thing I did, when I had recovered the use of my breath, was to look at Mr. Franklin’s trousers. He was sitting on the damp sand as unconcernedly as if somebody else had paid for them.

“You have learnt a good deal abroad, sir,” I said. “Have you learnt how to get sea-water out of a new suit of clothes?”

“I have learnt to leave that to somebody who knows better than I do. How are you, Betteredge?”

He asked it with his hand on my shoulder, and with his bright face close to mine. There are questions which mean nothing, and questions which mean everything, though the words are the same in both. I forgot his trousers, and shook hands with him again.

“And how is my aunt? And Rachel? And Penelope? And where is the old dog?”

The old dog had been dead these six years. Mr. Franklin’s face fell at hearing it. He remembered the creature’s name, and the trick it had of carrying his cap home, and a whipping which he had saved it from by taking the blame himself. Here was a young gentleman who had come back to us with a beard on his chin, and foreign languages at his tongue’s end, and who was still the boy of old times where it did him most credit to remain one.

Having answered his questions about the living and the dead, I reminded him that my lady had ordered the carriage to meet a much later train.

“I know,” he said. “I changed my mind in London.”

“After writing to us, sir?”

“After receiving a letter. I caught the early train, left my luggage at the station, and walked here. They told me at the house where I should find you.”

He felt in his breast-pocket, and brought out a letter.

“There is no reason why you should not read it,” he said. “Indeed, part of it concerns you.”

I had my spectacles with me. A man who has once mistaken a bill for a receipt, and congratulated himself accordingly, doesn’t go far from home without his spectacles a second time.

The letter was short enough to be read without taking liberties with Mr. Franklin’s confidence. I give it here, having afterwards obtained leave to copy it.

“Wednesday, May 24th, 1848.

“My dear Franklin,

“I find, on considering our conversation this morning, that I ought to have advised you to reach your aunt’s house some hours before the time you have appointed.

“You will do well to see Lady Verinder privately, and to ascertain her wishes before the subject of your late uncle is mentioned in the family. There are circumstances in her recollection of him which you may not sufficiently understand. An explanation offered at an unfortunate moment might prejudice the very object which you have in view.

“With regard to the small packet left in your charge, I repeat my advice that you should put it in a place of security on arriving. If Lady Verinder is absent, her house-steward, Gabriel Betteredge, may be trusted to provide such a place. I have known him long enough to answer for his discretion. You need enter into no explanation with him.

“Come and see me on your return to London.

“Faithfully yours, “Matthew Bruff.”

I handed the letter back, and took off my spectacles.

“Mr. Bruff is very obliging,” I said.

“He thinks highly of you, Betteredge.”

“He has had opportunities, sir.”

If you consider that answer vain, I can only say that Mr. Bruff had been eating our dinners and drinking our wine, on business visits, for a number of years. When a gentleman has had the best you can give him, and has regularly found his bed aired, you may surely allow yourself to believe that his good opinion rests upon some foundation.

“So you see why I am early,” Mr. Franklin went on. “Bruff’s letter reached me last night. I thought I should be certain of finding my aunt alone before the afternoon visitors began to arrive.”

“My lady is out at luncheon, sir.”

“Yes; I have contrived to hurry myself for nothing. That is one of my accomplishments. Shall we go back?”

He sprang up, and helped me to my feet. Before we had taken three steps, he stopped again, and looked towards the sea.

“What an extraordinary place!”

“I have always said, sir, that it ought to be fenced off.”

He seemed not to hear me. The sand was still stirring below us, with that ugly inward motion which gives a man the notion of something alive where nothing alive ought to be.

“Does anybody ever cross it?”

“Nobody who means to come back.”

He stood considering it a moment longer, and then turned away.

The sight had taken the smile out of him. I was glad when we got among the firs, though they were poor company, too, with the wind making a complaint overhead, and the dead needles giving under our feet without a sound. Mr. Franklin hooked his arm into mine, and began asking after the old places about the grounds. Before we were out of the plantation, he had found three alterations to object to, and had promised to quarrel with my lady about every one of them. That was more like coming home.

At the house, I ordered something to be set before him in my sitting-room. He would have it nowhere else; and he insisted on my taking my own dinner with him. His luggage could be fetched by the carriage which was going to meet him; so there was one difficulty disposed of without expense, which is always a comfort to me.

While the table was being laid, I remembered Penelope’s adventure of the morning.

There was something in Mr. Bruff’s letter which made the remembrance come less agreeably than it might otherwise have done. I don’t mean to say I suspected anything. Suspecting is an occupation that grows upon a man, if he once gives way to it; and I had the affairs of a large household to attend to without adding that to them.

I told Mr. Franklin what my daughter had seen and heard.

He had been cutting the end off a cigar when I began. Before I had done, the cigar was on the table, and he was looking at me in a manner which encouraged me less than I could have wished.

“Are you certain of the boy’s words?” he asked.

“As certain as I can be of words reported by another person, sir. Penelope is not given to inventing.”

“‘Has got It about him’?”

“Those were the words.”

He got up, and walked to the window. Presently he came back.

“Betteredge, I believe the thing meant was the Moonstone.”

I had heard the name, in connexion with Colonel Herncastle, long before that day. It was not a name that improved the prospect of my dinner.

“Have you any reason for thinking so, sir?”

“Yes. But I must ask you to let the reason wait.”

He said this kindly, though with an earnestness quite new in my experience of him.

“As you please, Mr. Franklin.”

“And say nothing of this to my aunt till I have spoken to her.”

There was no difficulty in promising that. My difficulty was in reconciling the young gentleman’s serious face with the opinion I had delivered to Penelope. When you have instructed your own child that a thing is nonsense, and a person with superior advantages comes home and takes it seriously, the position of a father is not what it ought to be.

Mr. Franklin put his hand into an inner pocket.

“In the meantime,” he said, “will you do what Bruff advises?”

He gave me a small packet, wrapped in stout paper and securely sealed. I saw no writing on the side which lay uppermost in my hand.

“There is no occasion to open it,” he added.

“I should hope not, sir.”

“I beg your pardon. I only meant that I want it kept exactly as it is till to-morrow. Have you a safe place?”

“The plate-room.”

“Who has the key?”

“I have.”

“And another?”

“My lady keeps the other among her own keys.”

“That will do perfectly. Lock it up for the night, Betteredge, and give it to nobody till I ask you for it myself.”

Here was a plain duty, which came as a relief after the boy’s palm and the young gentleman’s private reasons. I took the packet into the plate-room, Mr. Franklin remaining in my sitting-room while I did it.

Inside the plate-room was a cupboard used for articles which were not in daily request. I put the packet on an empty shelf in that cupboard, locked the cupboard, and locked the plate-room door upon it. The keys went into my pocket. Whatever Mr. Franklin had brought from London was now as securely bestowed as our silver candlesticks; and what it was I knew no more than the candlesticks themselves.

I mention these small particulars because a man’s memory is apt to be questioned most closely about the actions to which he gave least thought at the time. Nobody asks whether you remember being married. Everybody expects you to remember where you put a key.

We had scarcely sat down when Penelope came in.

She welcomed Mr. Franklin with a pleasure which she tried to keep within the proper limits, and which got beyond them when he reminded her of their making a garden together in a baking-dish. Then she looked at me, and I saw she had something to say.

“Well?” I asked. “Has Rosanna had her dinner?”

“Rosanna has not come home, father.”

“Not come home?”

“She has gone on to Cobb’s Hole. Davy saw her on the path, and spoke to her. She said she was going to see her friend.”

“Did she send any message?”

“She asked him to tell me, if he came this way.”

Davy was a lad employed about the stables. There was nothing extraordinary in Rosanna’s going to Cobb’s Hole; you have already heard that she had a friend there. What displeased me was her taking a message to Penelope for leave of absence from me. These are different things in a properly ordered household.

“Keep some dinner for her,” I said. “I shall speak to her when she comes back.”

Penelope waited a moment, as if she had hoped for something more. Finding I had nothing more to give her, she went out.

“Is that the girl who was on the beach?” Mr. Franklin asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“She looked ill.”

“She is not strong.”

He nodded, and returned to his dinner. I was glad he asked no other questions. Rosanna’s history was not mine to serve up with the mutton, even to Mr. Franklin Blake.

My lady’s carriage came back between five and six.

I went into the hall to receive her, and told her who was waiting. The pleasure in her face made her look younger before she had taken off her bonnet. Mr. Franklin heard her voice, and was out of my room in an instant.

Of their first meeting, I need say no more than that she kissed him as if he had been her son. He had some pretty speech ready, no doubt; but she held him away from her, to look at him, and then drew him back again, and whatever it was he had meant to say got lost between the two.

“Come into my room,” she said. “Betteredge, bring Mr. Franklin’s letters, if any have arrived.”

There were two waiting on the hall-table. I followed with them, and found my lady seated, with Mr. Franklin standing by her chair.

She asked him about his journey; and he told her, as he had told me, that a letter from Mr. Bruff had brought him by the earlier train. At the lawyer’s name, I noticed a change in her.

“What has Mr. Bruff been writing to you about?”

“My uncle’s affairs, in part. I wished to speak to you—”

“Which uncle?”

“Colonel Herncastle.”

My lady took off one glove, laid it on the table, and looked at Mr. Franklin before she answered.

“Betteredge,” she said, “you need not go.”

I had made a movement towards the door, considering a family matter to be no business of mine. I stopped directly.

“Franklin, I am very glad to see you. You will oblige me by remembering that John Herncastle is a subject which I forbid to be discussed under my roof.”

Mr. Franklin coloured a little.

“I had no intention of distressing you, aunt.”

“I know that. You have been away from England; and there are things which it is quite unnecessary that you should hear. We will understand each other at once. His conduct, his wishes, and any explanations which may be offered for him are not to be discussed in this house.”

There was nothing loud in the way she said it. When my lady was most in earnest, she generally gave you least trouble in listening.

Mr. Franklin bowed his head.

“It shall be as you wish,” he said. “I agree.”

