Chapter SIX: The Unwritten Law (2)

It was a wet, starless night when we arrived in Milford Square at ten o'clock. I dismissed my taxi, rang the bell and waited. There was no answer, and I rang again. It was inconceivable that, to keep me out of the house, Grayle had disconnected the front door bell or given instructions that it was to be disregarded on principle.

"I'm afraid I've brought you on a fool's errand," I said to Beresford, as I rang a third time.

We looked to right and left for a second bell, an area door or any other promise of admission. Two interested maids from a neighbouring house joined our search-party, and a constable flashed his bull's-eye impartially on us all and asked if we had lost anything.

"I'm trying to get into this house," I said, pointing to Grayle's door, "and I can't make anyone hear."

He pondered for a moment and then led us into the Brompton Road.

"There was a light in the studio, when I came on duty. You may be able to get in that way."

We groped through a narrow passage to a wooden door set in a high brick wall. Over our heads I could see the outline of two windows, securely curtained but with a phosphorescent border. There was neither bell nor knocker to the door, but I battered resonantly on the thick, blistered panels with my umbrella. For perhaps two minutes there was no answering sound, and I banged again. This time I was rewarded by the slam of a door, the noise of feet on a stone passage and the rasp of a heavy key. The door opened, and my eyes, which were grown used by now to the darkness, recognised the massive outlines of Guy Bannerman.

"Hullo? Who are you? What d'you want?" he demanded sharply.

I slipped the end of my umbrella into the doorway.

"Is Grayle at home, Guy?" I asked. "I'm Raymond Stornaway, if you don't recognise my voice. I have to see him on very important business."

There can be few minor humiliations so disconcerting as to slam a door and find that it will not close.

"You'll only ruin a good umbrella, Guy," I said. "Listen to reason, man. You remember our talk the last time I was here? You know that Grayle's by way of being cited as a co-respondent?"

"Take your umbrella out!" Guy whispered angrily, feeling for it with his foot, but not daring to detach either hand from the door.

"I've come with a proposal from O'Rane," I said.

The energetic foot relaxed its industry.

"Grayle's given orders that you're not to be admitted," he said.

"I know. And you're enough in his confidence to say whether he's likely to be interested by hearing O'Rane's proposal. I sent him a note this morning, but he didn't see fit to acknowledge it. If he's going to take the same line now, tell me at once, and I'll go away. If, on the other hand, he'll let us in and behave himself, we'll come. I may tell you, as I've already told Grayle, that I don't come to see him for any morbid pleasure which I may derive from our meetings!"

Discretion and discipline did battle within Guy's spirit, and at length he asked, "Who's 'us'?"

"I have Beresford with me," I said.

"I can't let _him_ in," was the prompt reply.

"Then we'll go home, Beresford," I said. "Good-night, Guy. Open the door a fraction of an inch so that I can get my umbrella out, there's a good fellow."

He did as I asked him, though guardedly. I pulled at the umbrella, turned my back and started down the passage, followed reluctantly by Beresford. I walked briskly for fear of spoiling the effect, and, before I had gone ten yards, Guy was running heavily after me.

"If you care to leave a message," he began, bringing a massive hand to rest on my shoulder.

"I don't," I interrupted.

"But, look here, Stornaway----!"

I walked on and, omitting certain obvious intermediate stages, found Beresford and myself shortly afterwards ensconced in arm-chairs before the fire in Bannerman's match-boarded, paper-strewn work-room over the garage at the end of Grayle's garden. Our surroundings were serviceable rather than sybaritic. Oil-cloth, a fur hearth-rug and a couple of Japanese mats covered the floor; the walls were concealed, half by stout blue volumes of the Parliamentary Debates, half by a map of Canada, another of British South Africa and a third of the Western Front. A double writing-table stood in the middle of the room with a sloping desk, an oil reading-lamp and three numbered deed-boxes. There was a reek of petrol from a private and probably illegitimate pyramid of leaking tins, which had projected themselves upstairs from the garage.

Guy produced some cigars and left us to take care of ourselves while he reconnoitred the house.

"I've let you in on my own responsibility," he said, as he opened the door leading into the garden. "Whether he'll see you or not I can't tell."

"I think he will see us," I murmured to Beresford, when we were alone.

I for one had satisfied my intellectual cravings for Canadian geography, when we heard steps approaching on the gravel. A moment later Grayle was framed, though he had to stoop for it, in the doorway. He looked at me with a frown which deepened at sight of Beresford.

"Well?" he demanded.

"Good evening, Grayle," I said. "I've come with a message from O'Rane."

"What are you doing here?" he asked Beresford.

The promise was honourably observed, and there was no answer.

"I brought him as a witness in case you shewed any tendency to be violent," I said. "Grayle, O'Rane thinks that, the sooner you give up your seat in the House, the better. For what it's worth, I agree with him."

He was still standing in the doorway with his fingers on the handle. Clearly he expected something more.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"All," I said, as I got up from my chair.

