Chapter III: Part 3

He was a delicate, naturally nervous man, and highly sensitive. I could see plainly that he was upset, mystified by this affair of the arrival of the dog. He looked at me as if inquiring of me what it all meant.

“I wonder⸺” he began.

Then he broke off. After a pause he said—

“If the dog often howls as he did just now, Vernon won’t have much peace. I never in my life heard a more distressing noise, eh?”

“It was very distressing,” I assented.

Lord Elyn did not sit down, but went to and fro in the room like one disturbed.

“A most distressing noise!” he repeated, uncomfortably. “Most distressing. It really almost sounded like a human being in agony, didn’t it?”

“Yes, it did.”

“What sort of dog is it?” he asked presently, standing before me. “Do you know?”

“A black spaniel.”

“A spaniel? They’re the most sensitive breed of dog I know, intensely nervous and easily frightened, but very affectionate. They attach themselves in an extraordinary manner to those who are kind to them.”

“Hulloa!” he exclaimed. The door had reopened, and Vernon came in.

“Well,” he said, “it’s all right. I’ve got the dog for twelve pounds.”

“Where is it?” said Lord Elyn.

“Downstairs in my study. I’ve had to tie him up for the moment. Poor fellow, he’s nervous at getting into a strange house.”

“Let’s have a look at him,” said Lord Elyn.

I saw that Vernon hesitated, and thought he was going to refuse the request, natural though it was. But if he had intended to do so, he quickly changed his mind.

“Certainly,” he said. “Come downstairs. My study is in the part of the house that once belonged to Deeming.”

Lord Elyn went out of the room, I followed, and Vernon came last.

“To the right!” he said, when we reached the bottom of the staircase. “This corridor unites the two houses.”

We followed the direction indicated.

“Here’s the study,” said Vernon. “It’s a real workroom, dedicated to the cause of our dumb friends.”

“The animals?” said Lord Elyn. “It seems to me, after this evening, that dumb is scarcely the appropriate adjective to apply to them.”

Vernon laughed. He had his hand on the door of his study, and was still laughing as he opened it.

VIII

Lord Elyn went in first. I followed. The study was, as Vernon had said, a real workroom. There was little furniture in it, and what there was was plain and serviceable. Near the one window, which looked out at the back on to the backs of other houses, was a large writing-table covered with documents, pamphlets, magazines, address-books, gum-bottles, elastic bands, balls of string, a Remington typewriter, piles of paper bands for fastening newspapers and manuscripts, etc. In the midst of this ordered rummage stood a cabinet photograph of a man. I did not examine it then, but I knew later that it was Arthur Gernham, the notorious anti-vivisectionist. A few chairs, a thick Turkey carpet, and two revolving bookcases completed the furniture. The walls were tinted a dull red, and there were red curtains at the window. There were no pictures or ornaments. On the mantelpiece stood a clock which struck the quarter after six as we came in.

“Where’s the—oh, there he is!” said Lord Elyn.

The black spaniel was lying crouched upon the floor in a corner near the window, a dark patch against the red of the curtain which touched him. He had been tied by a piece of cord to the writing-table, but had shrunk back, as if in an effort to escape, until he could go no farther. Now he lay with his face turned towards the door, motionless, staring. When we saw him he did not move. He only looked at us.

He only looked at us, I have said. Then why did Lord Elyn stop short just inside the door, as if startled? Why did I feel an almost invincible desire to get out of this room, even out of this house of my friend? It must have been the violence of terror in the dog’s eyes contrasted with the absolute stillness, the stillness as of death, of his body. Yes, I think it must have been that which affected us. For in violence there is always contained the suggestion of intense activity, the suggestion of movement, and the dog’s eyes conveyed to me the feeling that his soul was rushing from us, while his body lay there before us against the red curtain like a carven thing.

“There he is!” Lord Elyn repeated in a low voice.

He looked at me and then at Vernon. I thought he was going out of the room, and I am sure he wanted to do so; but he stood where he was in silence and again looked towards the spaniel.

“Well, what do you think of him?” asked Vernon.

The sound of his voice perhaps made Lord Elyn conscious that we were behaving somewhat absurdly, that we were almost huddling together, he and I, beside the door. For he took a step—but only a step—forward, and answered, with an evident effort to speak more naturally:

“Oh, he looks a good specimen. He’s well bred; I should say, well bred—yes.”

Again he glanced at me as if questioning me. All this time the spaniel did not move, but lay staring at us with eyes full of horror. His stillness appalled me.

“And what do you think, Luttrell?” said Vernon.

It was with a difficulty that was extraordinary to me that I answered him.

“You’ll have a lot of trouble with him,” I said.

“Why?” said Vernon quickly.

“Why? Why, he’s evidently a very nervous dog. I should think it’ll take time to reconcile him with his new home and his new master.”

“Good God!” said Lord Elyn.

As I finished speaking the dog had suddenly howled again. Involuntarily I stepped back.

Vernon laughed once more.

“Why, anybody would think you were afraid of him,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

I tried to laugh too—to laugh at myself.

“He gave tongue so very unexpectedly,” I said. “Poor fellow! Poor fellow!”

I was speaking to the dog, but I did not go towards him. The faint disgust with which he had already inspired me in the Park was stronger now that I was with him in a room. I was conscious of an almost invincible desire to go straight out of the house, to get into the open air, quickly, without delay. But with this feeling blended another, more subtle, one that surprised me by its force.