She held out her hand to him, and he kissed it. Then she asked whether he had eaten anything; and, on hearing where he had dined, said that I had stolen her guest.

That ended the matter before me. If you want to know what I thought of it, I thought Mr. Bruff had shown his usual knowledge of business in advising a private conversation, and less than his usual good fortune in expecting anything to come of it.

The evening went on in its customary way, with the difference which a welcome arrival makes even below stairs. Mr. Franklin’s luggage came; the servants had something fresh to talk about; and I had twice to remind Nancy that an account of a gentleman’s travelling dressing-case was not an answer to a question about the kitchen fire.

At nine o’clock I asked Penelope whether Rosanna was in.

“No, father.”

“Her work?”

“I have attended to it.”

That was kindly done; but I could have wished she had not answered quite so readily. There is a way young people have of making your justice look like cruelty, merely by being in a hurry with their mercy.

I sent Davy towards Cobb’s Hole, with directions to inquire at her friend’s, and to tell Rosanna she was to return. There was still light enough for the path. Afterwards, having a little leisure, I tried to persuade myself that the girl’s absence was nothing to be uneasy about.

She had leave to take the air. She had gone to a place where she was known. She was five-and-twenty, and not a child to be fetched home by the hand. These were excellent reasons. I arranged them all in their proper order, and found myself thinking of the Shivering Sand at the end of them.

The plate-room door was in my way when I made my last round. I tried it, and found it fast. The cupboard key and the door key were both in my pocket. There was my responsibility towards Mr. Franklin discharged, at any rate.

It was late when I settled myself in my beehive chair, with Robinson Crusoe on my knee. I had brought the chair under shelter, where a light from my open door fell conveniently upon the book. The air was mild; the house had grown quiet; and, if my mind had been equally well ordered, there was nothing to prevent my improving myself before bed.

I read the same paragraph three times.

You will understand that this was no fault of the author’s. Every time I reached the bottom of it, I found that I had been listening for a footstep instead of attending to the sense.

Penelope looked out at me before going upstairs.

“Davy has not returned yet, father.”

“I shall hear him when he comes.”

She lingered, and then wished me good-night.

I put my hand upon the keys in my pocket, and turned back a leaf to begin fairly with the book. The packet was locked away; my duty was done; and there I sat, in my beehive chair, with the wisest friend a man ever had open before me—and Rosanna Spearman still not home.

The street lights passed across her face as the cab went along. She kept her eyes closed. At the corner the driver slowed and a man on a bicycle went by us, standing on the pedals.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Oh, about.”

“I haven’t seen you.”

“You wouldn’t have. I’ve been with some very dull people.”

“They must have enjoyed it.”

“They did. That was the awful part.”

She opened her eyes and looked out of the window. We were going past a long wall. Above it the trees were black against the sky.

“Take me to the Closerie des Lilas,” she said.

“I thought you wanted to drive.”

“I’ve driven enough. I want to sit somewhere with a tree.”

I tapped on the glass and told the driver. He turned his head and repeated the name. Then he swung the cab around in the street and we went back the way we had come.

“You’re very good at arranging things,” Brett said.

“It isn’t difficult. You tell them where you want to go.”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s the difficult part.”

At the Closerie there were empty tables under the trees and a waiter putting chairs together at the edge of the terrace. Inside, a man was reading a newspaper with his hat on. We sat outside where the light from the café came through the branches and made a pattern on the table. Brett took off her gloves and laid them across one another.

“What will you have?”

“Something very long.”

“Whiskey and soda?”

“Do.”

The waiter wiped the table, although it was clean, and brought the drinks. Brett watched him pour the soda.

“Leave the bottle, will you?”

He left it between us.

“This is better,” she said.

“You’ve got your tree.”

“It’s a lovely tree.”

“You can come and see it every evening.”

“Wouldn’t that be a life.”

“It would be regular.”

“I’m very keen on regularity.”

I wanted her to stay with me.

The waiter went inside and the man with the newspaper folded it and put it into his pocket. He looked at us as he came out. Then he went down the boulevard, walking carefully along the curb.

“I met a man last week,” Brett said.

“That must have been nice.”

“His name’s Harry Bellamy. Do you know him?”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s got pots of money.”

“Where does he keep it?”

“Oh, in all the proper places. He’s quite sound about it. He told me.”

“That’s good.”

“He has a house near Cannes and a motor-car you could live in. He wanted to send for it.”

“What stopped him?”

“I told him I liked trains.”

“Do you?”

“No. But I couldn’t think of anything else.”

She drank and set down the glass. There was a wet circle on the table and she moved the glass back into it.

“He’s rather kind,” she said. “He keeps asking whether there’s anything he can do.”

“There usually is.”

“Not anything he’d care about.”

“You might try him.”

“Don’t be bloody.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were a little.”

The branches moved above us. Farther down the boulevard a tram went past with only two people in it. We could hear it a long time after it had gone.

“Do you want to go to Cannes?” I asked.

“Not particularly.”

“You might like it.”

“Yes. I might like anything.”

We sat without talking. I finished my drink and poured in the rest of the soda. Brett had hardly touched hers.

“I ought to go back for that envelope,” I said.

“What envelope?”

“The fifty francs.”

“Good Lord. You don’t mean you’re going to reclaim them?”

“If she’s gone.”

“She won’t have gone.”

“You said she would.”

“I say all sorts of things. You ought to know.”

“It’s fifty francs.”

“Yes,” Brett said. “And you’re a very economical chap.”

I called the waiter and paid. He examined the money under the light of the doorway and brought the change in a little saucer. Brett put on her gloves.

“Are you coming?”

“Of course I’m coming. I wouldn’t miss it.”

We walked up the boulevard. She walked well when she had decided to walk. There were taxis by the curb, but she passed them without looking. At the crossing she took my arm. The air was cool after sitting and there was a smell of wet stone where somebody had washed the pavement.

“You needn’t come inside,” I said.

“I know.”

“It won’t take long.”

“You don’t have to look after me, Jake.”

“All right.”

But she kept her hand on my arm until we reached the steep street.

There was still music at the bal. We could hear the bells on the proprietor’s ankle above the accordion. The door was open and the light fell across the gutter. Brett stopped outside.

“I’ll wait here.”

“Have a drink next door.”

“I don’t want a drink. Go along.”

Inside, most of the tables were empty. Two couples were dancing. A girl in a blue dress sat on a bench with her head against the wall, and the policeman was talking to the proprietor’s daughter. Georgette sat alone at our table. Her hat was on and there was a cup of coffee in front of her.

She saw me before I reached the bar.

“Ah,” she said. “The fiancé.”

“Hello, Georgette.”

“You have finished your walk?”

“Yes.”

“It was a long walk.”

I sat down opposite her. There was sugar spilled on the table. She drew a line through it with the handle of her spoon.

“Have you had a good time?”

“I’ve danced.”

“I saw you.”

“You might have said you were going.”

“I left something for you.”

“I am not a coat. You can speak to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

She looked at me and then went on making the line in the sugar.

“Your friends are very amusing,” she said.

“They’re not my friends.”

“They said you would say that.”

The patronne came over from the bar. She had the envelope in her hand.

“Here, Monsieur. Mademoiselle has not gone.”

“Thank you.”

She gave it to me and waited beside the table.

“I came back to get it,” I said to Georgette. “I thought you’d gone.”

“With those?”

“I didn’t know.”

“No,” she said. “You didn’t know.”

I tore the envelope open and put the fifty-franc note beside her cup. The patronne went back to the bar.

“You could have saved the paper,” Georgette said.

“Yes.”

She folded the note once and put it in her bag.

“I’m sorry I left that way.”

“It doesn’t matter. But don’t do it another time.”

“Will you have something?”

“No. I’m going.”

She opened her bag again and looked into the mirror. Then she shut it and stood up. I went with her to the door. Brett was standing a little way down the street, looking into a dark shop-window.

“There’s your friend,” Georgette said.

“Yes.”

“She does not dance badly.”

“No.”

“Well, good night.”

“Can I get you a cab?”

“I can get one.”

She went down the hill. At the corner she stopped and looked up and down the street, then turned out of sight. I went over to Brett.

“Did you get your money?”

“I got the envelope.”

“What happened to the money?”

“She was still there.”

“I told you.”

“Yes.”

We started down the hill. Behind us the accordion stopped in the middle of a tune. There was the sound of chairs being dragged over the floor, and then somebody pulled the door shut.

“I like her,” Brett said.

“She’s all right.”

“Did she give you hell?”

“A little.”

“You look improved.”

We walked down toward the river. At one of the corners Brett stopped to straighten her stocking. She held my shoulder and bent over, and I looked up the street until she had finished.

“Where are we going now?” she asked.

“Where do you want to go?”

“That’s a rotten question.”

“We could get some coffee.”

“We’ve only just started walking.”

So we went on. The streets were empty except near the cafés that were still open. Through one window we saw three men playing cards. Their coats were off and one had a handkerchief tucked into his collar. A woman behind the counter watched them with her elbows on the zinc. None of them looked up as we passed.

At the river we stopped on the bridge. A barge lay below against the quay. There was a light in its cabin and a bicycle tied to the rail. The water moved against the bow and made a little bright patch that kept breaking and coming together.

“That would be rather good,” Brett said.

“What?”

“Living on that.”

“You’d have to get up early.”

“I could go to bed early.”

“You could.”

“I’m capable of all sorts of things.”

A man came across the bridge carrying a long loaf under his arm. He looked at Brett and then at me. After he had passed she turned around and watched him.

“Everybody’s going somewhere,” she said.

“He’s going home.”

“Yes. I’d worked that out.”

We crossed the bridge and walked along the right bank. A motor-lorry went past, shaking the pavement, and there were men working in a lighted doorway. One of them rolled out a barrel and stood it on end. We found a café open near the Halles and went in.

It was bright and warm inside. There were carters at the bar and two women eating soup at a table. We sat against the wall. The waiter took away the empty glass from our table and rubbed a damp cloth over the marble.