"Then what the hell d'you want to come here for, wasting my time?" he thundered. "You told Bannerman you'd got a proposal to make!"

"O'Rane proposes that you should retire from public life," I explained. "I always think it's better to do a thing voluntarily than under compulsion."

On that he left the doorway and came into the room.

"This is a threat, is it?" he asked, looking down on me with arms akimbo.

"A forecast," I substituted. "I see from the papers that you may be invited to join the Government. You will never join the Government, Grayle, or, if you do, you'll leave it before you have time to find out where your office is. If you retire voluntarily, you may live to an honoured old age; if you force O'Rane to go through with his petition, I'm afraid you'll have a very ugly fall."

Grayle loosened his belt, though with too much deliberate preoccupation to suggest that he was about to use it as an argument in favour of our retirement; then he unbuttoned his tunic, removed a bundle of papers from a woollen khaki waistcoat and transferred them to one of his outside breast-pockets.

"Do you know? your forecast does not strike me as exhaustive," he observed, as he settled his belt in place once more. "As a preliminary, however, does O'Rane propose to go on with the divorce?"

"Frankly, I can't tell you," I said. "He would like to consult his wife's wishes. I make no bones about telling you, Grayle, that you get very little out of any proposed arrangement. If she wants a divorce, your--fair name, shall we call it?--is smirched, whatever you do; but I fancy, unless you find your parliamentary duties too exacting for your enfeebled health--and that within one week from to-night,--your fair name will be smirched whether she wants a divorce or not. I can't say what's in her mind, of course, but, if you accept defeat at once, there's a fifty per cent. chance that you'll escape a scandal in which, when all's said and done, you don't cut a very gallant figure. By the way, I have to have your answer to-night."

"My answer's 'no.'"

It was given without hesitation and, so far as I could see, without bluff. I have been connected with large commercial enterprises long enough to be a tolerable judge.

"I'll let O'Rane know at once," I said, getting up again and motioning Beresford to do the same. "It will be an unsavoury case, Grayle."

"Which is presumably the reason he's so unwilling to go on with it," Grayle sneered. "But make no mistake who comes out of it worst. _He_ hasn't bothered to think. Your--proposal I reject with thanks, but I'll make another. You're quite right in thinking that I would sooner not be mixed up in these proceedings any more; if O'Rane will give me a written undertaking to drop them _here--and--now_ and never to revive them, we can let it rest at that."

Beresford had not promised to refrain from laughter, and I excused it as the only possible comment on the offer.

"Come along," I said to him. "We're wasting the nation's time; and the nation won't have the benefit of it much longer."

Grayle shrugged his shoulders and led the way to the door on the lane.

"So be it!" he said. "Yet mine was a fairer bargain than yours. There was at least a _quid pro quo_."

"I'm afraid I don't see it."

"Then I'm afraid your principals haven't instructed you very thoroughly," he answered impatiently. "From your general tone to me, you evidently think that I've behaved very badly, that it was my fault, that the sympathy of the court will be entirely with O'Rane and his wife. It may be with O'Rane," he added meaningly. "I'll tell you at once that I propose to defend the action and, though it's only guess-work, I shall be very much surprised if O'Rane gets a decree.... If he _likes_ washing his wife's dirty linen in public, that's his affair, but what seems to have been overlooked is the attitude of Mrs. O'Rane throughout. To begin with, I can call witnesses to prove that O'Rane repeatedly proclaimed that he wouldn't raise a finger to keep his wife, if she preferred to risk her happiness with another man. She used to say _she_ wouldn't stay with him, if she was unhappy; I can produce witnesses who'll testify to that, too. Any pretence, therefore, that I burst in on a happily married couple and forced them apart is historically untrue. And this will come out in court. But what matters more from the point of view of Mrs. O'Rane's reputation is the evidence--I think you were with me, Stornaway, when she rang me up one night at the House. What you've overlooked in your haste to condemn me, what O'Rane's overlooked in his haste to save his wife's reputation is the part played by his wife. I'll accept full responsibility for my share of whatever's happened, but I'm afraid you'll find it won't ease your position. Mrs. O'Rane's letters to me, which will, of course, be read in court, prove that it was she and she alone----"

It was not difficult to imagine the end of the sentence. Grayle spoke with the bored indifference of a man who has had unwelcome attentions thrust upon him, who has tolerated them as long as he can, but who at last and at the risk of wounding an importunate mistress.... I never heard it, though, because Beresford, unpardonably if excusably forgetting his promise of silence and immobility, had twitched my umbrella from my grasp and whirled it backhanded into Grayle's face with a cry of,

"You cad! you cad! you _bloody_ cad!"

