"There was no sound at all within the room. But ... he saw a woman's face."He saw it quite clearly for perhaps five seconds, the face rising white from the white column of the throat, the dark and weighty coronal of the hair, the curved lips which alone had any colour, the eyes, deep and troubled, which seemed to hint a prayer for help which they disdained to make—for five seconds, perhaps, the illusion remained, for five seconds the face looked out at him ... lit palely, as it seemed, by its own pallor, and so vanished."A.E.W. Mason: "Miranda of the Balcony."
"There was no sound at all within the room. But ... he saw a woman's face.
"He saw it quite clearly for perhaps five seconds, the face rising white from the white column of the throat, the dark and weighty coronal of the hair, the curved lips which alone had any colour, the eyes, deep and troubled, which seemed to hint a prayer for help which they disdained to make—for five seconds, perhaps, the illusion remained, for five seconds the face looked out at him ... lit palely, as it seemed, by its own pallor, and so vanished."
A.E.W. Mason: "Miranda of the Balcony."
Neither by inclination nor habit am I more blasphemous or foul-mouthed than my neighbour, but I should not relish being ordered a year in Purgatory for every occasion on which I repeated "Damn you, Seraph!" in the course of the following nineteen or twenty hours.
It was nearly midnight when we left Adelphi Terrace, and I had in my own mind fixed one hour as the maximum duration of my patience or willingness to humour a demented neurotic. Thirty minutes out, thirty minutes back, and then the Seraph would go to bed, if I had to keep him covered with my revolver.En parenthèse, I wish I could break myself of the habit of carrying loaded firearms by night. In the settled, orderly Old Countries it is unnecessary; in the West it is merely foolish. I should bethe richer by the contents of six chambers before I had time to draw on the quick, resourceful child of a Western State.... Nevertheless, my revolver and I are inseparable.
We started down the Strand, along the Mall, past Buckingham Palace, and through Eaton Square to the Cadogan Estate. This was what I ought to have expected, if I had had time to sort out my expectations. The Seraph stood for a few minutes looking up at the Rodens' slumbering house, and then walked slowly eastward into Sloane Street.
"Shall we go back now?" I suggested, in the voice one uses to deceive a child.
"I'm not mad, Toby," he answered, like a boy repeating a lesson. "I must find Sylvia."
He wandered into Knightsbridge, hesitated, and then set out at an uncertain three miles an hour along the border of the park towards Kensington. I realized with a sinking heart that he was heading for Chiswick.
"Better leave it till the morning, Seraph," I urged, with a hand on his shoulder. "She'll be in bed, and we mustn't disturb her."
He shook me off, and wandered on—hands in pocket and eyes to the ground. Twice I thought he would have blundered into an early market-cart, but catastrophe was averted more by the drivers' resource than any prudence on his own part. As we left Kensington and trudged on through the hideous purlieus of Hammersmith, I began to visualize our arrival at the Fräulein's house, and my stammering, incoherent apologies for my companion's behaviour.
The deferential speech was not required. On entering Chiswick High Street we should have turned to the right up Goldhawk Road, and then taken the second or third turning to the left intoTeignmouth Terrace. The Seraph plodded resolutely on, looking neither to the right nor left, through Hounslow, past the walls of Sion Park and the gas-works of Brentford, into Colnbrook and open country. There was no reason why he should not follow the great road as far as the Romans had built it—and beyond. Night was lifting, and the stars paled in the blue uncertain light of early dawn.
I gripped him by the shoulders and made him look me in the face.
"We're going back now," I said.
"Youcan."
"You're coming with me."
"I must find Sylvia."
"If you'll come back now, I'll take you to her in the morning."
"I'm not a child, Toby, and I'm not mad."
"You're behaving as if you were both."
"I must find Sylvia," he repeated, as though that were an answer to every conceivable question.
"If you're sane," I said, "you can appreciate the insanity of walking from London to Bath in search of a girl who may be in Scotland or on the Gold Coast for all you know. She's as likely to be in the Mile End Road as on the Bath Road. Why not look there? It's nearer Adelphi Terrace, at all events."
He looked at me for a moment reproachfully, as though his last friend had failed him, then turned and plodded westward....
"God's truth!" I cried. "Where are you off to?"
"I must find Sylvia," he answered.
"But where? Where?"
"I don't know."
"Why this God-stricken road rather than another?"
"She came along here."
"How do you know?"
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
"She did," was all he would answer.
It was near Langley that I threatened him with personal injury. He had quickened his pace and shot slightly ahead of me. I have never been of a fleshy build, and with the exception of excessive cigar-smoking, my tastes are moderate. On the other hand, I never take exercise save under compulsion, or walk a mile if I can possibly ride, drive, or fly. We had covered some twenty miles since leaving home, my feet seemed cased in divers' boots, my mouth was parched with thirst, and I was ravenously hungry.
"Are you sane?" I asked, as I caught him up.
"As sane as I ever am."