I longed, before I went, to untie that crouching dog, to let him escape from the room, the house, to set him free. With the disgust of him mingled a curious pity for him that was inexplicable to me then.

I think Lord Elyn shared my feelings, but he acted differently from me. For, whereas I now moved away to go, he suddenly, with determination, walked forward towards the spaniel. Seeing this, I stopped just outside the door in the corridor. From there I witnessed a sight that increased my sensation of pity, and at the same time deepened my sensation of disgust.

Lord Elyn, when he was near the spaniel, bent down a little, snapping his fingers and saying, “Poor beast! poor beast!” whereupon the dog suddenly sprang up from the floor against his breast, in an obvious attempt to nestle into his arms as if for protection against some danger. Lord Elyn, surprised, tried to hold him, but failed, and let him drop heavily to the floor.

Vernon interposed. Going forward quickly he said, “I’m awfully sorry, Lord Elyn. He’s muddied you. Come out and Cragg shall brush it off.”

The dog shrank back against the curtain.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Lord Elyn began.

But Vernon took his arm and drew him with a sort of gentle inflexibility towards the door and into the corridor where I was standing.

“Cragg,” Vernon called; “Cragg.”

“Sir,” said the man coming from the hall.

Vernon shut the door of the study sharply.

“Just get a brush, will you? The dog has put his dirty paws on Lord Elyn’s coat.”

“Certainly, Sir.”

He turned on the electric light. Lord Elyn stood under it to be brushed. I noticed that his face looked very white, but thought it might be the effect of the light upon it. When Cragg had finished, Lord Elyn said—

“Good-night, Vernon,” and walked hastily towards the hall door.

“May I come with you?” I said.

“Do.”

I bade Vernon good-bye with a word and a hand-grasp, and in a moment Lord Elyn and I were out in the street.

“Ouf!” said Lord Elyn, blowing out his breath.

He stood still, looking towards that part of the house which had been Deeming’s.

“By Jove!” he said, as if speaking to himself.

Then, suddenly conscious that he was not alone, he exclaimed—

“Pray forgive me, Luttrell, but the fact is I—well, I don’t know why, but that dog has made a very disagreeable impression on me, very disagreeable. D’you know, when he sprang upon me just now I felt a sensation—by Jove, it was a sensation of horror, of abject horror.”

He walked on slowly.

“I noticed you were looking very pale in the hall,” I said.

“Pale? I should think so! The whole business—I say, what did you think of it, eh?”

“How do you mean?” I asked evasively.

“What d’you think of the dog?”

“Poor beast! It seemed very nervous.”

“Nervous! It was half-mad with terror. I never saw a dog in such a state before. And Vernon such a lover of animals, too! That’s the strange part of it.”

“You think it was Vernon it was afraid of?”

“To be sure. Didn’t you see it spring upon me for protection, and directly he approached it shrank away like a thing demented? Now, I’ve been with animals all my life—brought up among ’em—and never before have I seen an animal’s instinct betray it. Animals know in a second the men that are fond of ’em and the men who hate ’em. But this dog’s all at sea. It thinks Vernon’s a regular devil—a dog-torturer. It’s half-crazed with fear of him. That is as plain as a pikestaff. The thing’s unnatural, Luttrell—it’s d⸺d unnatural!”

He spoke with a vehemence that showed how greatly his nerves were upset. I could not contradict, because I absolutely agreed with him.

“That dog,” he added, “gives me the shudders.”

“Poor wretch!” I said.

“You pity him too?” he asked.

“Yes. But when he gets to know Vernon it will be all right. Vernon has a positive passion for animals.”

I strove to speak with conviction, for I was trying to convince myself.

“I know he has. And yet⸺”

He hesitated.

“What, Lord Elyn.”

“Well, didn’t it strike you that he looked at the dog very queerly?”

“Queerly?”

“Yes, not as if he had a great fancy for it.”

I said nothing.

“What made him buy it?” said Lord Elyn.

“I’ve no idea” I answered.

And indeed at that moment I was wondering, wondering almost passionately.

“I’ll swear he doesn’t like the dog,” said Lord Elyn, still with vehemence. “He may be as fond of animals as you like, but he isn’t fond of this one.”

“If he hadn’t taken a liking to it why should he buy it?”

“That’s more than I can say. It’s a queer business. I had an idea that—that you perhaps, had some inkling what was up.”

And again his look questioned me.

“I haven’t indeed,” I said.

And I spoke the truth. I was in the dark, in blackness.

A hansom passed us slowly at this moment. Lord Elyn hailed it.

“I must get home,” he said. “I’m dining out. Shall I give you a lift?”

“No, thank you. I’ll walk. I like the exercise.”

“Good-bye, then.”

He stepped into the cab and drove off, while I walked slowly back to Albemarle Street.

Lord Elyn had made my thoughts clearer to me by his blunt expressions. He had asked me if I had any inkling of what was up, and, when he said that, I knew quite certainly that, to use that slangy phrase, I thought something was up. Vernon had been moved by some strange impulse to buy the black spaniel, had some strange purpose in connection with it. I felt sure of this. My instinct told me that it was so. What had caused this impulse? What was this purpose?

I wondered, but could not tell.