4

The moment that the blow was struck I felt that lives would be lost before we parted. Beresford had come to the house clamorous for blood, I will admit at once that I had wrapped a taunt round every word that I had spoken, and for weeks Grayle had been in a state only describable as eruptive. I found time, however, with that curious detachment which a brain shews when it is working with twice its usual clarity and speed to reflect what an absurd and incongruous trio we made; Beresford dying of consumption, all skin and bones held together by will-power--lame, shabby, ill-groomed, with two blazing eyes in a parchment-coloured face; Grayle towering over the pair of us, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked--with a thread of blood running from one corner of his mouth,--yellow-haired, like some giant's child in uniform; and, if I could have seen myself, I should have looked on a plump, middle-aged man with, I believe, a benevolent expression, a good many wrinkles on the forehead and round the eyes and a thick crop of prematurely white hair.

Beresford's action was so unexpected and sudden that we--and I include him--were temporarily paralysed. After the brief outburst there followed a silence in which we seemed to be waiting for the end of the world to be proclaimed. Then Grayle put his hand to his face and brought it away wet. I watched him raise his eyebrows at the sight, walk to the door opening on to the garden, turn the key and pocket it. (I suddenly remembered being bullied at Eton.)

"He brought this on himself," he observed quietly to me; and, before I had leisure to guess what he intended or see what he was doing, he had gripped Beresford by the collar, lifted him off his feet and was belabouring him with his stick until the ribs cracked like dry wood in a hot fire. At the end of six swift blows the stick broke in two, and he looked round for another weapon. A round office ruler met our gaze at the same moment, and from opposite sides we pounced on it simultaneously and simultaneously caught hold of it. I had two hands to his one, however, and with a wrench I contrived to twist it out of his grasp.

"Drop him!" I cried, but Grayle only looked round for means to renew the attack. "I'll break your arm, if you don't."

His grip on Beresford, who was still dangling and writhing in the air with his face purple and his feet rapping out a tattoo on the oil-cloth, never relaxed. I raised the ruler above my head and brought it down on Grayle's forearm with all the strength that I could muster. I had aimed at his wrist, but a plunge by Beresford spoiled my aim. Grayle gave some body-twist, which I was too much preoccupied to see, and an instant later I felt his powerful fingers inside my collar and my head being savagely bumped against Beresford's. Every other time my ear was crushed against his fleshless skull, and the pain was excruciating. I made ineffectual backward sweeps with the ruler, hitting Beresford as often as I hit Grayle; I battered on his fingers and tried to drag them away from his collar, but every effort that I made and every new injury that I inflicted made him the drunker with lust of battle. The side of my head felt bruised to pulp, and, when I put my hand up to protect it, Grayle only laughed like a maniac and changed his hold so that he could avoid the buffer and bang us on our unprotected brows.

Beresford was limp and crowing, I breathless and sweating before it occurred to me to use my feet. Exploring for Grayle's shins with my heel, I made sure of my mark and lashed out and up as hard as I could kick. It is to be presumed that I caught him on his injured knee, for I heard a gasp of pain, we were jerked abruptly backwards, and Grayle slowly subsided, like a wounded bull in the ring, dragging us on top of him. For a moment we lay motionless; then I heard Beresford's struggles for breath beginning again with feverish, rumbling acceleration. He had fallen on the mat in front of the fire, and his face was pressed so close to the bars that the heat must have been blinding and insupportable. I saw him trying to make a screen of his hands and heard a diabolical laugh from Grayle. The sound gave me new strength, and I tugged at my collar till it burst away from the stud and remained emptily in Grayle's hands while I struggled to my feet.

I had always imagined that, however desperate my plight, I should refrain from some methods of warfare, yet now I struck again and again at the wounded knee, I kicked him in the wind and, if this last had not sent him rolling and gasping on to his side, I believe I might have tried to gouge his eyes out. It was the only time that I had ever had to fight for my life; the instinct to live was stronger and more resourceful than I had imagined.

As Grayle's fingers relaxed, I pulled Beresford away from the fire and set him on his feet with his back to the wall. He was not seriously injured, despite the drubbing from Grayle's stick, and, as soon as he could breathe again, I saw him preparing to meet a fresh attack. My one hope was to escape before Bannerman broke down the locked door and redressed the balance in our numbers, before, too, Grayle had collected enough wind to resume hostilities. Without waiting for my hat and coat, I hurried to the door leading by the stone passage to the lane and flung it open, calling on Beresford to follow me. As I turned on the threshold, he made no sign of moving. I called again, telling him that there was no time to be lost, for Grayle had taken his hands away from the pit of his stomach and was testing his leg before getting up. Beresford also saw that no time was to be lost, but, instead of making for the door, he threw himself on top of his antagonist and dug furiously in the pocket where Grayle had so ostentatiously secreted his bundle of papers.

Though the struggle was resumed with more than all of its old fury, I remember having another interval of lucid detachment. I had intervened before, because Beresford was being murdered, but I had not come there to steal papers which did not belong to me and I could not come to his assistance again.

"Break away!" I roared at them, picking up my ruler again and hitting both impartially.