"Then you will understand my terms. We are going to leave the main road and walk straight to Langley Station. We are going to take the first train back to town, and we are...."
"You can," he interrupted.
"You will come with me. Don't tell me you have to find Sylvia, because it will be waste of breath. I have here a six-chambered revolver, loaded. Unless you come to the station with me, here and now, I shall empty one chamber into each of your legs. And if any one thinks I'm murdering you, I shall say I'm in pursuit of a dangerous lunatic. And when they see you, they'll believe me."
He looked at me for perhaps half a second, and then walked on. It was, I suppose, the answer I deserved.
It came as a surprise to me when he accepted my breakfast proposition at Slough. I put his assent down to sheer perversity, for I should have breakfasted in any case. My mind was made up. I would ask him for the last time to accompany me back to London, and if he refused I would return to Adelphi Terrace and bed, leaving him to follow the sun's path till he pitched head-foremost into the Bristol Channel....
I breakfasted unwashed, unshaven, dusty, at full length on a sofa in a private room, simmering with grievance and irritability.
"Nowthen," I said, as I lit a cigar, threw the Seraph another, and turned to a Great Western time-table.
"I must be getting on," he answered, giving me back my cigar.
"Just a moment," I said. "Up-trains, Sundays. Up-trains, week-days. Ten-fifteen. Horses and carriages only. Ten-thirty; that'ull do me. I'll walk with you as far as the cross-roads."
I was so angry with myself and him that we parted without a word or shake of the hand. I watched him striding westward in the direction of Salt Hill, and carried my temper with me towards the station. The first twenty yards were covered at a swinging, resolute pace, the second more slowly. I was still far from the station when an absurd, irritating sensation of shame brought me to a standstill. Mad, unreasonable as I knew him to be, the more I thought of the Seraph, the less I liked the idea of leaving him in his present state. The sight of a garage, with cars for hire, decided me. I ordered one for the day, with the option of renewing on the same terms as long as I wanted it.
"Take the money while you can get it," I warnedthe proprietor, with the petulance of a tired man. "With luck you'll next hear of me from the inside of a padded cell. Now!" I said to the driver, "listen very carefully. I'm about as angry as a man can be. Here are two sovereigns for yourself; take them, and say nothing, whatever language you may hear me use. I want you to drive along the Bath Road until you see a young man in a grey tweed suit walking along with his eyes on the ground. You're to keep him in sight wherever he goes.He'smad, andI'mmad, andeverybody'smad. Follow him, and address a remark to me at your peril. I've been up all night, I've walked from London to Slough, and I'm now going to sleep."
My orders called forth not so much as the lift of an eyebrow. The difference between eccentricity and madness may be measured in pounds sterling. A rich man is never mad in England, unless, of course, his heirs-at-law cast wistful glances at the pounds sterling. In that case there will be an Inquisition and a report to the Masters.... My driver left me to slumber undisturbed.
I slept only in snatches. The car would run a mile, pass the Seraph, pull up, wait, start forward and stop again. Once I invited him to come aboard, but he shook his head. I dozed, and dreamed, and woke, asking the driver what had come of our quarry.
"He's following, sir," he told me.
I was struck with an ingenious idea.
"At the next cross-roads," I said, "turn off to the right or left, drive a hundred yards and pull up. If he follows, we'll lead him round in a circle and draw him back to London."
We shot ahead, turned and waited. In time a dusty figure came in sight trudging wearily on. At the cross-roads he came for a moment into full view,and then passed out of sight along the Bath Road without so much as throwing a glance in the direction of the car.
"Damn you, damn you, damn you, Seraph!" I said, as I ordered the driver to start once more in pursuit.
At Taplow the dragging feet tripped and brought him down. Through a three-cornered tear in the leg of his trousers I could see blood flowing freely; his hands were cut and his forehead bruised, but he once more rejected my offer of a seat in the car. Opposite Skindles he stumbled again, but recovered himself and tramped on over the bridge, into Maidenhead, and through the crowded, narrow High Street. Passers-by stared at the strange, dusty apparition; he was too absorbed to notice, I too angry to be resentful.
It was as we mounted Castle Hill and worked forward towards Maidenhead Thicket that I noticed his pace increasing. A steady four miles an hour gave way to intermittent spells of running. I heard him panting as he came alongside the car, and the rays of a July afternoon sun brought beads of sweat to glisten dustily on his lips and forehead.
"Wait here," I said to the driver as we came to the fringe of the Thicket. To our right stretched the straight, white Henley Road; ahead of us lay Reading and Bath.
The Seraph trotted up, passed us without a word or look, and stumbled on towards Reading.
"Forward!" I said to the driver, and then countermanded my order and bade him wait.
Twenty yards ahead of us the Seraph had come to a standstill, and was casting about like a hound that has overshot the scent. I watched him pause, and heard the very whimper of a hound at fault. Then he walked back to the fork of the road, gazednorth-west towards Henley, and stood for a moment on tiptoe with closed eyes, head thrown back and arms outstretched like a pirouetting dancer.