“Coffee?” I asked Brett.

“Coffee and something to eat. I’ve suddenly got a frightful appetite.”

We had coffee and bread and butter. The bread was fresh and the butter very hard. Brett broke a piece of bread and ate it without butter while I tried to spread mine.

“Give it here,” she said.

She cut the butter into thin pieces and laid them on the bread.

“You see?”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m extremely useful.”

“You ought to tell Bellamy.”

She put down the knife.

“I wish I hadn’t mentioned him.”

“All right.”

“No. You’ll keep him now. You’re very good at keeping things.”

I ate the bread. Across the room one of the women was blowing on her spoon. The other had finished and sat with her hands in her lap.

After a while Brett reached for the coffee-pot and filled my cup.

“Have some more.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s quite good.”

“Yes.”

We stayed a long time. The carters went out and others came in. A man brought a basket of rolls and emptied it behind the counter. The waiter counted them as they fell. Outside, carts were going toward the markets and the horses’ feet sounded heavy on the stones.

Brett took off one glove and looked at her wrist-watch.

“Is it really that time?”

“What time is it?”

“Nearly five.”

“You ought to get some sleep.”

“Yes. I suppose I ought.”

She put the glove back on slowly, working each finger into place. I called for the bill.

Outside the air had changed. It was colder and there was a little wind along the street. The lamps were still burning, but you could see the buildings above them. A man was washing vegetables in a tub outside a shop. The water ran across the pavement and we stepped over it.

“Let’s go down to the river,” Brett said. “There’ll be taxis there.”

We walked through the narrow streets toward the quay. She was tired now and leaned on my arm. At the river the sky was pale behind the buildings. Two taxis stood near the bridge. The driver of the first was asleep with his cap over his eyes.

I opened the door for Brett and woke him. He sat up and pushed his cap back. Brett gave him her address.

“You’ve got money?” I asked her.

“Yes, darling.”

She sat back in the corner as she had before. I stood with my hand on the open door.

“Will you be all right?”

“Splendid.”

“Try to sleep.”

“You too.”

She held out her hand and I took it. Then she pulled it away and settled her skirt.

“Good night, Jake.”

“Good night.”

I shut the door and the taxi went off along the quay. I watched until it turned away from the river. The other driver was still asleep.

It was daylight now. Across the water the upper windows caught the sun, and below them the quay was grey and damp. I turned toward home and walked along the river.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

(Kept in phonograph.)

27 May.--Morris’s dinner last night was a better prescription than any I could have written for myself. I went to it unwillingly, and was ashamed of my unwillingness before I had been five minutes in the room. There is something wholesome in the mere sight of Quincey. He does not inquire whether a man wishes to be cheered, which is a question certain to make him miserable; he gives him something to do, and takes his answer afterwards.

Arthur was late. Quincey had put three chairs about a little round table, and was moving one of them when I entered.

“Jack,” he said, “I’ve been trying to fix this camp so that nobody shall sit at the head of it. Art has had promotion enough for one week.”

I laughed, and found that I could laugh without making any particular effort. We spoke of our old journeys until Arthur came. He looked so happy that for an instant I could scarcely bear to look at him; then he took my hand, and I was glad that I had come.

He brought the messages promised in his telegram, but delivered them badly, with much clearing of his throat. Miss Westenra had charged him to tell us that she would not have her old friends become strangers.

“Old friends!” said Quincey. “Why, Art, I haven’t yet worn out the gloves I bought to make her acquaintance.”

Arthur reddened, and began to explain; but Morris clapped him on the shoulder.

“That’s all right, my son. We understand the lady, even when you’re interpreting.”

There was no difficulty after that. We ate an excellent dinner, and Quincey would have every dish discussed as though we had been starving travellers unexpectedly restored to civilisation. Arthur told us something of his father, whose health gives him anxiety, though he spoke hopefully. It was good to hear him speak of another person’s troubles.

When the servants had gone, Morris filled our glasses and stood up.

“Here’s to her happiness,” he said.

We drank it standing. Arthur tried to answer, but could get no farther than “You two fellows----” He stopped, and caught first one and then the other by the hand. I had prepared something graceful to say. I am glad now that I forgot it.

Later we drew our chairs together, and Arthur unfolded a plan for our meeting often after his marriage. He was eager over the details, as a happy man will be who supposes happiness can be portioned out by making engagements in a pocket-book. Quincey listened gravely, and promised everything.

As I was leaving, he came down with me to the door.

“We’ve got through the first fence, Jack,” he said. “Don’t go back and measure it.”

I have been measuring it all the morning. Still, I am glad I went.

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

“27 May.

“My dearest Mina,--

“Arthur has told me about the dinner, and I must write whilst I am still full of it. Men are very odd creatures. They can tell you what wine they drank, and which of them remembered the name of a place where they lost their luggage years ago, and then, when you ask what they said about anything that matters, they declare that they cannot remember. Yet Arthur remembered that Mr. Morris had a button loose upon his waistcoat! I asked whether he had offered to sew it on, and he looked quite astonished.

“I think they must all have been very dear and good. Arthur said that Dr. Seward looked tired, but was excellent company; and Mr. Morris made them laugh till the waiter came in to see whether they wanted anything. I am so glad. It troubled me to think of their being unhappy, although I know I must not suppose that every one spends all his time thinking of me.

“Mamma says I ought to begin considering linen. It seems a strange thing that, when one’s whole life is to be changed, the first question should concern tablecloths. Arthur says we shall want a great many, because our friends must always be coming to dine. I told him that if he invited them he must remember to order the dinners, and he said he would leave that to me. So you see how early my responsibilities begin.

“When are you coming? Do make your school give you up as soon as it honestly can. I want your sensible head over a hundred matters, and your dear foolish heart over one. Have you heard again from Jonathan? Arthur asked after him, and says he hopes we shall all be friends. I told him that Jonathan was very industrious, and he answered that this was no obstacle whatever, provided he did not insist upon making the rest of us industrious too.

“Your loving “Lucy.”

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

(Kept in phonograph.)

29 May.--An incident with Renfield to-day worth recording, chiefly as a warning against allowing one’s private affairs to colour professional observation.

I entered his room after breakfast. He was sitting beside the window with yesterday’s newspaper upon his knees. Before I had spoken, he looked up and asked:--

“Is Miss Westenra to be married soon, Doctor?”

For a moment I could not answer. He noticed my hesitation, and folded the paper with an appearance of consideration which irritated me more than any outburst could have done.

“What do you know of Miss Westenra?” I asked.

“Only that she is to be congratulated.”

“Who has spoken to you of her?”

He smiled, but answered readily enough:--

“Your attendant, Doctor. He tells me the news when he shaves me. A man must talk of something whilst he holds another man by the nose.”

I questioned the attendant afterwards. The explanation was perfectly simple. He had formerly served in a household acquainted with the Westenras, and had heard of the engagement from a fellow-servant. He admitted discussing it with Renfield. I directed him to confine his conversation to matters which did not concern the private affairs of people outside the establishment.

On returning to the patient, I found him offended.

“You must not take away my newspaper and then forbid the barber to talk,” he said. “I have very few acquaintances left.”

“I have not taken away your newspaper.”

“No; but you looked as if you wished it were medical.”

There was sufficient justice in this to make me abandon my intended lecture. I asked why the marriage interested him.

“It does not interest me particularly. I thought it might interest you. You cannot expect me always to talk about myself merely because you come here for that purpose.”

An uncomfortable answer. I had entered his room with my mind elsewhere, and had resented his recalling it by the very subject which occupied it. Must guard against this. A patient does not cease to observe because he is himself under observation.

Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Dr. Seward.

“30 May.

“My dear Jack,--

“Art tells me you have refused his invitation for Thursday. I know the establishment cannot get along without you, but I doubt whether it will fall to pieces between seven and eleven.

“I shall call for you at half-past six. Have your hat ready, or I’ll take you without it. There’s no use in our making promises over my dinner and starving them before the week is out.

“Yours always, “Quincey.”

Mina Murray’s Journal.

4 June.--A letter from Lucy, full of plans, and one from Mr. Hawkins, with very little news. He says that business abroad does not always proceed at our English pace, and that Jonathan must learn patience as well as conveyancing. I wish patience were a subject which could be taught. I could gladly undertake another evening class if there were any prospect of becoming proficient.

I wrote to Lucy that I should join her when the arrangements at school permit. There are exercises to correct and papers to put in order for the mistress who will take my place. I cannot bear to leave a drawer untidy for another person, though I have sometimes left one so for myself.

Jonathan’s letters are kept in the little leather case which he gave me at Christmas. I had meant not to read them again to-night, but found an excellent reason for doing so: I wished to compare the dates. After all, dates are part of business, and I am trying to be business-like.

18 June.--Spent the evening at the typewriter. There is a particular misery in finding that one has written a whole line beautifully with the paper a little crooked. I began again, and made three mistakes where before I had made none.

Lucy writes that she and Arthur walked for two hours, and came home with all their arrangements unsettled. She seems to consider this an entirely successful afternoon.

I must not grow envious. When Jonathan returns, perhaps we shall walk for two hours and settle nothing; though I think we should both secretly carry lists.

Letter, Herr Emil Hartmann to Miss Mina Murray.

“Budapest, “18 June.

“Dear Madam,--

“I beg you to excuse the liberty of a stranger in addressing you upon a matter in which I understand you have an interest.

“My business is the forwarding of travellers’ correspondence and effects. I have received an instruction concerning Mr. Jonathan Harker, of Exeter, who is at present detained by business in the eastern part of the country. Your name and address were supplied to me as those of the person to whom information should be sent if his journey were delayed.

“I am requested to inform you that Mr. Harker has been delayed, and that you should not make arrangements in expectation of his immediate return. No certain day has been given to me for his arrival at Budapest. When a day is fixed, I shall be able to arrange the further transmission of his luggage and advise you, should this be desired.