I might as usefully have expended my energies on beating the floor. Both were too busily engaged to heed me until with a short-arm blow of well-nigh incredible force Grayle lifted his assailant into the air and dropped him again into the fireplace. Then he scrambled on to one knee and faced me.

"Stay where you are, or I'll brain you!" I cried.

He dragged himself forward, and at that I struck. I was more frightened than I have ever been in my life before or since, for, if the phrase have a meaning, there was murder in Grayle's eyes at that moment. The ruler came down on the top of his head with an echoing crack, and his trunk reeled. I hit again, though my first blow was dyeing his hair crimson. This time a hand shot up in defence and grasped the ruler. I pulled until I had dragged him forward on his face, but he only added a second hand and twisted against me, as I had twisted against him three minutes earlier. It was a question of seconds before I was disarmed, and I contrived that, as he possessed himself of the weapon, I could spring to the far side of the writing-table, ready to feint and dodge when he began the attack.

There was a second pause, a second silence. With the same movement we looked towards the fireplace, but Beresford was lying huddled and motionless. Grayle once more put his hand to his head, once more raised his eyebrows when he brought it away covered with blood. Dragging a chair by his side and using its back as a prop, he limped to the second door, pushed it closed and locked it.

"_You_ brought this on _your_self," he whispered in a voice that choked with rage.

In equipment, physical power, training, endurance, even in length of reach, Grayle was my superior. His one weak point was the injured knee, and I concentrated my attack on that before he could reduce the distance between us. Picking up the first of the deed-boxes from the table, I raised it above my head and discharged it at his legs. It struck his feet, I believe; certainly he staggered. Either the second was lighter or I was over-anxious not to throw short again, for this time I hit him in the chest and sent him stumbling and cursing until his back met the door. He stooped as though he would return my fire, but evidently saw the wisdom of not replenishing my ammunition. I picked up the third box, waited until he was back in his old position and then let fly with all the strength that I could put into an overhand swing. The missile was too big and swift to avoid easily at so close a range, but Grayle contrived to make a bend in his body, the box flicked his tunic over one hip and slid along the floor until it bumped into its fellows at the door.

"And _now_," said Grayle. "Bannerman's out of ear-shot, and even the fiendish noise _you_'ve been making won't bring anyone to save you. Before I've done with you, I _think_ you'll be sorry you interfered quite so much."

He dragged himself and his chair to the edge of the table and leaned upon it with his fists, gripping the ruler. The next moment I had sprung back, as he threw himself forward and aimed a blow at my head with the full reach and swing of his long body and arm behind it. The point of the ruler glanced off the welt of my boot and dented the oil-cloth. Grayle pulled himself back, rested his hands again on the table and waited, eyeing me reflectively. I was coming cautiously back to my place, when he projected himself suddenly to the right; I jumped in the opposite direction, he stopped, and we gradually came back to our old positions. A moment later he dived to the left, but I had hardly to move, for he was throwing his weight on to a leg which would not bear it. The next plunge was to the right, and this time he made a half-circle of the table until each of us was occupying the other's stance. With these tactics I could keep him at bay for as long as I liked; and I have no doubt that he realised it. While he panted and looked round him, I turned my head for an instant to see whether he had left the key in the door. The one table-lamp, however, threw a yellow circle of quavering light over the middle of the room and left the extremities in shadow. Whether Grayle divined my thoughts, whether he even noticed or understood my action, I cannot say, but the next moment I received a violent blow on the thighs and was hard put to it to keep my balance, as the table, furiously impelled by him, careered madly towards the door, pinning my legs and holding me, as though I were buried to the waist, to await his attack.

He gave himself a moment to draw breath and enjoy his triumph. The murderous blow which had just missed me never left his intentions in doubt, but in that moment he gave me time to use the last and only weapon left to me. Snatching the big lamp, which flared afresh at my grasp, I raised it aloft and brought it with a crash and tinkle on to his head. For some time I could not understand what had happened, for the room seemed in darkness and yet brighter than before. By the dancing light of the fire I saw that Grayle had disappeared; and the table yielded when I pushed against it. Then a blaze of yellow sprang up in front of me, and I caught sight of him lying on his back with a flood of burning oil spreading over his clothes, lapping the disorder of books and papers which we had tumbled on to the floor and licking the border of the Japanese mats. How much I had injured him with the lamp I could not see; he was clasping his head with one hand and still gripping the ruler with the other.

"Grayle, pull yourself together, man!" I cried, as though by raising my voice I could penetrate his unconsciousness.

In a moment the flames would be pouring over his neck and face; in five minutes, if the petrol cans were reached, the whole lath-and-plaster shanty would be a roaring and crackling furnace. I had to extricate Beresford and Grayle or rouse them to extricate themselves--and I discovered that my body was trembling from the excitement of the duel and that my head was aching savagely. I had hardly found time to think of my injuries until then; to think of anything, indeed, but the next thrust or parry; I had no idea how long the engagement had lasted--and was astonished to find that less than twelve minutes had passed since Grayle first entered the room.