I waited for him to fall. I say "waited" advisedly, for I could have done nothing to save him. I ought to have jumped out, called the driver to my aid, tied hands and feet, and borne my prisoner back to London and a madhouse. Throughout the night and morning, well into the afternoon, I had cursed him for one lunatic and myself for another. My own madness lay in following him instead of shrugging my shoulders and leaving him to his fate. His madness ... as I watched the strained pose of nervous alertness, I wondered whether he was so mad after all.
With startling suddenness the rigid form relaxed, eyes opened, head fell forward, arms dropped to the body. He ran fifty yards along the road, hesitated, plunged blindly through a clump of low gorse bushes, and fell prone in the middle of a grass ride.
"Stop where you are!" I called to the driver as I ran down the road and turned into the bridle-path.
The Seraph was lying with one foot caught in a tangle of bracken. He was conscious, but breathed painfully. I helped him upright, supported him with an arm round the body, and tried to lead him back to the car.
"This way!" he gasped, pointing down the ride. Half a mile away I caught sight of a creeper-covered bungalow—picturesque, peaceful, inanimate, but with its eastern aspect ruined by the presence of a new corrugated iron shed. I judged it to be a garage by the presence of green tins of motor spirit.
"She's there—Sylvia!" he panted, slowly recovering his breath as we walked down the bridle-path. "Go in and get her. Make them give her up!"
I looked at his torn, dusty clothes, his white face and dizzy eyes. At the fork of the road I had come near to being converted. It was another matter altogether to invade a strange house and call upon an unknown householder to yield up the person of a young woman who ought not to be there, who could only be there by an implied charge of felonious abduction, who probably was not there, who certainly was not there.... I am at heart conventional, decorous, sensitive to ridicule.
"We can't," I said weakly. "It's a strange house; we don't know that she's there; we might expose ourselves to an action for slander...."
He walked to the gate of the garden, freed himself from the support of my arm, and marched up to the front door. I took inglorious cover behind a walnut-tree and heard him knock. There was a pause. A window opened and closed; another pause, and the sound of feet approaching. Then the door opened.
"I have come for Miss Roden," I heard him say.
"Roden? Miss Roden? No one of that name lives here."
The voice was that of a woman, and I tried to catch sight of the face. I had heard that voice before, or one suspiciously like it.
"I will give you two minutes to produce Miss Roden."
The answering voice quivered with sudden indignation.
"You must be intoxicated. Take your foot out of the door and go away, or I'll call a man and have you given in charge."
The voice, rising in shrill, tremulous excitement, would have added something more, but was silenced by a fit of coughing. I left my walnut-tree, pushedopen the gate, and arrived at the bungalow door as the coughing ceased and a handkerchief dabbed furtively at a fleck of bright red froth.
"Miss Draper, I believe?" I said.
She looked at me in surprise.
"That is my name."
"We met at Miss Davenant's house in Chester Square. Don't apologize for not remembering me, we were never introduced. I just caught your name. We have called...."
"Is this person a friend of yours?" she asked, pointing a contemptuous finger at the Seraph.
"He is. We have called for Miss Roden."
"She is not here."
"One minute gone," said the Seraph, watch in hand.
Miss Draper turned her head and called to some one inside the house. I think the name was "John."
"I am armed," I warned her.
She paid no attention.
"One minute and a half," said the Seraph.
I put my hand out to cover the watch, and addressed Miss Draper.
"I don't think you appreciate the strength of our position," I began. "You are no doubt aware that the office of theNew Militanthas been raided; your friend Mrs. Millington has been arrested, and there is a warrant out against your other friend, Miss Davenant."
"They haven't caught her," said Miss Draper, defiantly.
I could almost forgive her when I saw the look of doglike fidelity that the mention of Joyce's name brought into her eyes.
"Do you know where she is?" asked the Seraph.
"I shan't say."
"I think it probable that you donotknow," I answered. "Miss Davenant is critically ill, and is lying at the present time in my friend's flat."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. The flat is already suspected and watched."
"Why don't they search it?"
"Because England is a corrupt country," I said, boldly inventing. "I have what is called a friend at Court. Miss Davenant's sister—Mrs. Wylton—is an old friend of mine, and I wish to spare her the pain of seeing Miss Davenant arrested—in a critical condition—if it can be avoided. My friend at Court has been persuaded to suspend the issue of a search-warrant, if Miss Roden and the others are restored to their families before midnight to-night. I may say in passing that if Miss Davenant were arrested, tried and imprisoned, it would be no more than she richly deserved. However, I do not expect you to agree with me. Out of regard to Mrs. Wylton we have come down here. I need not say how we found Miss Roden was being kept here——"
"She is not."
I sighed resignedly.
"You wish Miss Davenant to be given up?"
"You don't know where Miss Davenant is, and I do."
It was bluff against bluff, but we could go on no longer on the old lines. I produced my revolver as a guarantee of determination, pocketed it once more, pushed my way past her as gently as I could, waited for the Seraph to follow, and then closed the door.