“I regret that I cannot furnish particulars of the business which occasions the delay. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Harker, and my present communication is made solely in the execution of the instruction received. I mention this lest you should suppose that I am able to answer personal inquiries.

“No remittance is required from you. The charge for this communication has been provided for.

“I shall be obliged by an acknowledgment, so that I may know the address has been correctly given.

“I remain, dear Madam, “Your obedient servant, “Emil Hartmann.”

Mina Murray’s Journal.

23 June.--The foregoing letter came this morning. I have copied it because I sent the original to Mr. Hawkins, and wish to have the exact words by me.

It is disappointing to receive news which tells one so little. At first I was grateful merely to see Jonathan’s name; afterwards I began to wish that the writer had omitted half his explanations and given me one plain fact in their place.

Still, the poor man expressly says that he has never met Jonathan, and it would be unjust to blame him for not describing how he looks. I have acknowledged the letter, and asked him to tell Jonathan, when he comes, that I am well, and that there is no need to trouble about my arrangements. There was a great temptation to write that I had made none except to wait for him. I am glad I resisted it.

24 June.--Lucy came to see me this afternoon, looking so pretty and fresh that the schoolroom seemed quite changed when she entered. She had brought a parcel of little things for the girls, and was obliged to distribute them herself, because each must have precisely the right ribbon. We were late getting our tea.

I showed her my copy of Herr Hartmann’s letter. She read it twice, with her brows drawn together.

“But why does Jonathan not write himself?”

“He may have written. This may have travelled faster.”

She put her arms about me at once, as though I had said something sorrowful.

“Oh, Mina, I am a selfish creature! I have been writing pages about Arthur.”

I told her that her happiness was the best news she could send me. Then we talked of her wedding, and I made her tell me everything again, even the things I knew. It did us both good. Before she went she asked for the forwarding agent’s address, so that Arthur might inquire whether there were any better means of sending letters.

I would not have them put to trouble for me; but it is pleasant to have friends who do not wait to be asked.

Letter, Peter Hawkins to Mina Murray.

“Exeter, “27 June.

“My dear Miss Murray,--

“I return the letter which you were good enough to send me. You were quite right to preserve it, and to put your inquiry plainly.

“I do not know Mr. Hartmann, but his occupation sufficiently explains the formality of his language. Such offices undertake many small commissions for travellers who have no leisure to attend to them themselves.

“There is, however, one point upon which I have written to him. He does not state from whom his instruction came. I have requested him to supply that information, together with its date. It is always well in business to distinguish between a person’s own directions and those conveyed on his behalf.

“Pray do not let this omission trouble you. A clerk who knows the circumstances of a transaction is apt to forget that his correspondent does not know them also.

“I have been careful to give your address as well as mine in my inquiries, since you ought not to lose a post through my intervention. Jonathan would expect me to keep you informed.

“Yours very sincerely, “Peter Hawkins.”

Mina Murray’s Journal.

1 July.--I have put away the railway time-table. It was foolish to keep it open beside my work, for the trains cannot bring Jonathan until he is ready to come, and I had begun to know the hours so well that each seemed an appointment he had failed to keep.

To-day I finished the last bundle of exercises. To-morrow I shall be free to begin my own preparations. Lucy has written that I must bring the typewriter if it will make me come sooner; she will find a table for it, and promises not to interrupt more than once in every five minutes.

I have packed Jonathan’s letters first, so that there may be no possibility of leaving them behind.

Telegram from Peter Hawkins to Miss Mina Murray.

“2 July.

“Man carrying Jonathan’s papers arrested Vienna. Description differs. Send photograph immediately. “Hawkins.”

I had been at work until a late hour on the night of the fall, and was standing at the open window of my study, considering whether the air were not too warm for sleep, when I saw the first falling star. It came out of the east, a little below the zenith, and moved with an appearance of deliberation that distinguished it at once from any meteor I had ever seen. At first it was a white point with a thin trail behind it; then it broadened, turned green, and illuminated the window-frame and my hand upon the sill with a pallid and momentary light. The shadow of the house swung across the garden. I had an impression of something enormously heavy passing overhead, though there was as yet no sound.

It vanished behind the trees towards Chertsey.

For some seconds I remained motionless, with my head thrust out. A dog began barking; another answered it. Then came a dull concussion, followed by a rattling of the window at which I stood. It was less like thunder than the discharge of a great quantity of stones into an empty cart. My wife called to me from the bedroom.

“What was that?”

“A meteor,” I answered. “A very fine one. It must have fallen somewhere near us.”

I went to her door and described the green light. While I spoke we heard a man running along the road, and presently two voices disputing whether the noise had come from the direction of the railway. I thought of going out, but there was nothing now to guide me. The sky remained clear, and the trees beyond our garden stood black and undisturbed against the stars. After a little we went to bed.

It is remarkable that I did not once connect this apparition with the disturbances upon Mars. I had seen the one and discussed the other, yet they remained in my mind as separate as a railway accident and a change of weather. The great distances with which astronomy familiarises us had put the planet beyond the reach of my practical imagination.

At breakfast the next morning our servant told us that something had fallen into the old gravel workings beside the Chertsey road. A milkman had brought the news. According to him a house had been struck, though there was no house within a quarter of a mile of the place; and he had subsequently amended this into an explosion at the waterworks. What remained constant through his accounts was a great hole and a quantity of steam.

I resolved to go and see it before beginning my work, and my wife, who had some curiosity concerning the matter, offered to accompany me. We set out shortly after eight. The morning was already hot, with a white glare upon the road and scarcely enough wind to turn the leaves. There had been no rain for several days, but the deeper excavations in those gravel workings were always full of water. As a boy might have known, and as I had forgotten until that morning, springs broke through the sandy bottom.

We met a labourer carrying an empty sack, who told us that the thing was there certainly, and that Ogilvy had been looking at it since seven. He called it a thunderbolt.

“You can hear the water boiling,” he said.

The workings lay a little way from the road, behind a screen of young birches and straggling furze. A cart-track descended between two banks into the hollow. Before we reached the turn of this track I saw a thin whiteness drifting above the trees, and caught a smell of wet earth mingled with something like the odour of a newly quenched fire.

At the bottom we stopped together.

The farther bank of the pit had been torn down from its summit almost to the water. There was a broad trough through the sand and gravel, with roots projecting from either side and one birch lying across it, its branches stripped and its white trunk darkened. A fan of mud and stones had been flung up the opposite slope. Among these stones the rushes lay flat, all pointing away from the pool.

In the pool itself, perhaps twelve yards from where we stood, was the thing that had fallen.

It lay obliquely, with one end buried in the bank and the other sunk beneath the water. About half of its bulk appeared to be submerged. The exposed part was dark brown, mottled here and there with black, and so nearly regular in its curvature that my first impression was of an overturned iron boiler. Along its upper surface clung a coating of cracked and blistered matter. Where this had scaled away there were dull patches of a different colour, neither quite grey nor quite yellow.

Steam rose from it in little separate wisps which united a foot or two above the surface, drifted, and dissolved. The water immediately about it was troubled by a perpetual bubbling; farther away, where the morning sky was reflected, it lay perfectly still. Once a large bubble rose close against the brown curve and broke with a hollow plop.

There were only five people in the hollow when we arrived. Ogilvy was standing upon a tongue of gravel that ran out towards the object, with his coat over his arm and a notebook in his hand. Two workmen watched him from behind. A little boy sat on the bank, and an elderly man whom I knew by sight as a gardener was trying to recover his hat from the mud with a stick.

Ogilvy turned at my greeting.

“You saw it?” he said.

I told him what I had seen, and he questioned me closely about its direction and the interval before the concussion. He wrote down my answers, asking me to distinguish what I remembered from what I supposed. Then he looked back at the pool with a very evident satisfaction.

“A meteorite,” he said. “And an unusually large one. We have been fortunate.”

My wife asked whether it would remain hot for long.

“The outside will cool quickly enough in water. The interior is another matter.”

“But is it a meteorite?” I asked.

He looked at me over his shoulder.

“What else should it be?”

I pointed to the even sweep of the exposed surface.

“It has a remarkably artificial appearance.”

“That is because you have boilers in your mind. If you had never seen a boiler you would find nothing artificial about it.”

He spoke lightly, but with some impatience. I went a few steps nearer, my wife following me to the beginning of the gravel tongue. From there the curvature seemed more striking than before. The thing was certainly longer than it was broad, and the visible end, though obscured by adhering earth, appeared blunt rather than broken.

“Surely a fragment would be less regular?”

“A fragment of what?” he asked. “We know very little of the bodies from which meteorites come. Besides, you are looking at a surface altered by an immense development of heat. Projection after projection may have been melted away.”

“And left that?”

“Certainly.”

He stooped to pick up a bit of blackened gravel.

“An ordinary meteorite,” he repeated, “on an extraordinary scale. Iron, probably, with the usual admixtures. The crust has suffered in passing through the air.”

There was something in his readiness with these explanations that increased my doubt. I reminded him of the eruptions we had watched.

For a moment he stared at me; then he laughed.

“You are going to give us a message from Mars!”

“I am asking whether the two things can be connected.”

“My dear fellow, things do not become connected because they happen within a month of one another. Meteorites fell before we ever turned a telescope upon Mars.”

“But the direction—”

“Is not an orbit. We should need observations from several stations before we could say anything useful about that.”

This was unanswerable, and I knew it. Nevertheless, as I looked again at the broad brown back steaming in the water, I felt that his certainty went farther than his evidence. I had no clear alternative to offer him. Even then I did not imagine living beings within it. What troubled me was merely the suggestion of manufacture, of a shape imposed upon matter for some purpose; and I could not make that suggestion reasonable either to him or to myself.

My wife, who had listened quietly, asked whether anyone had measured it.

That practical question pleased Ogilvy. He said he estimated the visible length at twenty feet or more, but there was no telling how far it extended into the bank. He wanted a line and a long pole. One of the workmen went to fetch them, and the little boy immediately got up and followed him.