"Pull yourself together!" I cried again, looking for my overcoat to wrap round him and smother the flames. In the unevenly distributed light I could not see it. The oil was sinking into the closely woven tunic instead of flaring itself out on the surface, and above the pungent smell of hot petroleum rose the more pungent smell of singeing cloth. I caught him by the arm and tried to drag him towards the door, but at my touch the body subconsciously grew rigid. I pulled again, and this time he opened his eyes, frowned uncomprehendingly at me and then stared at his blazing clothes with the stupid wonder of a drunken man trying to remember how he came to his present plight.

"Water!" I roared. "Where shall I find water?"

He looked up at me and the expression of wonder gave place to dawning recollection. In another moment his face was transformed. I was still holding one arm, and he allowed himself to be pulled to a sitting posture. Then leaving the flames to shoot vertically on to his neck and face, he swung the ruler for a last blow on the side of my head. I remember that I saw it coming; one's moods change so quickly that I was aghast to find Grayle still intent on murder when I had forgotten all that nonsense and only wanted to help him. It was so ungrateful.... And it was so incredible! I did not even let go his arm or relax my efforts....

The ruler struck where my head was already soft and bruised from its late banging against Beresford's. I felt my knees slowly bending, my body gently collapsing. Five and thirty years before a party of second-year men had decided that no one's education was complete until he had once at least had experience of intoxication. I was plied with a very great deal of liquor, very scientifically mixed; and I remember watching for the danger-signals of oncoming inebriation. Throughout the evening I could think rationally and speak clearly; I was neither excited nor noisy, neither elated nor depressed. I even played a game of whist, I believe, and won a few shillings from my host. The parting brandy and soda, however, hit me like a battering-ram; I subsided on the ground with every muscle limp and, to my shame, crawled downstairs and across the court on hands and knees. When Grayle's ruler brought me down, the same partial paralysis of brain and body must have taken place. I remember lying on my back with my knees in the air, I remember turning on one side and raising myself on my hands; I remember crawling with vast preoccupation to the door, feeling for the key, turning it and, as I hope to be saved, noticing my skill in going down the short flight of steps on all fours without pitching forward on to my head in the passage.

Outside in the lane I paused to take breath and test my strength. By leaning against the wall I could draw myself upright and follow a stumbling course into the Brompton Road. A girl walking by on a soldier's arm pointed at me and tittered; an elderly woman paused to exclaim "Disgusting!" Otherwise no one took any interest in the absorbing story which I could have told him--the fight, the fire.... I turned round, all but over-balancing, to see whether the wooden work-room was yet burned down; to my amazement there was no sign of a single flame. Was that because you were not allowed to shew lights owing to the war? There _was_ a war; someone had told me, or I had dreamed it--or else I was astonishingly drunk.... Was I really trying to crawl home from Mark Goldsworthy's rooms in King's? If so, I must have been drunk for a very long time, for I had been dreaming all sorts of things--dreaming that I had gone down from Cambridge, that I had done this and that, that I was an elderly man.... It had been so vivid, this life-story which I had dreamed in a few seconds, that I could see again the bluest water in the world, which I knew to be the Caribbean Sea, though no one could possibly have told me; and the approach to Colon (what other name _could_ it have?) ...

Then I felt overpoweringly sick, but what else was to be expected when Mark Goldsworthy had laid himself out to make me drunk? It was curious that I should have been dining with him that night, because I knew that he had been killed years later at Omdurman; or would be. Did he know? It was an astounding piece of second-sight, if I knew the name of the battle before it took place.... And how dreadful for poor Mark, who had been at my tutor's! He was going to be killed accidentally, shot in the back by one of his own men who had been wounded. I must never tell him of course.... And how absurd it would all seem when I awoke, but at the moment it was so real that I could not help believing it.... Could I or could I not get on to my feet before I came to the gate? It would look so bad if I were found bestially drunk before I had been a week at Cambridge. Perhaps, if I hailed a taxi and got inside and curled myself up on the floor, we could drive out of college unseen. It was worth trying....

"Take me to the House of Commons, please," I said.

The man stared at me and laughed insolently. I was so tired that I could hardly resent his manner.

"I'll pay you now, if that's what you mean," I said; and, feeling in my pocket, I took out two half-crowns and closed the discussion by entering the cab. He shrugged his shoulders, laughed again and pulled down the flag of his meter; it was the last movement of which I was conscious until he opened the door and jerked out over his shoulder,

"Here's the House of Commons."

We were by the entrance to the yard. I got out and asked him how much the fare was.

"You've paid me once," he answered with a mixture of sympathy, cynical amusement and sluggish concern. "You've been knocking about a bit, you have."