I reviewed Vernon’s character as I knew it carefully, considered all that I had heard of him from others, trying to find a clue that would guide me to comprehension. But I remained perplexed. I knew good of him. I had always heard praise of him, except from one person, the man who was dead and in whose house he now lived. Deeming had said to me once that Vernon was a black fanatic; the phrase was strong, brutal even. It recurred to my mind as I walked, and stayed there. Then I thought of the terror in the spaniel’s eyes as it lay motionless against the red curtain of the workroom. And I was troubled, I was strangely ill at ease. It seemed to me that in my friend, hidden away like a thing hidden in a cave, was something mysterious, something even terrible, and that the black spaniel was connected with it. But how could that be? Vernon loved all animals. He was at this very moment devoting his life to the advancement of their welfare. For them he had thrown off his long idleness of the lounging traveller, the luxurious art-lover, who wandered from country to country buying to please his whim. For them he stayed in England and lived laborious days. Why, then, when I thought of the spaniel shut up in his study, should I be chilled with fear? I reasoned with myself, but in vain. The sense of fear, of mystery, remained with me. It was deepened by an incident which occurred six days later.

During those days I had not seen Vernon; I had heard nothing of him or of the black spaniel.

The incident to which I alluded was my meeting for the first time with Arthur Gernham.

At a man’s dinner, given by a famous throat-specialist renowned not only as a surgeon but as a host, I found myself sitting opposite to a very remarkable-looking man of about forty years of age. I had not been introduced to him, and had no idea who he was, but he at once attracted my attention by his air of fiery vitality and his unconventional attire. Instead of the ordinary evening dress, he wore a pair of black trousers, a loose silk shirt with a turned-down collar and very small black tie, and a double-breasted smoking-coat which concealed his waistcoat, if he had one. His powerful, sinewy wrists were unfettered by cuffs, and his powerful throat was free from the stiff linen ramparts over which the average Englishman faces the world in the evening. He was evidently a man who hated restraint. His face was pale, of the hatchet type, with a long hooked nose, the bridge of which was unusually marked; a large mouth, unsmiling but not unkind; a narrow, very high forehead, and gleaming hazel eyes. His head was sparsely covered with odd tufts of light-brown hair.

During dinner Gernham talked a great deal in a rasping voice. His conversation was interesting, for he was not only intelligent, but obviously an enthusiast, and one who was entirely fearless of the opinion of others. I wondered much who he was, and as we were getting up from the table I found an opportunity to ask my host.

“Arthur Gernham,” he said. “Very down on us doctors, but an interesting fellow. In another age he’d have courted persecution for the faith that is in him. Let me introduce you.”

And he did so.

Gernham shook me warmly by the hand.

“My dear colleague Kersteven has often spoken of you,” he said. “You sympathise with our efforts, don’t you?”

He jerked his head upwards and looked at me keenly. I said something—I’ve forgotten what—and he continued abruptly—

“Come along. Let’s have a good talk. Have a cigar.”

He gave me a very large one, flung himself down in an armchair, and talked enthusiastically of Vernon.

“I’ve been almost living in his house this last week,” he said. “We’re preparing a fresh campaign on behalf of the blessed beasts, our brothers. We’ve got together some statistics that’ll startle the comfortable elbow-chair Englishmen, I can tell you. I’ll never rest till I’ve roused the country to the horrors that are being perpetrated every day, every hour, every minute, upon the defenceless animals God has committed to us to be good to. And Vernon—what a splendid chap he is! What a colleague! All pity! The man’s made of pity, made of tenderness. Ah, but you know that!”

“Yes!” I said.

I thought of the black spaniel. Here was an opportunity to find out how Vernon and his pet were getting on together.

“You’ve been in the house with Vernon a great deal lately?” I began.

“Every day and all day,” he said, “this last week.”

“How’s that new pet of his?” I asked. “Reconciled and happy in his new home?”

“Pet?” said Gernham.

“Yes, the dog.”

“He hasn’t got one. Don’t you know the hideous story? He once had a spaniel called⸺”

“I know,” I interrupted. “And he’s got another.”

“Not he!” rejoined Gernham, with sledge-hammer certainty. “He’ll never have another. I understand the poor chap’s feelings. At the same time⸺”

But here I interrupted again, and told Gernham the story of Vernon’s acquisition of the spaniel. He heard me with an amazement he did not try to conceal.

“And you mean to say the dog’s in the house now?” he cried, when I had finished.

“I suppose so, unless he’s got rid of it already.”

Gernham sat quite still with his thin hands spread out on his knees staring at me hard.

“This is extraordinary,” he said at last, with a sort of biting decision.

“You mean that he didn’t mention the fact that he had a dog?”

“I mean more than that. I mean that he concealed it from me.”

“Concealed it?”

“Certainly. I’ve got any amount of animals—dogs, cats, the whole show—and I’m always urging Kersteven to set up a happy family. We preach kindness, he and I. We ought to practise it actively as much as we can. But his feelings about his dead dog have always stood in the way. I’m perpetually trying to convert him to my view. I’ve been at it this week.”

“And he said he hadn’t a dog?”

“No. But he never said he had one. It’s much the same thing under the circumstances. I should never have thought Kersteven could be deceitful. I don’t like it. I—I hate it!”

At this moment we were interrupted. Two of the other men came up and we had no more private talk that evening. When I was going away Gernham said—

“Come and see me—will you? Here’s my card.”

He gave it to me, shook my hand, and as I turned to go said—

“You’ve spoilt my evening, I can tell you that.”

I thought, “And you’ve spoilt mine,” but I did not say it.

IX

I went home that night wondering whether Vernon had got rid of the black spaniel. Perhaps he had found it impossible to reconcile it to its new quarters, and had sold it or given it back to the man with the fur cap. Or perhaps it was still in the house. If that were so, it was very strange, very unlike Vernon to have concealed the fact from Arthur Gernham. But, in either case, he had been deceitful, deliberately deceitful, with a friend, and a friend whom he greatly admired and respected.