By nine o’clock there were a dozen people about the pool. The news travelled along the road in a curious assortment of forms. Some came to see a fallen balloon, others a great stone; one man expected a railway engine, and was indignant when he discovered the distance he had walked under a misapprehension. Two women brought baskets and remained to talk upon the upper bank. A cyclist left his machine against the birches and came down with his cap still fastened under his chin.

Nobody showed the least alarm. The steam and the broken bank gave the affair an interest beyond that of a mere large stone, but the prevailing feeling was that an unusual object had been placed conveniently near us for inspection.

The workman returned with a clothes-line and a pole, and Ogilvy occupied himself for a time in taking rough measurements. The pole could not be held steadily from the gravel tongue, and twice slipped with a splash against the submerged side. I remember how we all leaned forward at the sound, expecting, absurdly enough, some response to the tapping.

It was during this business that the man was burned.

He was a broad, red-necked fellow in a waistcoat, with his shirt-sleeves rolled above the elbows. I had seen him arrive but had not noticed whence he came. While Ogilvy was drawing the wet line through his fingers, this man worked his way along the foot of the broken bank. There was a narrow strip of mud between the water and the sand, and by standing upon a fallen root he could reach the end of the object.

“You won’t want a pole here,” he called.

Ogilvy told him sharply to keep back.

The man turned his head and grinned at us. Whether he meant to steady himself or merely to demonstrate the foolishness of our precautions, I cannot say; but he put the flat of his right hand against the brown surface.

Instantly he cried out. He snatched his hand away, slipped from the root, and came down on one knee in the shallow water. His cry was so sudden and unlike his previous voice that my wife caught my arm.

For a moment he remained kneeling, holding his wrist with his other hand and staring at the palm. Then he began to swear, loudly and without any regard for the women. The gardener and I helped him along the bank. There was mud upon his trousers, and his face had become shiny with perspiration. He would not let us touch the injured hand.

My wife made him sit in the shade of the bank while someone went for clean water. The palm was already reddened, with a pale mark across the base of the fingers. He kept saying that it had not looked hot, as though the thing had practised a deception upon him.

This accident changed the disposition of the little company. People drew back from the water, and those upon the upper bank called warnings to newcomers. Ogilvy was angry.

“I told you it was a meteorite,” he said to the man. “Did you suppose it had come down cold?”

The fellow made no reply. After a while the gardener took him away to have the hand attended to.

My wife watched them climb the track.

“We ought to have stopped him sooner,” she said.

There was nothing I could answer to that. I had seen him approaching the object and had been interested chiefly in whether the mud would bear his weight.

Towards eleven the steam had diminished considerably, though it still hung over the shaded side in a wavering veil. More of the surface could now be seen, and I renewed my argument with Ogilvy. He would concede nothing. He had sent a note asking for assistance and proper measuring apparatus, and wished above all that people should leave the bank undisturbed. Yet every fresh arrival must pick up a stone or descend to the water, and explanations interrupted him continually.

The heat in the hollow became oppressive. My wife had no parasol, and we had been standing for much longer than either of us intended. I proposed that she should go home, saying that I would remain until the measurements were finished.

She wished at first to wait for me. Then a cart stopped in the road, and six or seven men came down the track together, obliging us to move out of their way. Dust drifted after them among the birches. Above their voices we heard a clock striking twelve.

I told her that there was plainly no prospect of getting away immediately, and that I should be glad of luncheon when I returned. This persuaded her more readily than my concern about the sun. She made me promise to keep off the muddy bank, glanced once again at the pool, and went up the track alone.

I watched until her light dress disappeared behind the birches. More people were coming down, and I stood aside to let them pass. Then I turned back towards Ogilvy and the steaming water.

In the waiting-room a small boy in a large collar was endeavouring to obtain nourishment from the corner of a magazine. His mother, who wanted a cook, appeared to have abandoned hope of feeding him by the ordinary channels. Eve smiled at him, and he suspended operations long enough to regard her hat with the sombre disapproval of one who has never had a feather to eat.

Outside, the rain had ceased. A pale and apologetic sun was doing what it could for Shaftesbury Avenue, and Eve, opening the umbrella to shake it, became aware of a silver band on the handle.

On this band were engraved the words “The Hon. Algernon Walderwick.”

So that was his name.

It was not quite the name she would have selected for him. Somehow he had not looked an Algernon. Still, these things were settled for one at an age when protest was difficult. She closed the umbrella and set out for Dover Street.

* * * * *

At about the moment when Eve was making this discovery, the Hon. Algernon Walderwick was making another. He had found Psmith in the Drones smoking-room.

Of the various methods of approaching a fellow-member of a club, the one which Mr. Walderwick favoured was to stand immediately in front of him and breathe. He was a pink young man, and his feelings, when stirred, had a tendency to express themselves in deeper shades of pink.

“I say!”

Psmith lowered his newspaper.

“Your opening statement interests me strangely. Proceed.”

“About my umbrella.”

“Ah!”

“The cloak-room chap says you took my umbrella.”

Psmith regarded him thoughtfully through his monocle.

“The modern servant,” he said, “has lost the gift of reticence. In the old days the faithful retainer would have allowed himself to be broken on the wheel before babbling of his employer’s movements. Nowadays you get the whole story before you have asked for it.”

“Did you take it?”

“The question before the meeting,” said Psmith, “is whether you are attached to this umbrella by any strong sentimental bond. Was it, for example, presented to you by a dying aunt?”

“What?”

“Or won on the stricken field? Is there a story woven about its ribs? I ask because I wish to buy it.”

“It isn’t for sale.”

“Everything is for sale, Comrade Walderwick, except the British Constitution, and somebody is probably arranging about that at this very moment. What did it cost?”

“Three guineas.”

“I offer twenty-five pounds.”

Mr. Walderwick, who had opened his mouth to say something forceful, left it open. He had been prepared for evasion, defiance, possibly an apology. A proposal to pay twenty-five pounds for a three-guinea umbrella had not entered into his calculations.

“Twenty-five pounds?”

“Cash on delivery of the rights. You retain the memories.”

“But why?”

Psmith rose and moved towards the writing-table.

“Let us not spoil a pleasant commercial transaction by probing into motives. You have an umbrella. I have twenty-five pounds. Each desires what the other possesses. The wheels of commerce revolve, and England goes forward.”

He wrote a cheque and handed it to the other.

Mr. Walderwick inspected it closely.

“Dashed if I understand.”

“Nor do the great financiers. They act on inspiration.”

“Well, of course, if you really want the thing——”

“Passionately.”

“It’s a jolly good umbrella.”

“I shall endeavour to be worthy of it.”

Mr. Walderwick folded the cheque. His colour had subsided. There were points about this business which remained obscure, but the central fact was excellent.

“I suppose you know what you’re doing?”

“We must hope so,” said Psmith. “It would be too terrible if neither of us did.”

* * * * *

Eve reached the Drones shortly after noon, and found its porter a man of impressive proportions, with the air of one who knew the private weaknesses of dukes.

“Will you give this to Mr. Walderwick, please?”

“Yes, miss.”

“And could I write a note?”

The porter provided paper, an envelope, and a pen which had been developed by years of public service into something closely resembling a small garden rake. With this instrument Eve contrived to write:

“Thank you very much for lending me your umbrella. It saved my hat, which is practically the same thing as saving my life.”

She read this over, smiled, and enclosed it in the envelope.

“He will understand,” she said.

“Yes, miss. What name shall I say?”

“Miss Eve Halliday.”

“Thank you, miss.”

Eve went away with the agreeable sensation of a debt discharged. The porter placed the umbrella in a corner and the note in Mr. Walderwick’s pigeon-hole. Having thus separated two objects which ought to have remained together, he returned contentedly to his duties.

* * * * *

Eve’s appointment with Lord Emsworth was for three o’clock at his hotel; and at a quarter to three she entered a small stationer’s shop off Piccadilly to buy a notebook. She possessed a pencil, and felt that, with a notebook added, she would be equipped to meet an employer on equal terms.

The shop was narrow, and a tall young man at the counter occupied a good deal of it. He was examining sealing-wax.

“No,” he was saying, “I fear the purple would strike too sombre a note. One does not wish one’s correspondents to feel that there has been a death in the family. Let us return to the red.”

He turned, and Eve recognised him.

“Oh!” she said.

The young man inclined his head with grave courtesy.

“Good afternoon.”

“I was hoping I should see you.”

“A sentiment which I heartily reciprocate.”

“I took it back.”

“Admirable,” said the young man.

“To the club.”

“Precisely the course I should have recommended.”

Eve looked at him suspiciously.

“You know what I’m talking about?”

“I should be sorry to claim that I have grasped every detail. But the broad outline is clear. You took it back to the club. The action has my unqualified approval.”

“The umbrella.”

“Ah! You have been returning an umbrella?”

“Your umbrella.”

The young man’s face expressed polite concern.

“Some confusion has arisen. I have not, as far as I can recollect, lent you an umbrella.”

“You gave it to me this morning outside the coal shop.”

“A generous act. You must have been greatly touched.”

“I was. Till I discovered that you were apparently ashamed of it.”

“Surely that is a harsh construction to place upon a stranger’s behaviour.”

Eve laughed.

“You are the most extraordinary person.”

“It has been mentioned by those who know me best. But I feel that we are blocking the wheels of this gentleman’s industry. You wished to buy something?”

“A sixpenny notebook.”

The stationer produced one with the gloomy readiness of a man whose stock has been examined for ten minutes by a customer ultimately destined to purchase a penny stick of sealing-wax.

“Would you recommend red?” inquired the young man of Eve.

“For what?”

“My seals. There is a school of thought which favours purple.”

“Red, certainly.”

“My own feeling. We shall never regret this decision.”

The stationer wrapped the sealing-wax, received a penny, and watched them out of the shop with an expression which suggested that he regretted several things already.

“Are you going this way?” asked Eve.

“I am now.”

“I thought you might have business in the other direction.”

“My business is of a fluid nature. It adjusts itself.”

“Well, mine doesn’t. I have to be at a hotel at three.”