I turned away and walked unsteadily along Millbank. I suppose my brain was about three parts clear by now; I no longer fancied myself to be leaving an undergraduate debauch of thirty-five years before. Somewhere and somehow that night I had met with severe physical injuries; Grayle was involved in it--and Beresford--and a strong smell of singeing, but my head was aching too much to let me think consecutively. I wanted to lie down and close my eyes, I would have lain down on the pavement but for the rain (and I had lost hat, collar and coat at some point in this nightmare evening) ... but for the rain and the risk of being thought drunk. Anyone but a fool would have turned the head of the taxi and driven home; I knew the hotel--though I could not give it a name, and the number of my room; but I could only think of one thing at a time and I longed before everything else to lie down on one of those long sofas in "The Sanctuary" ... which was so near, too.

Some time later I remember standing with my watch in my hand, trying to strike a match against a wet lamp-post.

Later still George Oakleigh was bending over me and trying to carry me from the door-step into the house. He was in pyjamas, an overcoat and slippers; I cracked some feeble joke about his hair, which was unwontedly disordered; then I saw that I was speaking in atrocious taste, because poor George had been in bed and asleep, and I had unfeelingly disturbed him. I apologised, and he said that it was of no consequence, but I had to apologise again and again, because I could not let him be so magnanimous and, moreover, I was not at all sure that he was accepting the apology.... He told me that I was ill and must not excite myself. To shew him that I was not ill, I struggled to my feet and walked into the house.

"No bones broken," he muttered. "Lie down, while I get you some brandy. Is Matthews still your doctor?"

"I don't want a doctor, George," I said. "I shall be all right when I've rested a bit."

He gave me nearly half a tumbler of neat brandy. As I drank it, I experienced the most curious sensation of my life; as though a thick cloth had been tied round my brain, I now felt it being gently withdrawn. I saw the room steadily and could tell George not to look so anxious; I remembered the forgotten chapters of the night, even to the last stumble when I fell on the door-step and beat on the panels with my fists until I became unconscious. Piece by piece my memory reconstructed the changing scene; I wondered what had happened to Grayle and Beresford, whether the fire had been put out, what people were thinking....

I was too warm and drowsy to wonder long, but I remember saying very distinctly and, as I thought, impressively,

"Don't get a doctor to me, George; and don't let anyone know I'm here."

Then I dropped asleep.

5

George came into the library next morning on his way to the Admiralty. I was awake, because after an hour or two of sleep the physical exhaustion which made it possible gave place to physical discomfort which effectually banished it. My head had a collection of dull, throbbing pains which played for a while, each by itself on its appointed spot, and then joined hands and danced in a ring with an initial kick-off under my swollen right ear; over the forehead they went and under the back of the eyes, scampering to the nape of the neck, drawing breath and toe-ing and heeling it to the starting place once more. I had a basin of water by my sofa and relays of handkerchiefs which I dipped and spread over my temples, but by three o'clock my arms had stiffened until I could not bear to move them, and I spent the remainder of the night turning from side to back and from back to side, trying to find some surface of my body which did not feel as if the bones were running through the flesh.

"I told Bertrand you were here," George said, "and the housekeeper, of course. But _she_ won't say anything. How you got yourself into that condition----"

He broke off and smiled at my cuts and bruises. Later in the day, when I got a chance of looking at myself in a mirror, I could forgive his smile.

"It's a long story, George," I said. "Leave it till my head feels a bit clearer. And, once more, don't tell anyone I'm here. At the present time I don't quite know what my civic status is, whether I'm a fugitive from justice or what. Have you seen the papers? Is there anything that you can fit me into?"

"I only had time to read the war news," he answered. "Look here, I've given orders for a bed to be made up in Raney's room, and we'll shift you, as soon as you feel like moving. Is there anything else you'd care for?"

"The one thing I want is the papers," I said.

They were brought me ten minutes later by Bertrand, who strolled into the library, raised his eye-brows and withdrew his cigar long enough to give a short whistle of surprise.

"You're a pretty sight," he chuckled. "George said you wanted these. I suppose you've been fighting the police and want to see if they're advertising a description of you."

I hunted through the main news sheets, losing myself in columns of official _communiqués_ and unofficial cabinetmaking, before I was rewarded with a four-line paragraph:--

"Accident to Well-known M.P.," I read, and underneath the heading,

"A fire broke out last evening in the house of Lieutenant-Colonel
Vincent Grayle, M.P., in Milford Square. It is not known how the
conflagration originated and, at the time of going to press, it is
not possible to gauge the amount of damage done. We regret to say
that Colonel Grayle has sustained severe injuries, which might
easily have proved fatal. His condition is critical, and it is
feared that there may have been actual loss of life."

I put my thumb against the paragraph, handed it to Bertrand and resumed my search. The "Times" and "Morning Post" contained no reference to the fire, but the late London edition of the "Daily Gazette" gave me plentiful reading matter and rich food for reflection. There was a title, sub-title, headings to the paragraphs and a column and three-quarters of close, descriptive print. It opened promisingly with "Tragedy in M.P.'s House" and progressed through "Mystery Fire in Milford Square" to an account which must have been supplied two-thirds by Bannerman and the rest by the constable who had directed me to the studio in the lane. Grayle's physical state or the delicacy of his position had kept him from contributing anything.