"I am now going to search the house," I told Miss Draper. "This is your last chance. Tell mewhere Miss Roden is, and I will compound a felony, and let you and every one else in the house escape. Put a single obstacle in my way, and I will have the lot of you arrested. Which is it to be?"
She started to tell me again that Sylvia was not there. I made a step across the room and saw her cover her face with her hands. The battle was over.
"Where is she?" I demanded, thanking God that it has not often been my lot to fight with women.
Miss Draper pointed to a door on the left of the hall; the key was in the lock.
"No tricks?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"You had better make yourself scarce."
Even as I put my hand to the door she vanished into the back of the house. I heard the sound of an engine starting, and rushed out to see if I had even now been outwitted. The garrison was driving out hatless and coatless, stripped of all honours of war; in the driving-seat sat my friend the bearded priest of the Orthodox Church, his beard somewhat awry. Miss Draper was beside him; there was no one else.
I returned to the hall—where the Seraph was sleeping upright against the wall—opened the door and entered a darkened room. As my eyes grew accustomed to the subdued light, I traced the outline of a window, and drew back the curtains. The sun flooded in, and showed me that I stood in a bedroom. A table with an untasted meal stood against one wall; by the other was a camp bedstead. At length on the bed, fully dressed but blindfolded, gagged, and bound hand and foot, lay Sylvia Roden.
I cut the cords, tore away the bandages, and watched her rise stiffly to her feet. Then I shut thedoor and stood awkwardly at the window, while she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
It was soon over, but she was the better for it. I watched her drink three tumblers of water and seize a crust of dry bread. It appeared that she had conducted a hunger-strike of her own for the last twenty-four hours; and I think she looked it. Her face was white with the whiteness of a person who has been long confined in a small, dark room. A bruise over one temple showed that her captors had had to deal with a woman of metal, and her wrists were chafed and cut with the pressure of the cords. Worst of all was her change of spirit; the voice had lost its proud ring of assurance, the dark eyes were frightened. Sylvia Roden was almost broken.
"You didn't expect to see me, Sylvia," I said, as I buttered the stale crusts to make them less unappetizing.
She shook her head without answering.
"Did you think no one was ever coming?"
She looked at me still with the frightened expression in her eyes.
"No."
The uncertainty of her tone made me wonder whom she had been expecting. My question was answered before I could ask it.
"How did you find me?"
"The Seraph brought me here."
Her pale cheeks took on a tinge of colour.
"Where is he?" she asked.
"Outside."
"I must go to him!" she exclaimed, jumping up and then swaying dizzily.
I pressed her back into her chair.
"Wait till you've had some food," I said, "and then I'll bring him in."
"But I don't want any more."
"Sylvia," I said firmly, "if you're not a good girl we shan't rescue you another time."
She ate a few slices of bread and butter while I gave her an outline of our journey down from London. Then we went out into the hall. The Seraph had collapsed from his upright position, and was lying in a heap with his head on the floor. I carried him out of the hall and laid him on the bed in Sylvia's prison. His heart was beating, but he seemed to have fallen into a deep trance. Sylvia bent down and kissed the dusty forehead. Then her eyes fell on a faint red mark running diagonally from one cheek-bone, across the mouth, to the point of the chin. She had started crying again when I left the room in search of brandy.
I stayed away as long as I thought necessary to satisfy myself that there were no other prisoners in the house. When I came back, the tears were still wet on her cheeks, and she was bathing his face and waiting for the eyes to open.
"Your prison doesn't run to brandy," I told her. "We must get him to Maidenhead, and I'll give him some there. I've got a car waiting about half a mile away. Will you look after him while I fetch it?"
"Don't be long," she said, with an anxious look at the white, still face.
"No longer than I can help. Here's a revolver in case any one wants to abduct either of you. It's loaded, so be careful."
I placed the revolver on the table and picked up my hat.
"Sylvia!" I said at the door.
"Yes?"
"Can you be trusted to look after him properly?"
She smiled for the first time since her release from captivity.
"I think so," she said. Then the voice quavered and she turned away. "He's rather precious."
The car was brought to the door, and the driver—who, after all, had been paid not to be surprised—looked on unemotionally as we carried the Seraph on board. I occupied an uncomfortable little seat backing the engine, while Sylvia sat in one corner and the Seraph was propped up in the other.
On the way back I was compelled to repeatin extensothe whole story of our search, from the hour we left Adelphi Terrace to the moment when Miss Draper bolted with the Orthodox Church priest and I forced my way into the darkened prison cell.
Sylvia's face was an interesting study in expression as the narrative proceeded.
"But how could heknow?" she asked in a puzzled tone when I had ended. "You must explain that. I don't see how it's possible."
"Madam, I have provided you with a story," I replied in the manner of Dr. Johnson; "I am not obliged to provide you with a moral."
As a matter of fact I had reversed the natural order, and given the moral before the story. The moral was pointed when I drank a friendly cup of tea in Cadogan Square; the day before she marked his cheek with its present angry wale.
