I was just going away with my discovery,
when I saw an empty carriage come round and draw up in front of the
house, and I came to the conclusion that Mrs. Herbert was going out for
a drive, and I was right. There, as it happened, I met a man I know,
and we stood talking together a little distance from the carriage-way,
to which I had my back. We had not been there for ten minutes when my
friend took off his hat, and I glanced round and saw the lady I had
been following all day. ‘Who is that?’ I said, and his answer was ‘Mrs. Beaumont; lives in Ashley Street.’ Of course there could be no doubt
after that. I don’t know whether she saw me, but I don’t think she did. I went home at once, and, on consideration, I thought that I had a
sufficiently good case with which to go to Clarke.”

“Why to Clarke?”

“Because I am sure that Clarke is in possession of facts about this
woman, facts of which I know nothing.”

“Well, what then?”

Mr. Villiers leaned back in his chair and looked reflectively at Austin
for a moment before he answered:

“My idea was that Clarke and I should call on Mrs. Beaumont.”

“You would never go into such a house as that? No, no, Villiers, you
cannot do it. Besides, consider; what result...”

“I will tell you soon. But I was going to say that my information does
not end here; it has been completed in an extraordinary manner. “Look at this neat little packet of manuscript; it is paginated, you
see, and I have indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape. It has almost a legal air, hasn’t it? Run your eye over it, Austin. It
is an account of the entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for her
choicer guests. The man who wrote this escaped with his life, but I do
not think he will live many years. The doctors tell him he must have
sustained some severe shock to the nerves.”

Austin took the manuscript, but never read it. Opening the neat pages
at haphazard his eye was caught by a word and a phrase that followed
it; and, sick at heart, with white lips and a cold sweat pouring like
water from his temples, he flung the paper down. “Take it away, Villiers, never speak of this again. Are you made of
stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of
the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform,
bound, the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of
the bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I should
never sleep again.”

“Very good. I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but
after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day, and in
dim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olive
gardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great
God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of
something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath
which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most
secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which
the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies
blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot
be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a
symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a
foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the
terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under
human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh,
Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn
to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath
such a burden?”

Villiers was pacing up and down the room, and the beads of sweat stood
out on his forehead. Austin sat silent for a while, but Villiers saw
him make a sign upon his breast. “I say again, Villiers, you will surely never enter such a house as
that? You would never pass out alive.”

“Yes, Austin, I shall go out alive—I, and Clarke with me.”

“What do you mean? You cannot, you would not dare...”

“Wait a moment. The air was very pleasant and fresh this morning; there
was a breeze blowing, even through this dull street, and I thought I
would take a walk. Piccadilly stretched before me a clear, bright
vista, and the sun flashed on the carriages and on the quivering leaves
in the park. It was a joyous morning, and men and women looked at the
sky and smiled as they went about their work or their pleasure, and the
wind blew as blithely as upon the meadows and the scented gorse. But
somehow or other I got out of the bustle and the gaiety, and found
myself walking slowly along a quiet, dull street, where there seemed to
be no sunshine and no air, and where the few foot-passengers loitered
as they walked, and hung indecisively about corners and archways. I
walked along, hardly knowing where I was going or what I did there, but
feeling impelled, as one sometimes is, to explore still further, with a
vague idea of reaching some unknown goal. Thus I forged up the street,
noting the small traffic of the milk-shop, and wondering at the
incongruous medley of penny pipes, black tobacco, sweets, newspapers,
and comic songs which here and there jostled one another in the short
compass of a single window. I think it was a cold shudder that suddenly
passed through me that first told me that I had found what I wanted. I
looked up from the pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above
which the lettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred
years ago had grimed to black; where the windows had gathered to
themselves the dust of winters innumerable. I saw what I required; but
I think it was five minutes before I had steadied myself and could walk
in and ask for it in a cool voice and with a calm face. I think there
must even then have been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came
out of the back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked
oddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood
leaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goods
and go. I asked about the business, and learnt that trade was bad and
the profits cut down sadly; but then the street was not what it was
before traffic had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago,
‘just before my father died,’ he said. I got away at last, and walked
along sharply; it was a dismal street indeed, and I was glad to return
to the bustle and the noise. Would you like to see my purchase?”

Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly; he still looked
white and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, and
showed Austin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was a
running noose. “It is the best hempen cord,” said Villiers, “just as it used to be
made for the old trade, the man told me. Not an inch of jute from end
to end.”

Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at Villiers, growing whiter as he
looked. “You would not do it,” he murmured at last.