The narrative, so far as I remember it, ran on these lines. Mr. Guy Bannerman, who acted as secretary to Colonel Grayle, had been reading in the smoking-room and went upstairs at about eleven o'clock. His bedroom looked on to a strip of garden, and in making the window secure he had observed that the curtains in the wooden loft over the garage were on fire. After telephoning to the fire brigade, he had seized a jug of water, hurried into the garden and tried to force his way into the loft. The door was locked on the inside, however, and he had to run back and round to a second door opening on to a lane at right angles to the Brompton Road. The room, when at last he got into it, was a sea of fire. Some years earlier it had been roughly fitted up as a work-room and was filled with books, loose papers and maps. There was nothing to shew how the fire had started nor how long it had been going on, but the papers on the floor, the table-cloth and curtains, several straw mats and a fur hearth-rug were blazing. However it had started, its destructive course had been materially assisted by the oil from a big lamp which had been overturned and broken. By the door the flames were fortunately less fierce than at the far end of the room, or Bannerman would have been unable to enter. He emptied his jug in front of him, ran down and refilled it from the garage, emptied, filled and emptied it again until the fire had been driven back a few yards. It was now possible for the first time to see through the glare of the flames, and he was horrified to catch sight of Grayle's body lying motionless half under the table. Dragging him to the door, he was about to carry him downstairs when he observed a second body on the far side of the fire-place. Then he remembered that two men had called to see Colonel Grayle on business half an hour before; he had assumed that they must have left before the fire broke out, as it was inconceivable that three men should have been unable to conquer the flames at the outset.

After carrying Grayle into the garage, Bannerman returned for the second victim, whom he recognised as a young man named Beresford. Of the third there was no sign in the front half of the room, and he had to go for more water. The wooden walls had now caught fire, the book-cases and chairs were smouldering and the oilcloth had blistered and cracked and was smoking ominously. A very few minutes' work were to shew him that one man armed with one bedroom jug could not even keep the flames from spreading. He ran backwards and forwards drenching the floor with water, but never clearing a path sufficient to allow of his advancing more than a third of the way into the room. When the fire-engines arrived, the flames had eaten through the walls and were licking the wooden gables of the roof; they had licked to so great effect that the first jet of water brought down a cascade of tiles and charred rafters.

While the hoses played, Bannerman looked to the men whom he had succeeded in carrying out. Grayle was alive and breathing faintly, though his clothes fell away in handfuls of black ash at the first touch, and his face and head were shockingly burnt and disfigured. Beresford gave no sign of life. His hair was singed and blackened where he had fallen on his face against the bars of the grate; his clothes were as much charred as Grayle's, but his body was almost unmarked, save for a bruise over the heart, no doubt from contact with the point of the fender. Death was probably due to asphyxiation; this was the unofficial opinion of the doctor, pending the inquest. Partial and temporary asphyxiation, indeed, was the only explanation why the three men had not either put out the flames or escaped from the burning room.

There remained the second visitor, and, as soon as the fire had been put out, Bannerman returned to the loft. By the light of a stable lantern, it was possible to make a cautious search. Three-quarters of the roof had disappeared, burnt away or fallen in heaps of broken tiles and blackened timber on the floor or in the garden; the walls on two sides, the floor at one end had disappeared equally. On what remained lay a pile of charred table legs and chair backs, broken glass and blistered deed-boxes, scorched books and odd, unidentified metal fastenings and joints, the whole dripping and lapped with sinister black water. Bannerman explored every inch of the wreckage and returned to the garage empty-handed. At the end, where the ceiling had fallen in, a smaller pile of wreckage reared itself fantastically on a platform of petrol cans. A revolving book-case and a filing cabinet, charred but intact, were half buried under broken tiles and blackened volumes of Parliamentary Debates; a stout table leg and a small safe lay further away; and there was the reeking half of a burnt fur-coat.

My interest in the "Daily Gazette" narrative quickened at this point. Mr. Bannerman had admitted Beresford and another (whose name was not given). They had tried the front door-unsuccessfully, because all the servants were out for the night. A constable had suggested their going round to the door in the lane; they had entered; there was no hint that one had left before the other. No doubt in a few hours negative proof would be forthcoming, but, until that appeared, or until a further examination could be made, it was possible that the second visitor had been a second victim.

"I'm afraid we've seen the last of young Beresford," I said to Bertrand.

"What's happened to him?" he asked.

"You haven't read this yet?" I said. "Well, wait till George comes back at lunch-time, and I'll tell you the whole story. I rather fancy that a good many people have seen the last of me. I say, Bertrand, have you ever been present at a cremation?"

He looked at me sorrowfully.

"I should have thought you'd had enough trouble for one night," he said.