Of course, if you point morals before there's a story to hang them from, you must expect to see them disregarded.
"If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman—always a rash thing to do—he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The one thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself.... The inherited stupidity of the race—sound English common sense...."Oscar Wilde: "The Picture of Dorian Gray."
"If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman—always a rash thing to do—he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The one thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself.... The inherited stupidity of the race—sound English common sense...."
Oscar Wilde: "The Picture of Dorian Gray."
If the Seraph's quest for Sylvia was one of the strangest experiences of my life, I count our return to London among its pleasantest memories. Almost before I had time to cut the cords round her wrists and ankles, I was telling myself that Joyce now lay free from the menace of an inquisition at Adelphi Terrace. Thursday afternoon. She had eight days to pick up sufficient strength for Maybury-Reynardson to say I might smuggle her to Southampton and convey her on board the S.Y.Ariel.... I hope I was not heartless or ungrateful in thinking more of her than of the white, unconscious boy in front of me; there was nothing more that I could do, and if there had been, Sylvia would have forestalled me.
I count the return a pleasant memory for the light it threw on Sylvia's character. Passion and pride had faded out of her dark eyes; I could no longer call her Queen Elizabeth; but she was very tender and remorseful to the man she had injured. This was the Sylvia of an Oxford summer evening;I could recognise her from the Seraph's description. I treasure the memory because it was the only glimpse I ever caught of this side of her character; when next we met—before her last parting from the Seraph—she had gone back to the earlier hard haughtiness, and though I loved Sylvia at all times, I loved her least when she was regal.
And lastly I dwell on this memory for the way she talked to me when my tale was done. It was then she showed me the reverse side of her relations with the Seraph, and filled in those spaces that the manuscript narrative in Adelphi Terrace left blank. I remember most of what she told me; their meetings and conversations, her deepening interest, rising curiosity, growing attachment.... I had watched the Sixth Sense as a spectator; she gave me her own curiosity—uneasiness— belief and disbelief—ultimate uncertainty. I realised then what it must have meant to such a girl to find a man who was conscious of her presence at a distance and could see the workings of her mind before they were apparent to herself in any definite form. I learned to appreciate the thrill she must have experienced on discovering a soul in sympathy with her own restless, volatile, hungry spirit.
I remember it all, but I will not be guilty of the sacrilege of committing it to paper. No girl has ever spoken her heart to me as Sylvia then spoke it; I am not sure that I want to be again admitted to such confidences. It is all strange, and sad, and unsatisfactory; but above all it is sacred. Her imprisonment had taken the fire out of Sylvia's blood; and her meeting with the Seraph had worked on her emotions. At another time she would have been more reticent. As after our return from Oxford, I sometimes think we were punished by an extreme ofcold for having been injudiciously admitted to bask in an extreme of heat. That is the way with the English climate, and with a certain number of reserved, proud girls who grow up under its influence....
I dropped Sylvia at Cadogan Square without going in, and carried the Seraph straight back to Adelphi Terrace. Maybury-Reynardson was paying Joyce an evening visit; the report was satisfactory so far as it went, but indicated that we must exercise great patience before a complete cure could be expected. I asked—on a matter of life and death—whether she could be moved in a week's time. He preferred to give no opinion, and reminded me that I must not attempt to see or speak to the patient. Then I turned him over to the Seraph, ordered myself some dinner, and went to bed.
In the morning a telephone message informed me that Arthur Roden would like us both to go round to Cadogan Square. I answered that it was out of the question so far as the Seraph was concerned; and it was not till late on the Saturday afternoon that I felt justified in letting him get out of bed and accompany me. He still looked perilously white and ill, and though one strain had been removed by the discovery of Sylvia, and another by the departure of the search-warrant bogey, I could see no good purpose in his being called in to assist at an affecting reconciliation, and having to submit to a noisy chorus of congratulation.
We were spared both. I suppose I shall never know the true reason for the reception that awaited us, but I distribute the responsibility in equal shares between Lady Roden and Nigel Rawnsley. And of course I have to keep reminding myself that I had been present at the search, while they were not; thatthey were plain, matter-of-fact materialists with a rational cause for every effect, while I—well, I put myself out of court at once by asking them to believe in an absurdity called a Sixth Sense.
I find it hard, however, to forgive Nigel his part in the scene that followed; so far as I can see he was actuated first by jealousy on Sylvia's account, secondly by personal venom against the Seraph as a result of the unauthorised search-party, and lastly by the obstinate anger of a strong-willed, successful egoist, who has been driven to dwell even temporarily in the shade of unsuccess. Lady Roden, it must never be forgotten, had to sink the memory of Rutlandshire Morningtons, and the quarterings and armorial devices of an entire Heralds' College, before she could be expected to do justice to a man like the Seraph.
We were shown into the library, and found Arthur, Nigel and Philip seated before us like the Beasts in Revelation. Lady Roden and Sylvia entered later and sat to one side. There was much bowing and no hand-shaking.