This incident of my meeting with Gernham deepened my sense of fear, of mystery. My instinct—I now felt sure of it—was right. Some strange under side of Vernon’s character was active at this moment. I knew him only in part; much of him I did not know. A stranger now seemed to confront me in the night, a stranger by whose feet crouched something black and terrified. What was this stranger’s purpose? What could it be?

I reviewed carefully my whole acquaintance with Vernon, but especially the latter part of my acquaintance with him, when Deeming was in relation with us both. It was then, when Deeming came into his life, and only then, that Vernon had shown me for the first time a man in him whose presence I had not suspected, whose exact nature I did not know. This man was roused by Deeming. I should have let him sleep. But, having been roused, he had surely been sleepless ever since. Yes, that was so. Thus far, things were clear to me. Something—the strange man in Vernon—had been wakeful, ardent ever since, was wakeful, ardent now. This man it was who worked shoulder to shoulder with Gernham. This man it was who had bought the black spaniel.

So far, light. But now came the darkness. What had been Vernon’s purpose in buying the black spaniel? When he saw it he had looked at it fatally. At that moment, while he looked at it, his purpose had sprung up full-grown in his mind, full-grown and fierce. I was not to know that purpose. Arthur Gernham was not to know it. He now had some purpose in connection with an animal that Arthur Gernham, his close friend and colleague, his leader in a campaign of kindness, of pity, to which he was dedicating all his activities and giving all his enthusiasm, was not to know or even suspect. That purpose, since it was in connection with an animal, must surely be one of kindness, of pity.

But here my instinct rebelled violently against my knowledge of Vernon. My instinct said that it was not so; that Vernon’s purpose in buying the black spaniel had been sad, even perhaps terrible. Yet how could that be?

The dog’s eyes haunted me. They seemed to me to know what I did not know, to know what Vernon’s purpose was.

Deeming—again I thought of him, of Vernon’s short and strange connection with him. Once Vernon had said to me that he believed Deeming was a man haunted by a mania for persecution. He had spoken without knowledge then. Later, he had travelled to England to gain knowledge. He had taken the house in Wimpole Street to gain knowledge. Had he gained it? I did not know. Vernon had never told me. Was that why I was in the dark now? It began to seem to me that, perhaps, if I could find out what Vernon knew of Deeming I should understand something of his present purpose, of his purpose in buying the black spaniel.

At this stage in my mental debate I reached the Piccadilly corner of Albemarle Street, and was just going to turn towards my house, when a familiar face, a face respectable, close-shaven, English, looked upon me in the lamplight, and a bowler hat was deferentially lifted.

“Cragg!” I said.

“Good-night, Sir,” said Cragg. “A fine night, Sir.”

“Yes—wait a minute, Cragg.”

“Certainly, Sir.”

Vernon’s man stood still.

“Just walk with me to my door, will you?”

“With pleasure, Sir.”

We turned side by side into the comparative quiet of Albemarle Street.

“How is Mr. Kersteven, Cragg?”

“Well, Sir⸺” The man slightly hesitated. “Oh, Sir, he’s in his usual health, I think.”

“Working hard, isn’t he?”

“Very hard, Sir.”

“With Mr. Gernham.”

“Yes, Sir, with Mr. Gernham.”

“And—and how’s the dog, Cragg?”

I looked at him as I spoke, and saw his forehead contract.

“The dog, Sir?—oh, the dog is getting on all right so far as I am aware.”

“How do you mean—so far as you are aware?”

“Well, Sir, I don’t see much of it. That’s a fact.”

“Really. How’s that?”

I was pumping the man, I acknowledge it. I can make no excuse for it. I was driven by something that seemed to me then more than an ignoble curiosity.

“Well, Sir, Mr. Kersteven keeps the dog shut up mostly. I suppose he thinks that till it gets accustomed to the place and to us it’s better.”

“But if it’s always shut up, how can it get accustomed to you?”

“That’s more than I can say, Sir.”

I could see that the man was constrained, was not telling me something of which his mind was full. We had now reached my door, and I had no further excuse for keeping him with me.

“Well, Cragg,” I said. “Good-night.”

“Good-night, Sir.”

“I hope the dog will settle down and be friendly with you.”

“Friendly with me, Sir! That dog! The Lord forbid!” cried Cragg.

He seemed startled by the sound of his own lamentable exclamation, looked at me as if asking pardon, lifted his hat, and walked quickly away into the darkness. I stood staring after him. I longed to follow him, to question him, to find out what he meant. But how could I?

That night it was late before I went to sleep. The black spaniel seemed to be crouching at the foot of the bed. I seemed to see its yellow eyes fixed upon me, trying to tell me what I longed to know.

Late in the afternoon of the next day I received a very unexpected visit from Arthur Gernham. When I saw him come into my room, dressed in a suit of homespun, with a flannel shirt and a red tie, and holding a soft brown wideawake in his hand, I jumped up from my chair eagerly. I guessed at once that he had something to say with reference to our conversation of the previous night.

“How are you?” he said, in his rasping, energetic voice. “I got your address from the Red Book.”

He sat down and stretched out his long legs.

“I’m delighted to see you,” I said. “You’ve been at work with Vernon?”

“I’ve been with him.”

He ran one hand over his tufts of scanty hair.

“I’m disappointed in Kersteven,” he said. “I never should have thought he was a shifty fellow.”