“An awkward hour. Too late for luncheon, too early for tea. Whoever selected it cannot have your interests at heart.”

“I’m going to be interviewed.”

“By the Press?”

“By a possible employer.”

The young man’s monocle slipped from his eye. He restored it.

“You seek employment?”

“I do.”

“This is very remarkable. I also seek employment. London is full of us. One begins to understand why the streets are so crowded.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

“I am still preserving an open mind. Until last night my activities were connected with fish.”

“Fish?”

“A distressing chapter, now closed. I beg that you will not ask me to reopen it in the public thoroughfare. My composure might desert me.”

Eve glanced at him. There seemed to be more people in the fish business than she had supposed.

“And now?”

“I await the call. What of yourself?”

“I’m going to catalogue a library. At least, I hope I am.”

“A beautiful occupation. The quiet rustle of leaves, the low murmur of disturbed bookworms——”

“I don’t know that I shall get the place.”

“Impossible that you should fail. You have a notebook.”

“I might be asked questions.”

“Answer them firmly. Employers are simple creatures. They are impressed by decision. If asked whether you know Greek, reply that you have forgotten more Greek than most people ever learn.”

“But I haven’t.”

“Then you will have the added advantage of surprise.”

They had reached the corner. Eve stopped.

“I go down here.”

The young man removed his hat.

“May prosperity attend your efforts.”

“Thank you. And thank you for the umbrella.”

He looked at her with mild reproach.

“Again this umbrella! You appear to have umbrellas on the brain.”

“I read the name on the handle,” said Eve.

For the first time she had the satisfaction of seeing him hesitate.

“An excellent habit,” he said at length. “Always read the small print.”

“And I left a note for you.”

“A rash proceeding. Somebody will treasure it.”

Eve turned down the street, laughing. When she looked back he was still standing at the corner, his hat in his hand.

* * * * *

Lord Emsworth had spent an unsatisfactory day. London, which he disliked at the best of times, had developed a peculiar capacity for putting things between him and the prospect of returning to Blandings. There had been a luncheon, and now there was a young woman.

He rose as Eve was shown into his sitting-room, and looked about him with the vague alarm of a sheep surprised while eating somebody else’s flowers.

“Ah!” he said. “Yes. Quite. Pray sit down.”

“Thank you.”

“Miss——?”

“Halliday.”

“Precisely. I have your letter.”

He began to search his pockets. After producing a railway ticket, a length of string, and an envelope containing what appeared to be dust, he brightened.

“No, Baxter has it.”

“Mr. Threepwood told me you would see me about the library.”

“Freddie?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens!” said Lord Emsworth.

He contemplated this evidence of initiative in his younger son for some moments.

“Well, well! And you understand catalogues?”

“I have done a little work of that sort.”

“Excellent. Most important things, catalogues. I was looking at one only this morning.”

Eve opened her notebook.

“I thought perhaps you would tell me exactly what you wanted done.”

Lord Emsworth’s face lost its troubled look. Here, unexpectedly, was somebody prepared to listen to a reasonable subject.

“Yes, indeed. A capital idea. Have you a pencil?”

“Yes.”

“Then put down six dozen Emperor.”

Eve’s pencil remained poised.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Emperor. Six dozen. And six dozen Empress. Though perhaps twelve would be better. Yes, twelve dozen Empress.”

“Are those titles?”

“Eh?”

“The names of books?”

“Books? No, no. Daffodils.”

There was a short silence.

“I’m afraid,” said Eve, “we are talking about different things. I have come about cataloguing your library.”

Lord Emsworth stared at her. Then intelligence returned to his eye, accompanied by a look of acute dismay.

“The library! Dear me, yes. Of course. I was thinking of something else.”

He took off his glasses, breathed on them, and wiped them with a handkerchief. Having done this, he seemed to consider the difficulty disposed of.

“Baxter knows all about that.”

“Perhaps I ought to see Mr. Baxter.”

“Certainly not!” said Lord Emsworth, with sudden energy.

He had a painful vision of his secretary learning that a simple interview, arranged and explained beforehand, had proved beyond his powers.

“I can settle it perfectly well. Perfectly. You wish to catalogue the books?”

“Yes.”

“By all means. An excellent notion.”

“But don’t you want to know whether I am competent?”

“My dear young lady, you must not take that view. I am sure you are most competent.”

“I brought a specimen of a catalogue I helped to make.”

She unfolded a sheet of paper and laid it before him. Lord Emsworth gazed at it dutifully.

“Yes,” he said. “Very neat.”

“The entries are arranged under authors, with cross-references——”

“Exactly.”

“And where a book is anonymous——”

“Quite.”

“Would you like the same system used?”

“By all means,” said Lord Emsworth, who would have agreed to the books being arranged according to weight if it had brought the interview nearer its conclusion.

He reached for the pen on the table.

“I had better write down when we expect you.”

In doing so he caught the inkpot with his sleeve.

There are few objects capable of spreading themselves so widely, on so slight a provocation, as an overturned hotel inkpot. This one flowed over the specimen catalogue with something of the purposeful enthusiasm of a river entering a fertile plain.

“Dear me!” said Lord Emsworth.

Eve rescued her notebook.

“I am exceedingly sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Most unfortunate.”

He seized his envelope of dust and began to dab at the flood. The envelope burst.

“Oh, damn!” said his lordship softly.

“What was it?”

“Seeds.”

They surveyed the resulting nursery in silence.

“I think,” said Eve, “perhaps I had better go.”

“Yes,” said Lord Emsworth gratefully. Then he recovered himself. “That is to say, we shall be delighted to see you at Blandings. Delighted. Baxter will write. You have given somebody your address?”

“Yes.”

“Capital!”

Eve rose. The interview had provided her with no information about the size of the library, the hours of work, or the method to be employed. On the other hand, she had obtained the situation, and could, if required, order daffodils.

At the door Lord Emsworth detained her.

“Miss Halliday!”

“Yes?”

“You won’t mention——”

“The ink?”

“No, no. About my thinking you had come about the bulbs. To Baxter, I mean.”

“Of course not.”

“Thank you,” said Lord Emsworth, with deep feeling.

* * * * *

Evening had brought to the Drones smoking-room that peace which comes to smoking-rooms when the majority of their frequenters have gone elsewhere to dress for dinner. Psmith sat by the window, considering the day.

The porter entered carrying an umbrella and an envelope.

“Mr. Walderwick told me these belonged to you, sir.”

“His statement is substantially correct.”

“The young lady brought them back just after twelve. I put the note aside for Mr. Walderwick, and he has only just told me about the umbrella.”

Psmith accepted both objects. He read the note twice.

“An admirable correspondent,” he said. “Clear, concise, and free from the modern tendency to waffle.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did she happen to leave her name?”

“Miss Eve Halliday, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The porter withdrew.

Psmith remained alone, the umbrella across his knees. Beyond the window the lamps were beginning to shine in Dover Street. He looked again at the note, then at the silver band on the handle.

“Eve Halliday,” he said.

He examined the inscription with thoughtful disfavour.

“Algernon,” he murmured, “we shall have to take steps about you.”

I found the passage without difficulty, and read it twice. The symptoms agreed so remarkably with those I had just witnessed that I closed the book with a feeling almost of triumph. One point, however, puzzled me. The period which usually elapsed before the appearance of the symptoms was stated to be comparatively short. Mrs. Inglethorp had carried her coffee upstairs many hours before.

I was still considering this difficulty as I hurried down the drive.

The morning was already warm. There had been no storm, and the dust lay thick upon the road. Somehow the quietness of everything offended me. A boy whistled as he drove a cow through a gate, and an old woman at a cottage door wished me good morning with a cheerful nod. It seemed extraordinary that these people should know nothing of what had happened.

At the little house occupied by the Belgian refugees, I found the door open. Poirot himself appeared before I had raised my hand to knock. He was fully dressed, and held a small brush with which he had evidently been attending to his clothes.

“Ah, my friend! I was expecting you.”

“You know, then?”

He bowed his head.

“Mrs. Inglethorp is dead.”

“Who told you?”

“Dr. Wilkins. He passed here on his way home. I was at my window, and, seeing me, he stopped. He knew that madame had been very good to us.”

“Did he tell you what was suspected?”

“He told me that there would be an examination. For the rest, he was very careful. A man who chooses his words so carefully tells one a great deal.”

“Poirot, I have come to ask you to take up the case. John Cavendish has given his consent.”

The little man laid down his brush.

“Then I am at your service.”

There was none of the excitement in his manner which I had expected. His face was grave, and for a moment he stood quite still, looking at the floor.

“She had a kindness for those who were unfortunate,” he said. “That is not a small thing, Hastings.”

Then he turned briskly towards the inner room.

“You will tell me everything. But first I must leave a message for my compatriots. They will otherwise suppose that I have been carried off.”

He was absent only a minute or two. When he returned, I began my account, and continued it as we walked towards Styles. I flatter myself that I omitted very little. Poirot listened attentively, putting in an occasional question.

“At what hour was the coffee taken up?”

“I cannot give you the exact time. She had not drunk it when she left us.”

“You saw that?”

“Yes.”

“And the book which you consulted this morning—what did it tell you?”

I stared at him.

“How on earth did you know about that?”

“You have mentioned the word strychnine four times, with a confidence which you did not obtain from either doctor. Also, you are troubled about the interval. Come, what was it?”

I explained my difficulty.

“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “That is a point to remember.”

“Then you agree with me?”

“I agree that it is a point to remember.”

This was disappointing. I had hoped for a more definite appreciation of my researches.

We had reached the bend below the lodge when a tall figure came rapidly along the road from the opposite direction. There was no mistaking the black beard and the curious clothes.

“Alfred Inglethorp!” I exclaimed.

He stopped at sight of me.

“Mr. Hastings! What is this dreadful news? A labourer has just told me—surely there has been some mistake?”

His face was drawn, and his voice shook considerably.

“I am afraid there is no mistake.”

“My poor Emily! But it is impossible. She was perfectly well when I left her.”