The story of the search was already known—Sylvia had told it as soon as she got home, probably in my own words; and in the first, fine, careless rapture, I have no doubt she had spoken of the Seraph in the strain I had heard in the car. If this were the case, Lady Roden's eyes must have been abruptly and painfully opened. I felt sorry for her. Rutlandshire Morningtons frowned sour disfavour from the walls at the possibility of her daughter—with her daughter's faith and wealth—allying herself with an infidel, unknown, relationless vagrant like Lambert Aintree. Rationalism in the person of Nigel Rawnsley was called in to discredit the story of the search and save Sylvia from squandering herself on a common adventurer.
"You remember the terms of our agreement last Wednesday?" he began. "I undertook to suspend application for a search warrant...."
"If we discovered Sylvia," I said. "Yes?"
"And my sister Mavis."
I hope Nigel did not see my jaw drop. Save for the moment when I looked casually through the other rooms in the Maidenhead bungalow I had completely forgotten the Mavis stipulation. Every plan and hope I had cherished in respect of Joyce had been cherished in vain.
"The time was to expire on Monday, at noon," said the Seraph.
"Exactly. I thought I would remind you that only half the undertaking had been carried out. That is all."
Nigel would make an admirable proctor; he is to the manner born. I had quite the old feeling of being five shillings the poorer for straying round the streets of Oxford at night without academical dress.
I caught the Seraph's eye and made as if to rise.
"One moment," said Arthur. "There is a good deal more to come."
I folded my arms resignedly. Any one may lecture me if it amuses him to do so, but the Seraph ought to have been in bed instead of having to submit to examination by an old K.C.
"The question is a good deal wider," Arthur began. "You, Aintree, are suspected of harbouring at your flat a woman who is wanted by the police on a most serious charge...."
"I thought we'd cleared all this up on Wednesday," I said, with an impatient glance at Nigel.
"No arrangement you may have made on Wednesday is binding on me."
"It was binding on your son, who sits on one sideof you," I said, "and on Mr. Nigel Rawnsley, who sits on the other."
Arthur drew himself up, no doubt unconsciously.
"As a Minister of the Crown I cannot be a party to any connivance at crime."
"Philip and Nigel," I said. "As sons of Ministers of the Crown, I hope you will take that to heart."
"What I have to say——" Arthur began.
"One moment!" I interrupted. "Are you speaking as a Minister of the Crown or a father of a family? Sylvia's been restored to you as the result of your son and Nigel conniving at what you hope and believe to be a crime. You wouldn't have got her back without that immoral compromise."
"The flat would have been searched," said Nigel.
"It was. Paddy and Gartside searched it and declared themselves satisfied...."
"They lied."
"Will you repeat that to Gartside?" I asked invitingly. "I fancy not. They searched and declared themselves satisfied. I offered to show the detectives round ten minutes after—by all accounts—this woman ought to have taken refuge there. Anybody could have searched it if they'd approached the owner properly."
He ignored my implied reproof and stuck to his guns.
"There was a woman there when Gartside said there was not."
"Gartside only said Miss Davenant wasn't there."
It was the Seraph speaking, slowly and almost for the first time. His face flushed crimson as he said it. I could not help looking at Sylvia; I looked away again quickly.
"There wassomewoman there, then?" said Nigel.
My cue was plain, and I took it.
"Miss Davenant is the only person whose name is before the house," I interposed. "Gartside said she was not there. Were you satisfied, Phil? I thought so. It's no good asking you, Nigel; you won't be satisfied till you've searched in person, and that you can't do till after Monday. Every one who agreed to Wednesday's compromise is bound by it till Monday midday. If after that Nigelstillthinks it worth while to conduct Scotland Yard over the flat, of course we shan't attempt to stop him. As for any one who was not present or personally bound by Wednesday's compromise, that is to say, you, Arthur—do you declare to win by 'Father of a Family' or 'Minister of the Crown'? You must take one or the other."
"The two are inseparable," he answered shortly.
"You must contrive to separate them. If you declare 'Father of a Family,' you must hold yourself bound by Phil's arrangement. If you declare 'Minister of the Crown,' you oughtn't to have profited by the compromise, you oughtn't to have allowed us to restore Sylvia to you. Common schoolboy honour tells you that. Incidentally, why haven't you had the flat searched already? As a Minister of the Crown, you know...."
If my heart had not been beating so quickly, I should have liked to study their faces at leisure. The history of the last two days was written with tolerable clearness. Nigel had told Arthur—and possibly his own father—the story of his visit to Adelphi Terrace; he had hinted sufficient to incite one or both to take the matter up officially. Then Philip had intervened and depicted himself as bound in honour to take no step until the expiration of the armistice. Their faces told a pretty tale of "pulldevil, pull baker," with Nigel at the head, Philip at the feet, and Arthur twisting and struggling between them.
I had no need to ask why the flat had not yet been searched, but I repeated my question.