The word shifty, applied to Vernon, roused my sense of friendship.

“Oh, you’re mistaken,” I exclaimed. “Vernon’s not a shifty man.”

“I beg your pardon—he is.”

I waited in silence for him to explain himself. I saw plainly that he was going to. There was a sledge-hammer honesty about Gernham that was startling but rather refreshing. He now proceeded to give me a specimen of it.

“I can’t stomach a friend who isn’t perfectly straight with me,” he said; “and what’s more, I’m bound to tell him so. I can’t keep anything in. Whatever I feel I have to out with it. That’s my nature. It’s got me into plenty of trouble, and it will get me into plenty more. Fights were my lot at Eton, and fights have been my lot, more or less, ever since.”

He unbuttoned one of the cuffs of his flannel shirt, pushed the flannel higher up his arm, and went on:

“With Kersteven I got on magnificently until to-day.”

“Have you had a wordy fight with Vernon to-day, then?” I asked.

“I went straight to him this morning and told him I’d met you last night. He asked me how I liked you, and I told him, ‘Very much.’ Then I said, plump out, ‘You’ve been tricky with me, Kersteven.’”

“Oh!” I exclaimed.

He took no notice of my interruption, and went on—

“‘You’ve let me make a fool of myself with you. That’s nothing. One makes a fool of oneself most days one way or another.’ ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘That you’ve allowed me to think that you would never keep a dog or animal of any kind in your house, that you’ve sat here and listened to me trying to persuade you to keep one, while all the time there is—or was—one perhaps within a few feet of me. You’ve let me think what wasn’t true, you’ve made me think what wasn’t true. I don’t know what your reason is, but I know that I hate your action, and that I never thought you were capable of doing such a low thing to a friend.’”

“Pretty strong,” I said. “How did he take it?”

“That’s the nastiest part of all. He took it lying down.”

“Lying down?”

“Yes. Merely said the matter of the dog was such a trifle he hadn’t thought it would interest me to know of it, that he wasn’t sure of keeping it for any time, that he’d been so busy with me that—etc., etc. The lamest excuses man ever offered to man. I was disgusted, and showed it. It’s my way to show things—can’t help doing it. ‘Let’s get to work,’ he said, trying to change the subject. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t work with you to-day. That’s certain.’ And I took up my hat and went.”

“And you—you didn’t see the dog?”

“Oh, dear no. But it wasn’t that I cared about.”

“I wish you had seen it. I wish you would see it.”

I was speaking almost involuntarily, as if the words were forced from me, words scarcely prompted by any thought in me, words that were uttered for me.

“Why?” he asked. “Why? What do you mean?”

His face and manner were always alert, but now they had suddenly become intense with a sort of quivering vivacity.

“What’s wrong about the dog?”

“I don’t know that anything is wrong.”

“Know! Do you suspect anything is wrong?”

I waited a minute. I was repeating to myself Gernham’s question.

“Yes,” I said at last, “I do. But I don’t know why I suspect, and I don’t know what I suspect. That’s the honest truth and vague enough. But I can’t help it.”

He looked me straight in the eyes for a full minute, I should think. Then he said—

“I want you to be less vague, Luttrell; and I think you can. A man doesn’t say such a thing as you’ve said without more meaning than you’ve acknowledged.”

“I assure you⸺” I began.

But he stopped me.

“Now look here,” he said. “One often has a thought behind one’s thought, like a body behind its shadow. You’ve found the shadow; now look for the body, and I’ll bet you’ll find that too.”

His words seemed to clear away some mystery from my mind, but I shrank from what was now revealed—the body behind the shadow.

“I see you know now what you suspect,” he said, still looking into my eyes with intensity. “What is it?”

“I do know now,” I answered. “But it’s monstrous, and upon my word I’m ashamed to say it. For you must know that I’ve a great regard for Vernon.”

“And so have—or had—I. His tenderness for the suffering of the animal world drew me to him. I can’t forget that even now, after this beastly affair of the dog.”

“His tenderness for the animal world,” I repeated. “It’s just that—just my knowledge of that, which makes my suspicion so monstrous.”

“Let’s have it, I must have it!” he said. “You’re no backbiter, you’re an honest fellow. I can see that. Go ahead. I shan’t mistake your motives.”

There was a compelling frankness about him. I yielded to it.

“My suspicion is that perhaps Vernon is being cruel to that dog,” I said.

Gernham sat quite still. I saw that my words had deeply astonished him. But he did not burst forth, as many another man would have done, in a denial of the possibility of my suspicion being roused by a horrid fact, being well founded. He was a very quick man, and full of finesse despite his bluntness.

“What are your reasons?” he said slowly.

“I can scarcely say I have any. Let me think, though.”

After a minute I described to him minutely how Vernon had regarded the spaniel in the Park, the dog’s fear there, its much greater terror on being brought into the house in Wimpole Street, Vernon’s strange excitement on its arrival, and excitement in which there seemed to be an admixture of triumph, his laughter as he opened the door of the room in which the spaniel was confined; the dog’s rush for safety to Lord Elyn, and shrinking away when Vernon approached it. When I had finished, I added—

“There’s one thing more.”

“What is it?”

Then I related to him my meeting with Cragg on the previous night, and what the man had told me about Vernon’s keeping the spaniel perpetually shut up.

“That’s all,” I ended. “Not much, is it?”

“D’you know,” he said, “what’s far the most striking fact in all that you’ve told me?”

“What?” I asked.