"I have, I can assure you. But my career of crime is in its infancy--I'll explain all this at lunch;--I want to know what sort of fire it takes to consume a human body so that there's no trace of flesh, blood, hair, bone, clothing----"

"God knows!" he interrupted. "You'd better ring up Brookwood."

"I don't think I'm likely ever to ring up anyone again," I said--rather rashly.

Some while before his usual hour George hurried in with a scared expression and wondering, wide-open eyes. He was carrying the mid-day editions of two or three evening papers, and I saw that I should not have to explain much after all. The only point of interest to me was that Colonel Grayle was not yet in a position to give any account of what had happened.

"And, until he does," I told Bertrand and George, "I propose to keep quiet, too. You see, there's unfortunately no doubt that he and I each tried to kill the other and between us we've succeeded in killing Beresford, though I can't say for certain if it was asphyxiation or the blow on the heart. I'm responsible for that fire. When I see what story Grayle puts up, I shall be better able to decide."

It was not going to be an easy explanation to frame, and the papers were already beginning to wonder how two, and perhaps three, grown men could be imprisoned in a room with two doors, one of them unlocked. If Bannerman could get in some time later, they could have got out some time earlier. I was only wondering why Bannerman had suppressed my name; did Grayle think that he had _two_ lives on his conscience?

The evening papers gave a better account of him, though he was still too weak to satisfy the curiosity of the reporters. They also reminded their readers of his political career and the possibility of his being included in the new government.

"Have you thought out your own position?" Bertrand asked me uneasily, throwing aside his paper.

"I don't know that I have," I answered. "I'd sooner leave Grayle to explain."

"H'm. You came here, stayed here--as much knocked about as you please, raving, unconscious. But, when everyone in London's asking how the fire broke out, no one in the house can find a word to say."

"If Grayle's unconscious, I'm unconscious," I answered. "He can invent the explanation of the fire, and I'll stand by what he says."

Bertrand sat heavily on the foot of my bed with an expression of obvious dissatisfaction.

"Every hour you stay here----"

"I don't pretend that it's ideal," I interrupted. "But I shall wait for Grayle."

I was not allowed to wait for Grayle. And, if neither Bertrand nor I were satisfied with my silence, we had no reason to be more satisfied when I broke it. Yet I hardly see how I could help myself and I am sure that on balance I do not regret my action. The morning papers next day added little to the established facts and wide-ranging guess-work of the evening before, though, as a humane man, I was glad to see that Colonel Grayle's progress was as satisfactory as could be expected. There was a brief report of the inquest on Beresford--death by misadventure, with asphyxiation as the immediate cause, unsatisfied wonder on the Coroner's part that such a fire could have taken place, coupled with regret that Colonel Grayle was not well enough to give evidence. Of greater interest to me was an obviously inspired hint that a new department was to be formed for the control of recruiting and that Grayle was likely to be made its head. If the announcement lacked novelty, its setting did not; for the first time Grayle's own paper--he subsidised it, if he did not in fact own the controlling majority of the shares--accepted responsibility for the forecast.

I read the announcement about eleven in the morning. I thought over it for perhaps half an hour. Then an idea came to me, which I was powerless to resist. Without considering its effect on him or on myself, without thinking of anything but that I meant to do this, had to do this, I crawled out of bed and made my way painfully downstairs to the library. I was astonishingly weak in body and I have good reason now to think that I was a little light-headed at the time, but I am not looking for excuses. When I had made sure that I had the library to myself, I dragged two very stiff legs to the writing-table at the far end, sat down and asked for Grayle's number on the telephone. It was repeated to me, and I realised for the first time that I had not yet decided what to say. And, before I could collect my thoughts, a woman's voice was exclaiming rather impatiently,

"Hullo! Yes! Hullo!"

"I want to speak to Colonel Grayle," I said.

"I'm sorry to say Colonel Grayle is ill."

"It's essential that I should speak to him. Will you please have me put through to his room?"

There was a perceptible pause, and I chose to fancy that my voice had sounded impressive.

"Er, who shall I say it is?" she asked.

"It will be enough, if you say that it's very urgent."

"I don't know that he's well enough to speak. Are you sure you can't give me a message?"

"If he's well enough to take a message from you, he's well enough to listen to it from me. Please be as quick as you can."

The pause this time was longer, there were mysterious metallic clicks and buzzes; then a man's voice said,

"Hullo?"

"Is that Grayle?" I asked.

"Yes. Who's speaking?"

As he had not recognised my voice, I could leave recognition or avowal to come later.

"It's about this announcement, Grayle," I went on.

"_Who_ is _speaking_?" he asked again with growing irritation.

"Your appointment, I mean. You know what will happen, if you take it; you can't say you haven't been warned. I suggest that, before it's too late----"

Faintly, as though the sound were coming through cotton wool, I heard a muffled cry. I waited, but there was no other sound.

"Grayle?" I began again.

But there was still no sound.