"And whenareyou going to search it?" I added.
Arthur attempted a compromise.
"If you will give me your word...." he began.
"Not a bit of it!" I said. "Are you bound or are you not? Sylvia's in the room to settle any doubts on the subject."
He yielded after a struggle.
"I will take no steps to search the flat until after midday on Monday, provided Mavis is restored by then."
I made another attempt to rise, but Arthur waved me back into my seat.
"I have not finished yet. As you point out, Sylvia is in the room. I wish to know how she got here, and I wish still more to know how she was ever spirited away in the first instance."
"I know nothing about the getting away. She may be able to throw light on that. Hasn't she told you how we found her?"
"She has given me your version."
"Then I don't suppose I can add anything to it."
"You might substitute a story that would hold a little more water."
"I am afraid I am not naturally inventive."
"Since when?"
His tone told me that I had definitely lost Arthur as a friend—which was regrettable, but if I could play the part of whetstone to his repartee I was content to see him draw profit from thedébrisof our friendship.
"It is only fair to say that you and Aintree are regarded with a good deal of suspicion," he went on. "Apart from the question of the flat...."
"Not again!" I begged.
"I have not mentioned the report of the officers who watched Miss Davenant's house in...."
"Nigel has," I interrupted. "Ad nauseam.My interview was apparently very different from their report. Suppose we have them in?"
"They are not in the house."
"Then hadn't we better leave them out of the discussion? What else are we suspected of?"
Arthur traced a pattern on the blotting-pad, and then looked up very sternly.
"Complicity with the whole New Militant campaign."
I turned to the Seraph.
"This is devilish serious," I said. "Incitement to crime, three abductions, more in contemplation. I shouldn't have thought it to look at you. Naughty boy!"
Arthur was really angry at that. I knew it by his old habit of growing red behind the ears.
"You appear to think this is a fit subject for jesting," he burst out.
"I laugh that I may not weep," I said. "A charge like this is rather upsetting. Have you bothered about any evidence?"
"You will find there is perhaps more evidence than you relish. Apart from your intimacy with Miss Davenant...."
"She's a very pretty woman," I interrupted.
"...you have successfully kept one foot in either camp. You were present when Rawnsley told me of the abduction of Mavis, and added that the matter was being kept secret. Miss Davenantat once published an article entitled 'Where is Miss Rawnsley?'"
"If she really abducted the girl, she'd naturally notice it was being kept quiet," I objected.
"On the day after Private Members' time had been appropriated, Jefferson's boy disappeared; Miss Davenant must have been warned in time to have her plans laid. She referred to my midland campaign, and had an accomplice lying in wait for my daughter with a car, the same day that Rawnsley made his announcement that there would be no autumn session."
"You will find all this on the famous Time Table," I reminded him.
"She got her information from some one who knew the arrangements of the Government."
"I'm surprised you continued to know me," I said, and turned to the Seraph. "It's devilish serious, as I said before, but it seems to be my funeral."
Arthur soon undeceived me.
"You are both equally incriminated. Aintree, is it not the case that on one occasion in Oxford and another in London, you warned my daughter that trouble was in store for her?"
The Seraph had been sitting silent and with closed eyes since his single intervention. He now opened his eyes and bowed without speaking.
"I suggest that you knew an attempt would be made to abduct her?"
"No."
"You are quite certain?"
"Quite."
"Then why the warning?"
"I knew trouble was coming; I didn't know she would be abducted."
"What form of trouble did you anticipate?"
"No form in particular."
"Why trouble at all?"
"I knew it was coming."
"But how?"
He hesitated, and then closed his eyes wearily.
"I don't know."
Arthur balanced a quill pen between the first fingers of both hands.
"On Wednesday last your rooms were visited, and the question of a search-warrant raised. You obtained a promise that the warrant would not be applied for if my daughter and Miss Rawnsley were restored within five days. Did you know at that time where they were?"
"No."
"When did you find out?"
"I don't know where Miss Rawnsley is. I didn't know where your daughter was till we came to the house."
"We none of us know our hats are in the hall till we look to make certain," Nigel interrupted; "but you found her?"
"Yes."
"No one told you where she was?" Arthur went on.
"No."
"Then how did you find her?"
"I believe she has told you."
"She has given me Merivale's version. I want yours."
"I don't know."
"How did you start?"
"She's told you. I walked out of the house, and went on till I found her."
"How did you know where to look?"
"I didn't."
"It was pure coincidence that you should walk some thirty miles, passing thousands of houses, and walk straight to the right house—a house you didn't know, a house standing away from any main road? This was pure coincidence?"
"I knew she was there."
"I think you said you didn't know till you got there. Which do you mean?"
"I felt sure shewasthere."
"You felt that when you left London?"
"I knew she was in that direction. That's how I found the way."
"No one had told you where to look?"
"No."
"Of the scores of roads out of London, you took just the right one. Of the millions of houses to the west of London you chose the right one. You ask me to believe that you walked thirty miles, straight to the right house, because you knew, because you 'felt' she was there?"