“The dog’s horror of Kersteven. The rest may be nothing—fancy of yours or oddity of manner on Kersteven’s part. But the dog’s horror of Kersteven is very strange, and—unless your suspicion is correct, which God forbid—very unnatural.”

“Unnatural—that’s just what Lord Elyn called it.”

“Ah!”

“And his trying to keep the fact of the dog being in the house from you. Isn’t that very strange?”

“Certainly it is. But—by Jove!—the strangest thing of all would be that Kersteven should be cruel to an animal.”

“Yes, that’s true. I can’t—no, I can’t believe it possible.”

“What could be his motive?”

“I can’t conceive.”

“I know the man. He has a passion of pity in him for the sufferings of the animals, a real passion. Only one thing could account for his being cruel, deliberately and persistently cruel, to a dog.”

“What?”

“If he were mad.”

“Oh, that—impossible!”

“It would be the only thing,” he repeated. “I know something of insanity. A chief feature of it is this, that it often creates in a man the reverse of what he was before it took possession of him. Thus the kind, sane man becomes the cruel madman; the lively, mercurial sane man the bitter, melancholy madman—and so on. You take me?”

“Vernon isn’t mad,” I said with conviction.

“Then he isn’t being cruel to his dog,” he said with equal conviction.

“I can’t understand it,” I said dubiously. “The whole thing’s a mystery. Why should he buy the dog after swearing he would never have another? A whim, he said it was, a caprice. But I don’t believe that. No, there was some deeper, stranger reason. What could it be?”

I was asking myself, not him.

Gernham got up to go.

“One thing I promise you,” he said. “I’ll set at rest your doubts in a very short time. I’ll find out for certain that Kersteven is treating that dog properly. I devote my life to our dumb friends, as you know. Well, they shan’t find me wanting now, though a man who has been my chum and my colleague is concerned in this matter.”

“What are you going to do?”

“To-morrow I ought to be working with Kersteven. After to-day I didn’t mean to go, I didn’t feel as if I could go. But now I will, and I’ll see the spaniel and see him with Kersteven. Never fear!”

He spoke with biting decision. I looked at him and felt that he would do what he said.

“Brush my suspicions away,” I said, “and I’ll be only too thankful. Good-bye.”

He went off quickly.

When the door was shut behind him I thought how strange it was that Gernham’s purpose in connection with Vernon was exactly the same as had been Vernon’s in connection with Deeming when he left Rome for London.

He had wanted to see a black spaniel with Deeming. Gernham wanted to see a black spaniel with him.

X

Just before lunch the next day Gernham was announced.

“Good morning,” he said, coming into the room close upon the heels of my man. “Can I lunch with you?”

“Certainly. Lunch for two, Bates.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The man went out and shut the door. Then I turned to Gernham.

“You’ve been to Wimpole Street?” I asked.

“Yes. Do you remember I told you yesterday that Kersteven had taken my punishment lying down?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, since then he’s thought it over, and got up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yesterday I declined to work with him. To-day, he’s declined to work with me. He’s refused me admittance to his house. See that!”

He put a note down on the table beside me. I took it and read as follows:

+Dear Gernham+—I don’t know whether you will come to-day; but
should you do so, I’ve told Cragg to give you this. I did not care
to quarrel with a man in my own house; and so yesterday, when
you were impertinent to me, I did not appear to resent it. As you
know, I admire your character and respect your enthusiasm, and it
has been a great pleasure to me to be associated with you in a
work which I love with my whole heart and soul. But I allow no man
to criticise my conduct as you have chosen to criticise it. I am
sorry, therefore, that unless you feel inclined to apologise, I
cannot admit you to my house.—Believe me, faithfully,

+Vernon Kersteven+.

“What do you think of that, eh?” asked Gernham, when I finished reading the note. “Pretty blunt, isn’t it?”

“Vernon has decidedly got up,” I said.

I looked again at the note.

“Tell me just what you think,” Gernham said.

“Well,” I answered, with some hesitation, “it’s an abrupt change of front after his behaviour yesterday.”

“Too abrupt,” he said. “I don’t like it; I don’t like it at all. You were right, Luttrell; there is a mystery here—a mystery connected with that dog. But I haven’t got your opinion yet!”

He was a persistent man, and did not readily lose sight of his object.

“You want to know how I explain Vernon’s change of front.”

“Exactly.”

“It seems to me that he has thought things over since yesterday, and resolved to avail himself of this pretext to keep you out of his house.”

“That’s it!” exclaimed Gernham. “I’ve given him his opportunity like a fool, and he’s taken it, like a clever man. But where an animal is concerned I’m not so easily dished. A good many people who’ve appeared in the London police-courts know that.”

“When you got this note, what did you do?”

“I tried to question Cragg.”

“And the result?”

“Nil. Directly I mentioned the dog, he looked as grim as death, and became monosyllabic. There’s something up, and Cragg has an inkling of it. But he’ll never tell it to me. You’ve got to go into this, Luttrell.”

At this moment lunch was announced, and the rest of the conversation took place in the dining-room. Directly after lunch Gernham hurried away, leaving me pledged to act where he could not act, pledged to probe to the bottom, and without delay, the mystery of the black spaniel.

My relation with Vernon was now almost exactly similar to his former relation with Deeming, and Gernham was to be the inactive watcher, the waiter on events engineered by others, that I had formerly been. But there was a difference in this new situation which had followed so strangely upon the death of Deeming. Vernon had never been Deeming’s friend. From the first moment when they met the two men had been instinctively hostile to one another. But I was Vernon’s friend. I cared for him. Till now I had believed in him. This fact complicated matters painfully. And yet I did not hesitate, did not feel that in my understanding with Gernham I was being treacherous, disloyal.