I said nothing. Poirot had stepped a little aside, and was watching a bird which hopped upon the hedge.

“When did it happen?”

“Shortly before five.”

“And no one came for me!”

“We did not know where you were.”

“No—of course. How could you?” He passed his hand across his forehead. “I spent the night at Mr. Purvis’s, at Abbey Farm. There were some accounts connected with the estate which I wished to go through with him. I went there after leaving Dr. Bauerstein.”

“You remained there all night?”

“Not at first. It was nearly twelve when we had finished. I walked back here, and then discovered that I had mislaid my latch-key. Dorcas had told me that she would leave the front door unfastened, as she expected to sit up over some work, but everything was locked, and the house was in darkness. Rather than disturb my wife, I returned to the farm. Purvis very kindly gave me a bed.”

It was a plausible enough story. Nevertheless, I could not help remembering the empty room and the terrible cry from the bed.

“You heard nothing when you came back?”

“Nothing whatever. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I merely wondered.”

His eyes moved to Poirot.

“This is my friend, Monsieur Poirot,” I said.

Alfred bowed mechanically.

“You will excuse me. I must go to my wife.”

He hurried through the lodge gates.

I would have followed, but Poirot detained me by a light touch upon the arm.

“One moment. It is better that we do not arrive together.”

“Well?”

“Well, my friend?”

“What do you make of that?”

“An account of a night spent away from home.”

“An exceedingly convenient account.”

“Convenience is not a test of truth. You will find many true things which are convenient, and some lies which are very awkward.”

He bent down and flicked a little dust from his trousers.

“Now we will go.”

John met us in the hall. He looked older than he had an hour before. The immediate necessity for action had passed, leaving him with the burden of all that must follow.

“Thank you for coming, Monsieur Poirot. Hastings has explained?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“I want the matter cleared up. That is all. Whatever the truth may be, we must know it.”

“You shall have my best efforts.”

John took the keys from his pocket.

“Bauerstein gave me these. The room opening out of my stepmother’s is Inglethorp’s. He has just gone upstairs, but I have told him that nothing must be touched.”

“Quite right. And the servants?”

“They have orders to leave everything as it is.”

“Excellent. With your permission, I should like to see the rooms at once.”

We went upstairs. Alfred was standing at the far end of the passage, his back towards us. At John’s approach he turned.

“May I not see her?”

There was something in his voice which made me uncomfortable.

“The doctors wished the room kept locked,” said John. “We had better wait until Wilkins comes back.”

Alfred looked from one to the other of us, then bowed his head and went slowly towards the stairs.

John unlocked the door from the corridor. I noticed that he did so reluctantly.

The gas had been turned out, and daylight filled the room. Someone had drawn the bedclothes straight. That small alteration made the whole scene seem more dreadful to me. The overturned table, the broken china upon the carpet, and the disordered chairs belonged to the confusion of a few hours before; the quiet figure upon the bed belonged to something infinitely remote.

Poirot stood just inside the door.

“Tell me where each person was.”

I did so, indicating our positions as closely as I could remember them. He made me repeat the order in which we had entered, and the moment at which I had unbolted the corridor door.

“And this door you yourself opened?”

“Yes.”

“With a key?”

“No. I drew back the bolt.”

He examined it, then crossed to the broken connecting door. The splintered wood still hung about the fastening.

John watched him impatiently.

“Is there anything else you want from me just now? There are several things downstairs——”

“Certainly, monsieur. Go, I beg of you. Hastings will remain.”

When John had gone, Poirot began a methodical examination which seemed to me singularly lacking in inspiration. He looked at the windows, moved his head to and fro before the mantelpiece, and knelt beside the overturned table. More than once he asked me whether an object had been moved. Usually I could only say that I did not know.

“You should have eyes all round your head,” he observed.

“One had other things to think of!”

“Precisely. That is why I ask, and do not assume.”

Near the hearth he remained for some time upon his knees. Then he drew a little pair of tweezers from his pocket and picked up something which I had not noticed.

“What is it?”

He held it out upon the palm of his hand.

It was a small brass safety-pin. The point had been bent outwards, and the little guard which should have enclosed it was missing. A shred of pale material clung about the coil.

“A safety-pin!” I exclaimed.

“An incomplete safety-pin.”

“Do you attach importance to it?”

“I have picked it up.”

“But what does it mean?”

“That, my friend, I do not propose to explain.”

He wrapped it carefully in a clean sheet from his notebook and put it away.

I felt distinctly rebuffed. After all, it was I who had brought him into the affair.

He continued his examination, paying particular attention to the ashes in the grate. This reminded me of Lawrence’s extraordinary expression, and I described it again.

“Over your head, you say?”

“Yes. Towards this wall.”

Poirot placed me near the corridor door and took up the position in which Lawrence had stood.

“Here?”

“A little farther to the left.”

“And the candle?”

“In his right hand, I think.”

“You think?”

“I am certain.”

“Good. We will retain the certainty, but remember that it began as a thought.”

He looked towards the mantelpiece for some seconds. Then he turned abruptly away.

We left the room shortly afterwards, Poirot locking the door and putting the key in his pocket.

Downstairs, Dorcas was waiting with a tray. Her eyes were swollen with crying, but her manner retained its usual dignity.

“Mr. John thought you gentlemen ought to have something, sir.”

Poirot accepted gratefully. He had a way with servants which I had often admired. Within a few minutes Dorcas was speaking to him almost as to an old acquaintance.

It was I who mentioned Alfred’s return.

“He says that you intended to leave the front door unlocked for him last night.”

Dorcas stared at me.

“I, sir?”

“Yes. Because you were sitting up over some work.”

“I never said any such thing. I wouldn’t leave that door unfastened after the household was in bed, not for anybody. And I told Mr. Inglethorp quite plainly that I was going to bed at half-past ten, and would he be sure to take his key.”

“You are certain of that?”

“Quite certain, sir. He was standing by the hall table at the time.”

I glanced triumphantly at Poirot, but he was engaged in placing his spoon exactly parallel with the edge of his saucer.

“Did you fasten the door yourself?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. At half-past ten.”

“With the chain also?”

“No, sir. Not when anyone is out with a key.”

“And afterwards?”

“I went straight to bed.”

Poirot thanked her, and she withdrew.

“There!” I cried. “What do you say to that?”

“That Dorcas has a good memory and a proper respect for the safety of the house.”

“But Inglethorp’s statement——”

“Does not agree with hers. Yes, I heard.”

“You take it very calmly.”

“I should be a poor investigator if every disagreement caused me to leap from my chair.”

For the next two hours he was exasperatingly deliberate. He spoke with John, inspected the approach to the front door, and obtained from me a more exact account of the previous evening. Whenever I attempted to return to Alfred’s story, he brought me back to some trifling point concerning the movements of the household.

A little after ten we encountered Cynthia in the hall. She looked pale and miserable, and her usual briskness had quite deserted her. Mary was with her.

“This is Monsieur Poirot,” I said. “You remember my speaking of him.”

Cynthia gave him her hand.

Poirot bowed over it with his old-fashioned courtesy.

“Mademoiselle, I will trouble you with one question only. Was your sleep last night as heavy as it ordinarily is?”

“Oh, much heavier. I generally wake if anyone opens my door. This morning I could hardly understand what Mary was saying to me.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle.”

He stood aside at once to let her pass.

Mary lingered a moment.

“Cynthia is very much upset. I hope she will not have to be worried.”

“I shall endeavour to cause as little distress as possible, madame.”

Her eyes rested upon him searchingly. Then she followed the girl into the morning-room.

I waited until we were out of hearing.

“Well, at least there is nothing mysterious about that. The heat was enough to make anyone sleep badly—or heavily.”

Poirot looked at me.

“You provide generously for either event.”

“I mean that she was tired.”

“Very possibly.”

Again that maddening reserve!

By half-past eleven the house had settled into a subdued activity. Messages arrived; doors opened and shut quietly; somewhere a maid was crying. I began to understand that a catastrophe does not suspend the ordinary necessities of life. The breakfast things had to be removed, and someone must decide about luncheon.

Poirot appeared at my elbow.

“Come, Hastings. We will go upstairs once more.”

“What have you found out?”

“That there is much to find out.”

We entered the bedroom, and he locked the door behind us. The sound of the key turning made me look round.

“We shall not be disturbed,” he said.

He drew a chair to the little writing-table, and motioned me to another. Then he took the folded paper from his pocket and opened it between us.

The broken safety-pin lay upon the white sheet.

I examined it closely. It was a cheap, ordinary object, slightly tarnished. The bit of material caught in its coil might have come from any garment in the house.

“You might at least tell me why you kept it,” I said.

Poirot did not answer immediately. He turned the paper so that the bent point faced me.

I looked from the pin to his face, completely at a loss.

“My friend,” he said softly, “the curious thing is that this was much safer when it was open.”

The First National Bank had a marble front and a clock that was seven minutes faster than mine. Inside, it was cool and quiet. A man behind a bronze fence looked at my agency credentials and passed me along to an assistant cashier named Harker.

Harker had a long pink face, yellow eyebrows, and a collar that kept him from looking down without moving his chair.

“I’m checking up on a five-thousand-dollar check Donald Willsson drew yesterday afternoon,” I told him. “Can you tell me who got it?”

He put my credentials square with the edge of his desk.

“Are you acting for the estate?”

“I’m acting for Donald Willsson. He hired us before he was killed.”

“That would scarcely authorize us to disclose the affairs of his account.”

“Then you’d better call up somebody who can authorize you. The check may have something to do with his death.”

Harker looked unhappy without looking surprised. He carried my credentials into a rear office. When he came back he had a young man with him. He gave the young man instructions and offered me a chair.

“Did you see Mr. Willsson yesterday?” I asked.

“Yes. He came in during the afternoon.”

“About three?”

“A little before.”

“What did he want?”

“He asked whether a check for five thousand dollars could be paid immediately, if presented.”

“Could it?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything wrong with his balance?”