"I ask you to believe nothing."
"You make that task quite easy. I suggest that when you were given five days' grace you went to some person who knew of my daughter's whereabouts, and got the necessary information?"
"No."
Arthur retired from the examination with a smile of self-congratulation, and Nigel took up the running.
"Do you know where my sister is?"
"No."
"Can you—er—feelwhere she is?"
"No."
"Can you walk from this house and find her?"
"No."
"How soon will you be able to do so?"
With eyes still closed, the Seraph shook his head.
"Never, unless some one tells me where she is."
"Is any one likely to, before Monday at noon?"
"No."
"Then how do you propose to find her?"
"I don't."
"You know the consequences?"
"Yes."
Nigel proceeded to model himself on his leader with praiseworthy fidelity.
"I suggest that the person who told you where to look for Miss Roden is no longer available to tell you where to look for my sister?"
"No one told me where to look for Miss Roden."
"But you found her, and you can't find my sister?"
"That is so."
"You suggest no reason for the difference?"
For an instant the Seraph opened his eyes and looked across to Sylvia. Had she wished, she could have saved him, and his eyes said as much. I, too, looked across and found her watching him with the same expression that had come over her face when he suggested the possibility of a woman being hidden in his rooms the previous Wednesday morning.
"I suggest no reason," he said at last.
Nigel's examination closed, and I thought it prudent to ask for a window to be opened and water brought for the Seraph. Sylvia's eyes melted in momentary compassion. I walked over and sat beside her at a discreet distance from her mother.
"Not worth saving, Sylvia?" I asked.
A sceptical chin raised itself in the air, but the eyes still believed in him.
"How did they get hold of me?" she asked, "and how did he find me? Howcouldhe, if he didn't know all along?"
"Remember Brandon Court," I said.
"Why didn't he mention it?"
I pointed to the Bench.
"My dear child, look at them! Why not talk higher mathematics to a boa-constrictor?"
"If he can't make them believe it, why should I?"
"Because youknow."
"What?"
"Everything. You know he's in love with you, and you're in love with him."
"I'm not!"
Her voice quivered with passion; there was nothing for it but a bold stroke. And one risk more or less hardly mattered.
"Can you keep a secret, Sylvia?"
"It depends."
"No. Absolutely?"
"All right."
I lowered my voice to a whisper.
"Therewasa woman in his rooms last Wednesday, and she is the woman I am engaged to marry."
Her look of scorn was caused less by concern for my morals than by pity for my simplicity in thinking she would believe such a story.
"I don't believe it."
"You must. It's your last chance. If you let him go now, you'll lose him for ever, and I'm not going to let you blight your life and his, if I can stop it. You must make up your mind now. Do you believe me?"
Her expression of scorn had vanished and given place to one of painful perplexity.
"I'm not...."
"Do you believe me, Sylvia?"
She hesitated in an agony of indecision, until themoment was lost. The water had arrived, and Arthur was dismissing me from the Presence.
"You're not going to arrest us, then?" I said.
"I reserve perfect freedom of action," he answered, in the Front Bench manner.
"Quite right," I said. "I only wish you'd reserved the inquisition till this boy was in a better state to receive it. Would it interfere with your liberty of action if I asked you to say a word of thanks either to Aintree, myself, or both? I believe it is usual when a man loses his daughter and has her restored to him."
A few minutes more would have tried my temper. Arthur sat down again at his table, opened a drawer, and took out a cheque-book.
"According to your story it was Aintree who was chiefly instrumental in making the discovery?"
"That was the lie we agreed on," I said.
Arthur wrote a cheque for two thousand pounds, and handed it to the Seraph with the words—
"That, I think, clears all obligations between us."
"Except that of manners," I exclaimed. "The House of Commons——"
But he had rung the bell, and was tidying his papers into neat, superfluous bundles.
Philip had the courage to shake me by the hand and say he hoped to see me again soon. I am not sufficiently cynical to say it was prompted by the reflection that Gladys was my niece, because he was every whit as cordial to the Seraph.
I shook hands with Sylvia, and found her watching the Seraph fold and pocket the two thousand pound cheque.
"He's taking it!" she said.
"Your father should have been ashamed to make the offer. It serves him right if his offer's accepted.Don't blame the Seraph. If Nigel and your father proceed on the lines they've gone on this afternoon, one or both of us will have to cut the country. The Seraph's not made of money; he'll want all he can lay hands on. Now then, Sylvia, it's two lives you're playing with."
She had not yet made up her mind, and indecision chilled the warmth of her eyes and the smile on her lips. I watched the effort, and wondered if it would suffice for the Seraph. Then question and answer told their tale.
"When shall we see you again?" I heard her ask as I walked to the door.
"I can hardly say," came the low reply. "I'm leaving England shortly. I shall go across India, and spend some time in Japan—and then visit the Islands of the South Seas. It's a thing I've always wanted to do. After that? I don't know...."