For the eyes of the black spaniel haunted me, summoned me, seemed to force me to go on, to investigate this mystery. By them I was driven to do as I did. By them I was told that in my friend a new man, a stranger, had arisen, and that in attacking this stranger—if attack were necessary—I should not be false to my friendship with the man who had lived in Rome, the quiet lover of pictures, the gentle, idle, cultivated Vernon of the Trinità dei Monti.

Vernon was generally at home after six in the evening. I resolved to seek him at that hour on the same day, and carried my resolution into effect. Cragg opened the door to me.

“Mr. Kersteven at home, Cragg?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Can I see him?”

“If you’ll wait a moment, Sir, I’ll ask.”

He paused, then added in explanation—

“I don’t think Mr. Kersteven is very well to-day, Sir. Perhaps he may not wish to be disturbed, even by you. You’ll excuse me, Sir.”

“Of course. Go and see. I’ll stay here.”

“Pray take a seat, Sir.”

He placed a chair for me in the little hall, and went discreetly away up the stairs.

I sat down and waited.

The hall was quiet and dim. Somewhere a large clock was ticking. Now and then I heard a carriage roll by outside. As I sat there I fell into deep thought. What was I going to do? I had come to the house without making any plan. I could not make any plan till I had seen Vernon. His demeanour, his action, must guide me. Would he see me? I thought it probable. There was evidently no one with him. Had there been, Cragg would have told me; and, if I saw him, should I find the black spaniel with him? I glanced round me. On the opposite side of the hall, close to where I was sitting, opened the short corridor, or passage, which linked the two houses in one. I could see the darkness of what had been Deeming’s house where the passage stretched away beyond the door of Vernon’s workroom. Poor Deeming! Gone, with all his fine abilities, his energy, his persistence, his ambition—his cruelty, perhaps! Had he been cruel? Possibly Vernon knew. If he had, he was perhaps now being punished in that other mysterious world of which we know nothing, of which we seldom think in health, but which seems to loom near us when we are ill, or weary, or in trouble of mind—to loom as a great vault before whose entrance we stand, gazing but seeing naught. As I stared down the corridor into the dimness of the other house, the thought of Deeming haunted me, came to me vividly, till I almost fancied that something of him, some thrown-out essence of his personality, of his strong soul, still remained in the dwelling that had been his, still knew what went on there, still watched the coming and going of the man who governed where he had governed once.

I fancied, did I say? It was more than that. I felt as if he were near me, as if he were even intent upon me.

Then from the thought of him, and still with that sensation of his nearness, of his attention, upon me, my mind travelled to the black spaniel. His dog, that mysterious creature never seen by me, had pattered in the dimness towards which I was gazing. And now, as Deeming’s place was taken by Vernon, its place was taken by the black spaniel Vernon had first seen in the Park cowering down against the earth, its ears laid back, its body trembling, its eyes full of a message of voiceless fear. Perhaps it was close to me now, this successor of Deeming’s pet or victim. Perhaps it was shut up in the room in which I had seen it lying against the red curtain. I could see the door of the room. It was shut. A few steps would bring me to it. I glanced towards the staircase. Cragg was not coming down. I got up. Again I had the sensation that Deeming was near me, was intent upon me, wanted something of me, and with this sensation was mysteriously linked my consciousness of the nearness of the black spaniel, till—till the two sensations seemed to merge the one into the other, to become one, in some indefinable, fantastic way. I can hardly explain exactly what I felt at this moment, but my feeling was connected with Vernon’s workroom. It was as if—as if I almost knew that, did I but take those few steps to the shut door, did I but open that door, I should find awaiting me within the room not only the black spaniel, but the dead man, Deeming, with it. It was as if—as if⸺

I moved across the hall, walking softly, reached the corridor, gained the door, stood by it, listening for the uneasy movement, for the whimper of a dog, for the stir, for the murmur of a dead man. But there was no sound within. There was no sound, and yet I felt positive that the spaniel was inside the room, separated from me only by a piece of wood. Once, twice, I put my fingers upon the handle of the door, yet refrained from turning it. I felt a strong desire to open the door, yet at the critical moment I was held back from doing so by an imperious reluctance which seemed to me to be physical, as if my body sickened and protested against what my mind told it to do.

How long I stood thus uncertainly before the door I do not know. It seemed to me a very long time. At last—in the struggle between mind and body, if it were that—the body conquered. I turned to move away without opening the door. I even took a step towards the hall. But I was arrested by a sound that startled me, that sent—I could not tell why—a chill through me.

I heard the scratching of a dog against the inside of the door.

I stood still, held my breath, and listened. The scratching was repeated, prolonged. It was gentle, surreptitious almost, yet insistent, a summons to me to return.

Again my body sickened. I was physically afflicted. Nausea seized me. But now my mind rose up and protested against the condition, against the domination of my body, like a thing angry and ashamed. Suddenly I took a resolution. I would open the door without delay in answer to the appeal of the black spaniel. Swiftly I went back to the door, grasped the handle, turned it, pushed. The door resisted me. It was locked. As I realised this I heard from within the desolate whining of a dog imprisoned.

“Luttrell! Luttrell!”

