Then slowly, with infinite pains, he drew back from the
glass and replaced the candlestick on the table; stuffed his paper
packet into his pocket, took off his boots and threw himself on to the
bed. In a little while, in the faint, still light, he opened drowsily
wondering eyes. ‘Poor old thing!’ his voice murmured, ‘Poor old
Sheila!’




CHAPTER FIVE


It was but little after daybreak when Mrs Lawford, after listening at
his door a while, turned the key and looked in on her husband. Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking
down on the lean impassive face. For the briefest instant her heart had
leapt with an indescribable surmise; to fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon
the bed. ‘How can he sleep? How can he sleep?’ she whispered with a
black and hopeless indignation. What a night she had had! And he! She turned noiselessly away. The candle had guttered to extinction. The
big glass reflected her, voluminous and wan, her dark-ringed eyes, full
lips, rich, glossy hair, and rounded chin. ‘Yes, yes,’ it seemed to
murmur mournfully. She turned away, and drawing stealthily near stooped
once more quite low, and examined the face on the pillow with lynx-like
concentration. And though every nerve revolted at the thought, she was
finally convinced, unwillingly, but assuredly, that her husband was
here. Indeed, if it were not so, how could she for a single moment have
accepted the possibility that he was a stranger? He seemed to haunt,
like a ghostly emanation, this strange, detestable face—as memory
supplies the features concealed beneath a mask. The face was still and
stony, like one dead or imaged in wax, yet beneath it dreams were
passing—silly, ordinary Lawford dreams. She was almost alarmed at the
terribly rancorous hatred she felt for the face... ‘It was just like
Arthur to be so taken in!’

Then she too remembered Quain, and remembered also in the slowly paling
dusk that the house would soon be stirring. She went out and
noiselessly locked the door again. But it was useless to begin looking
for Quain now—her husband had a good many dull books, most of them his
‘eccentric’ father’s. What must the servants be thinking? and what was
all that talk about a mysterious visitor? She would have to question
Ada—diplomatically. She returned to her room and sat down in an
arm-chair, and waited. In sheer weariness she fell into a doze, and
woke at the sound of dustpan and broom. She rang the bell, and asked
for hot water, tea, and a basin of cornflour. ‘And please, Ada, be as quiet as possible over your work; your master
is in a nice sleep, and must not be disturbed on any account. In the
front bedroom.’ She looked up suddenly. ‘By the way, who let Dr
Ferguson in last night?’ It was dangerous, but successful. ‘Dr Ferguson, ma’am? Oh, you mean... He _was_ in.’

Sheila smiled resignedly. ‘Was in? What do you mean, “was in”? And
where were you, then?’

‘I had been sent out to Critchett’s, the chemist’s.’

‘Of course, of course. So cook let Dr Ferguson in, then? Why didn’t you
say so before, Ada? And did you bring the medicine with you?’

‘It was a packet in an envelope, ma’am. But Cook is sure she heard no
knock—not while I was out. So Dr Ferguson must have come in quite
unbeknown.’

‘Well, really,’ said Sheila, ‘it seems very difficult to get at the
truth sometimes. And when illness is in the house I cannot understand
why there should be no one available to answer the door. You must have
left it ajar, unsecured, when you went out. And pray, what if Dr
Ferguson had been some common tramp? That would have been a nice
thing.’

‘I am quite certain,’ said Ada a little flatly, ‘that I did shut the
door. And cook says she never so much as stirred from the kitchen till
I came down the area steps with the packet. And that’s all I know about
it, ma’am; except that he was here when I came back. I did not know
even there was a Dr Ferguson; and my mother has lived here nineteen
years.’

‘We must be thankful your mother enjoys such good health,’ replied Mrs
Lawford suavely. ‘Please tell cook to be very careful with the
cornflour—to be sure it’s well mixed and thoroughly done.’

Mrs Lawford’s eyes followed with a certain discomfort those narrow
print shoulders descending the stairs. And this abominable ruse
was—Arthur’s! She ran up lightly and listened with her ear to the panel
of his door. And just as she was about to turn away again, there came a
little light knock at the front door. Mrs Lawford paused at the loop of the staircase; and not altogether
with gratitude or relief she heard the voice of Mr Bethany, inquiring
in cautious but quite audible tones after her husband. She dressed quickly and went down. The little white old man looked very
solitary in the long, fireless, drawing-room. ‘I could not sleep,’ he said; ‘I don’t think I grasped in the least, I
don’t indeed, until I was nearly home, the complexity of our problem. I
came, in fact, to a lamppost. It was casting a peculiar shadow. And
then—you know how such thoughts seize us, my dear—like a sudden
inspiration, I realised how tenuous, how appallingly tenuous a hold we
every one of us have on our mere personality. But that,’ he continued
rapidly, ‘that’s only for ourselves—and after the event. Ours, just
now, is to act. And first—?’

‘You really do, then—you really are convinced—’ began Mrs Lawford. But Mr Bethany was too quick. ‘We must be _most_ circumspect. My dear
friend, we must be _most_ circumspect, for all our sakes. And this,
you’ll say,’ he added, smiling, stretching out his arms, his soft hat
in one hand, his umbrella in the other—‘this is being circumspect—a
seven o’clock in the morning call! But you see, my dear, I have come,
as I took the precaution of explaining to the maid, because it’s now or
never to-day. It does so happen that I have to take a wedding for an
old friend’s niece at Witchett; so when in need, you see, Providence
enables us to tell even the conventional truth. Now really, how is he? has he slept? has he recalled himself at all? is there any change?—and,
dear me, how are _you_?’

Mrs Lawford sighed. ‘A broken night is really very little to a mother,’
she said. ‘He is still asleep. He hasn’t, I think, stirred all night.’

‘Not stirred!’ Mr Bethany repeated. ‘You baffle me. And you have
watched?’

‘Oh no,’ was the cheerful answer; ‘I felt that quiet, solitude; space,
was everything; he preferred it so. He—he changed alone, I suppose. Don’t you think it almost stands to reason that he will be alone...when
he comes back? Was I right? But there, it’s useless, it’s worse than
useless, to talk like this. My husband is gone. Some terrible thing has
happened. Whatever the mystery may be, he will never come back alive.