“No. There was considerably more than that to his credit.”

“Then why ask?”

“He mentioned that it might be presented late in the day. I explained that we could arrange payment up to our usual closing time.”

“Did he have the check with him?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“Did he mention a name?”

“No.”

The young man came back with some slips of paper. Harker looked them over, asked him a question in a low voice, and sent him away again.

“No check for that amount has been paid,” he told me.

“I want to know more than that. Has it been presented and turned down? Has it been certified?”

“No, sir. We have checked both matters. No five-thousand-dollar check drawn by Mr. Donald Willsson has been presented here or certified.”

“Yesterday or today?”

“Either day.”

“Would you know if it came through another bank?”

“Not until it reached us.”

“Then it could be on its way?”

“Certainly.”

“Or in somebody’s pocket?”

“Certainly.”

That was as far as the bank could carry me. I left Harker with his collar and went out to get something to eat.

By the time I got back to the Great Western it was nearly three o’clock. The clerk said a lady was waiting for me. Donald Willsson’s wife got up from a chair on the other side of the lobby.

She wore black. It made her yellow hair look brighter and her face look smaller. Her shoes were black too.

“I have been waiting almost an hour,” she said.

“You should have left word you were coming.”

“I did not know myself.”

We went up to my room. I gave her the chair beside the window, moved a newspaper off another chair, and sat down facing her.

She kept her gloves on.

“You have told my husband’s father that I murdered him.”

“No.”

“You told him about my shoe.”

“Yes.”

“And that is what you meant.”

“It’s what he meant. He was hard to get away from it.”

Her eyes stayed on mine. They were blue and clear. The rest of her face looked as if she had washed it in cold water and had not got warm again.

“There was blood on my slipper,” she said.

“Your husband’s?”

“Yes.”

“How did it get there?”

“I knelt beside him in the street.”

“Who was the man with you?”

She moved her hands in her lap.

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you speak to him?”

“Yes. But I don’t know his name.”

“What did he look like?”

“He had a hat.”

“That ought to help.”

“It was dark. I was looking at Donald.”

“What did the man say?”

“He said he was dead. Then he said I ought to go away.”

“And you went?”

“Yes.”

“Leaving your husband on the sidewalk?”

Her mouth drew back at the corners.

“He was dead. Would staying have made him anything else?”

“No. It would have saved you some questions.”

“I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of just these questions.”

I lighted a cigarette and waited. She watched the match burn until I shook it out.

“The telephone call,” I said. “Who made it?”

“A man. He would not give his name. He said if I wanted my husband I could find him in Hurricane Street.”

“Did he give you a number?”

“He said the eleven-hundred block.”

“What else?”

“That was all.”

“What made you go?”

“I wanted to see him.”

“You expected him home. You had a guest waiting for him.”

She gave me a thin smile.

“You are not so stupid as that.”

“What did the man tell you about a woman?”

“He said Donald was with one.”

“And you didn’t want to tell me?”

“Would you have told a stranger sitting in your drawing-room?”

“Probably not. What did you do when you got there?”

“I drove past. I saw nobody. I turned at the corner and drove back. Then I stopped in the next street.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Before the shooting?”

“Yes.”

“You heard it?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you?”

“In the car. I had been sitting there.”

“Doing what?”

“Waiting.”

“For whom?”

“For my husband.”

“How did you expect to see him from the next street?”

She looked at the window.

“I had got out once. Then I went back. I did not know what to do.”

“How many shots did you hear?”

“I don’t know. Several, very close together.”

“And then?”

“I ran around the corner. He was lying there. The man was bending over him.”

“You saw nobody else?”

“No.”

“An automobile?”

“No.”

“Did the man have a pistol?”

“I didn’t see one.”

“Which way did he go?”

“I don’t know. I went back to my car.”

I let some cigarette smoke out between us.

“You’ve left a lot of things you don’t know in the places where I could use something.”

“I have told you what happened.”

“Some of it. Did you take anything out of your husband’s pockets?”

She turned from the window quickly.

“No.”

“Did the man?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Did you see a check?”

“What check?”

“One for five thousand dollars.”

“No.”

“Ever hear your husband mention it?”

“No. Why should he have had such a check?”

“That’s one of the things I’m working on.”

She pressed the fingers of one hand flat against the palm of the other, smoothing the black glove.

“Was it payable to a woman?”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“But you think so?”

“I don’t know.”

Her face sharpened a little.

“Then you also have things you don’t know.”

“Plenty. I don’t mind saying so. What did Max Thaler want at your house this morning?”

“He came to tell me I should not be frightened.”

“Did it work?”

“He said people would talk, and that I should pay no attention.”

“What people? Talk about what?”

“About my husband. About me. He did not say exactly.”

“Friendly of him. Know him well?”

“I have met him.”

“Your husband like him?”

“No.”

“Did you?”

“He has always been polite to me.”

“Was he polite enough to tell you where he was last night?”

“I did not ask.”

“Did he ask where you were?”

She hesitated before saying:

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?”

“What I have told you.”

“About the man who sent you away?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said the man had given me good advice.”

There was a knock on the door.

I opened it far enough to take an envelope from a bell-boy. He said it had been left at the desk for me. I shut the door and tore the envelope.

There was a sheet of hotel paper inside. A few words had been put on it in small careful pencil-writing:

Mrs. Willsson hasn’t had much sleep. Give her a break. Max Thaler.

I turned the paper over. There was nothing on the back.

“From Mr. Thaler?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What does he say?”

“That you need sleep.”

Her eyes got larger. She looked past me at the door.

“He is here?”

“The boy said this was left downstairs.”

“I did not tell him I was coming.”

“Somebody may have seen you.”

She stood up.

“I shall go.”

I stayed between her and the door long enough to ask:

“Have you told the police about last night?”

“No.”

“You ought to.”

“Will you tell them?”

“Yes.”

She nodded as if she had expected that, and went to the mirror over the bureau. She touched her hair in two places where it didn’t need touching.

“My husband sent for you,” she said to the mirror. “Do you know why?”

“Not yet.”

“Then perhaps you should find that out before you do what other people want.”

“Who’s been wanting things?”

“His father wants me in prison. Mr. Thaler wants me to say nothing. You can’t please them both.”

“What do you want?”

She turned around.

“I want to go home.”

I opened the door for her.

After she had gone I went downstairs and asked about the note. A boy had brought it in from the street. He wasn’t one of the hotel boys. The clerk hadn’t noticed him particularly. He had asked that it be sent up at once.

I asked if anybody had used the hotel telephone to inquire for Mrs. Willsson. The clerk didn’t know. The girl at the telephone said a man had asked whether she was still waiting in the lobby. That had been a little while before I came in.

“Did you tell him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know who he was?”

“No.”

I went out and walked to Hurricane Street.

In daylight the eleven-hundred block was a row of cheap houses with narrow strips of tired grass between their porches and the sidewalk. Across from the place where Willsson had fallen, an alley ran between a frame house and a brick building. I walked through it. It gave into another street at the rear. There was room for a man to get away without knocking anything over.

I tried three houses. At the first nobody answered. At the second a woman told me she had told the police all she knew, and then proved it by telling me nothing. At the third a man in an undershirt showed me where the two bullets had gone into his wall. He thought somebody ought to pay for the damage.

He had been in bed when the shots came. By the time he reached his window the man and woman were beside the body.

“Could the woman have come around that corner?” I asked.

“She could have come out of the ground for all I seen.”

“Was there a car parked in the next street?”

“I wasn’t in the next street.”

He was right about that. I left him looking at the holes in his wall.

I walked around the corner and tried the next street. A coupé could have stood in any of half a dozen places without its occupant being able to see where Willsson had fallen. It was a good enough street for waiting in if you didn’t want to see what you were waiting for.

At City Hall I sent my card in to Noonan. He was out. I waited twenty minutes, wrote that I wanted to see him about the Willsson killing, and left the note with a man who was using a penknife on his nails.

I ate dinner and went back to the hotel. There were no messages.

Upstairs I put Thaler’s note on the bureau and emptied my pockets on the bed. Nothing that came out of them made the five thousand dollars any easier to find.

Willsson had asked the bank whether it could pay the check. That made it look as if he expected somebody to want cash. The somebody hadn’t wanted it badly enough to get to the bank before closing. Or hadn’t got the check until after closing. Or hadn’t got it at all.

I sat down and wrote a wire:

OLD MAN CONTINENTAL DETECTIVE AGENCY SAN FRANCISCO

DONALD WILLSSON MURDERED TEN FORTY LAST NIGHT BEFORE KEEPING APPOINTMENT WITH ME. SHOT FROM ALLEY HURRICANE STREET. PURPOSE OUR EMPLOYMENT STILL UNKNOWN. DREW FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR CHECK YESTERDAY AFTERNOON. HARKER ASSISTANT CASHIER FIRST NATIONAL STATES CHECK NEVER PRESENTED OR CERTIFIED. PAYEE AND PRESENT WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN. WIDOW ADMITS AT BODY AFTER SHOOTING FOLLOWING ANONYMOUS TELEPHONE MESSAGE. SAYS UNIDENTIFIED MAN THERE ADVISED HER LEAVE. MAX THALER VISITED HER THIS MORNING AND HAS SENT ME NOTE URGING EASY TREATMENT OF HER. LOCAL POLITICAL SITUATION COMPLICATED WITH ELDER WILLSSON INVOLVED. CONTINUING INVESTIGATION.

I read it twice, crossed out nothing, and took it downstairs to have it sent. The clerk telephoned for a messenger. I waited until the boy came, paid the charges, and went up again.

It was dark now. Somebody across the court had a radio that whistled between pieces of music. I pulled down the shade and took off my coat.

Presently the desk called to say the wire had gone.

I put the receiver back and sat on the bed. Thaler’s note was still on the bureau. I could see his name from where I sat.

He knew where the widow was and he knew when to send his message. He might know where the check was. The widow might know. The man who had bent over the body might have it folded in his pocket.

I had the stub.

I took off my shoes.