Vernon’s voice called to me from above, and at the same time I heard a footstep. Cragg was coming down. I moved swiftly back into the hall and met him. He glanced at me inquiringly, looked down the passage, then at me again. His face for an instant was eloquent with inquiry—with—was it sympathy? Then he was once more the discreet servant, saying in a formal voice—

“Please come up, Sir; Mr. Kersteven will be very glad to see you.”

Vernon met me on the landing by the drawing-room door. I saw at once that he was not well. His face was very pale, and had a peculiar look, as if the skin were drawn upward towards the wrinkled forehead, which I had sometimes noticed in people suffering from prolonged insomnia. It gave a horribly strained appearance to his countenance, in which the eyes looked unnaturally eager and full of curious observation.

“Were you in the hall?” he said, taking my hand for the fraction of an instant, and then dropping it as if with relief.

“I waited in the hall,” I replied evasively.

“You were there then while Cragg was up here?”

“He asked me to wait there,” I said. “While he went to see if you were well enough to receive me. I’m sorry to hear you’re seedy.”

“Oh, it’s of no consequence. Come in.”

We went into the drawing-room.

“What’s been the matter?” I asked, as we sat down.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been overworking, I suppose.”

“With Gernham?” I said.

“Gernham!”—he looked at me narrowly. “You—have you seen Gernham to-day?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

He sat silent for a moment. I could see that he was hesitating whether to tell me about his breach with Gernham or not.

“How d’you like Gernham?” he said at length. “He likes you. He told me so.”

“I know him very slightly, but one can’t help respecting such a genuine fellow,” I replied.

“Genuine—yes, he’s that.”

“If he undertook a thing, nothing would stop him from going through with it.”

“You think so?”

He slightly smiled.

“But suppose he were to encounter an opposition as thorough as his own attack? What then?”

I knew at once that he was thinking of Gernham and himself.

“Then,” I said, “there would be a battle royal.”

“A battle royal, would there? Yes, no doubt.”

With the last words his interest seemed to fail suddenly. He slightly drooped his head, and sat like one listening for some distant sound. I watched him closely. Gernham’s declaration that if Vernon were maltreating the spaniel he must be mentally diseased was present in my mind. I was looking for symptoms that would guide me to a conclusion one way or the other. I saw a great change in Vernon—a painful change. He looked like a man suffering under some terrible distress, which had altered, for the time, his whole outlook upon life. But I felt that I was with a perfectly sane man. As I regarded him he seemed to recover his consciousness of my presence, glanced up, and met my scrutiny.

“What is it?” he said. “Why do you look at me like that?”

I felt embarrassed.

“What’s Gernham been saying to you?” he added sharply.

“Gernham—oh, you know him,” I answered. “You know where his heart is, with the animals. What an enthusiast he is!”

“He’s been talking to you about his work then. Well, did he tell you that we’ve had a quarrel, he and I?”

“He said your work together had come to a stop, for the moment. Why should it?”

“Why? Oh, well, sometimes Gernham is too blunt, says more than he, than any man ought to say to another. There is a limit to frankness; occasionally he oversteps it. He overstepped it with me, and I resented it. Don’t you think I was right?”

I felt that he was being strangely insincere with me as he had been insincere with Gernham, trying to raise a cloud which would obscure the reality of his mind, the true scope of his intentions.

“I see no reason why two such men as you should quarrel,” I answered. “Especially if it interrupts, and perhaps, to some extent, cripples a splendid work. You should sink your little differences, and go on together, hand in hand, to further the noble cause you love.”

He had been trying to play me. I was now trying to play him. Yet, as I finished, a genuine warmth came, I think, into my voice. It moved him. I could see that, for he looked up at me as if demanding my sympathy. Suddenly I felt a profound pity for him, a profound desire to help him. But how? Against what?

“Perhaps we shall be friends again,” he said. “But he misunderstands me, and you, Luttrell, perhaps you misunderstand me too.”

“I!”

“Yes—you. Are you sure that, in these last days, you have never had any cruel suspicions of me? Are you sure you have not any cruel suspicions of me now?”

“If I had, if I have, you could easily clear them up,” I answered. “By the way, how’s the dog getting on? All right?”

His face changed at once, hardened.

“Oh, yes!” he said.

“I should like to have another look at him,” I said. “Where is he?”

“He’s downstairs in the study. Didn’t you know it?”

“I—I did think I heard something scratching and whining. Why do you keep him shut up?”

“He hasn’t got accustomed to being with me yet. If I let him out he might bolt.”

“Oh!”

“I don’t want to have spent my twelve pounds for nothing,” he added.

His face had hardened. Now his voice was hard too—hard and fatal.

“May I have a look at him?” I said.

The sense of mystery was returning upon me. I tried to combat it by speaking bluntly, expressing my desire plainly. At least, I would no longer deal in subterfuge. Instead of answering my question he said, throwing a curious, wavering glance upon me, “Are you engaged to-night?”

I was, but I said at once, “I’m entirely at your service, Vernon.”

“Dine with me, then.”

“Here?”

“Yes, here.”

“Certainly.”

“That’s right. And now let’s have some music. I’ve got a new piano since last year.”

We spent the next hour with Richard Strauss and Saint-Saëns.

XI

Night had closed in. Vernon and I were seated opposite to one another at the oval dining-table. Cragg waited upon us. Now and then, as he moved softly to and fro, I glanced at him, and I thought I detected in his well-trained face a flicker of anxiety as his eyes rested upon his master, a flicker of appeal as they rested upon me. It seemed to me at such times that he wanted me to do something to help Vernon, that he was longing to have a word with me alone.