Chapter I

Along the Embankment the fog was even worse than it had been in the Strand. Kinloch thought it queer that in so short a distance there should be so much difference. But worse it was. The sulphurous taste became intensified, while in addition a new and acrid flavour, probably the river's contribution to the mixture, made its presence felt on the roof of his mouth.

But progress was far easier on the Embankment. Up in the street he barged into and cannoned off some other pedestrian at every step. The handling he suffered! Hands some of them, it is true, gently warding off the impact of body on body; but others there were who thrust one impatiently aside, digging hard with elbows, so that, for a fellow in Kinloch's condition, the street quickly became something like a nightmare. But down on the Embankment, though his advance was still slow and uncertain, he had more room to feel his way, and to breathe freely, for that road was as silent and deserted as a Scottish village street on a Sunday afternoon.

With such sounds as did come the fog, he found, played strange tricks. Some it magnified and others it muffled up. The cough and sneeze of an occasional pedestrian would come quite audibly across the wide road; and while the rumble of a train crossing the bridge sounded like thunder, the chimes of Big Ben striking seven came through the sheeted air refined, as if by increased altitude, into a faint and silvery whispering.

At the foot of Villiers Street, however, he once more stumbled into the stream of hurrying people. Now, at least, there was no risk of missing the Underground. He was jostled inside the vestibule by a quick-footed crowd all going one way, and all equally eager on such a night to reach the shelter of their suburban homes.

As he moved on in the queue towards the ticket grille the sharp tones of the clerk, the smash of coins on the counter and then the scurry of feet running for the stairs made him contrast his own case with that of all these bustling, purposeful people. He had nothing to hurry for. Nobody listened for his latch-key. Time was nothing to him. The fog? He counted on being back in the thick of it within a couple of hours. It was curious how much alone he felt. He went down the stairs, clinging to the hand rail, while numberless people flitted past him, not one of them more to him than a tattoo of rapid feet, swarming for the trains. Yet had he been sensitive enough that feeling of being so alone in the crowd might well have served as a premonition. It was perhaps Fate singling him out, and separating him off from his fellowmen for the strange sequence of events destined to begin that night. Fate seems to work like that, using a man for a purpose he cannot see at the time. He goes down one street rather than another, for no apparent reason, and something happens in that street which alters the whole of his life.

When Kinloch left the train at Ealing Broadway the fog was still there, coming cold and dank to the face, though some of its more virulent ingredients had gone. After getting the direction from a forlorn but kindly taxi man who must certainly have seen from his clothes that he was not a possible fare, Kinloch set out to grope his way to Albany Road. It was in Albany Road Peter Dunn lived; and on Peter Dunn his hopes were centred. A man who lived in the same doss had looked him up in the medical directory at the municipal library; and it was this same man--a begging-letter writer by profession--who advanced the amount of the fare to Ealing. A sporting fellow he was in his way, for their combined resources did not run to more than the ticket from Charing Cross to Ealing, and even at that it meant the pair must go supperless to bed if Kinloch failed.

It was the first begging call of his life and, though he never doubted about success, the fact that it was an old friend to whom he was applying made the journey very distasteful. This surprised him in a mild way, for he counted himself pretty tough at that time. And so while he stumbled on in the dark, and as if to fortify his resolution, he fell to thinking over Peter Dunn, mentally recounting all the incidents in which, in happier days, he and Dunn had been associated. It was the worst thing he could have done, to think of the old days. It forced up the contrast between what life had been and what it had become; between the lad he looked at in the early days and the man he was at the moment, hardened, bitter, and almost unscrupulous. In a word, while he looked at himself as he once had been he saw himself as he was.

Hugh Abercromby had brought them together, the unforgotten, the unforgettable Hugh, beloved of both. A fine, fresh day in spring it was when he first met Dunn on the links at St. Andrews--all three were third-year students. At first Peter and he had eyed each other askance, like two young dogs jealous of the place the other might have in Hugh's affections. But Dunn proved to have a taste for literature, and though he kept this taste under control, so that it never, as in his own case, interfered with his professional studies, yet it served to draw both together. Many times they fell out, for Dunn was of a queer, dour temper, and his mental processes, if sure, were annoyingly slow in working. Then Kinloch's mind turned to their last meeting. To him, then, that also seemed long ago. It had taken place in the General Hospital outside Boulogne to which he had been brought with his first wound. Coming into the ward Peter must have recognized him as he lay tossing uneasily, that hole in the shoulder making itself a centre of pain that gathered almost all thought to itself, so that he could give heed to little beyond its small circumference. Unperceived by him, Dunn in his white overalls had seated himself beside the bed in which he lay, feverish and stifled by the hot motionless air and the fire of his wound. Then bending forward Dunn began slowly, and almost in a whisper, to recite certain lines, the first words of which made him jump:

_St. Andrews by the Northern Sea
A haunted town it is to me._
A little city, worn and grey,
The grey North Ocean girds it round,
And o'er the rocks, and up the bay
The long sea rollers surge and sound.

Startled by the familiar words, Kinloch had twisted round to look at this man who from what he said might at that moment have been eavesdropping at the door of his heart. "Peter!" he had cried, recognizing the broad face, so rugged, and the grey eyes bent over him. But Dunn put him down again by laying a hand on his chest.

O broken minster looking forth
Beyond the bay, above the town,
O winter of the kindly north,
O college of the scarlet gown!
And shining sands beside the sea,
And stretch of links beyond the sand,
Once more I watch you, and to me
It is as if I touched his hand....
_St. Andrews by the Northern Sea
A haunted town it is to me._

Well, as has been said, all this, and much more, came back as Kinloch was fumbling his way along those desolate Ealing roads and avenues. One may wonder why these memories gave him no confidence. It is, perhaps, the measure of the abyss into which the man had fallen to say now that such memories daunted rather than encouraged him. The more he remembered and the nearer he got to Dunn's door, the more clearly he saw what he had become. A false pride was in it too. The _hash_ he had made of life, while Dunn had prospered. And--another thing--for the past six years he had heard nothing of Peter Dunn. How much may happen in six years! The truth is he feared to find his old-time friend with a wife and perhaps a family; a settled and sedate medical general practitioner. For, as he used to argue in the old days, in no calling is the change from roystering youth to smug and portly respectability so rapid and complete as in the medical. There lurks something of a poet in the wildness of the medical student; but once that student becomes a G.P. he treats his poetic soul as a disease; and invariably it yields to treatment. Invariably! The thought made Kinloch pull up short. Peter's wife instantly grew terribly real to him. He visualized Dunn as ill at ease about having to introduce an out-at-elbows friend to her; and he saw the lady herself regarding him with a fixed smile, and hostile eyes, while she wondered whatever the parlourmaid would think.

Then as he stood hesitating in that deserted road, a prey to sickening indecision, struggling between a sense of shame and a knowledge of his pressing needs, the heavy tread of a policeman sounded at his back.

Fate had stepped in and again decided for him. He was, little as he knew it, being pushed on to his destiny, and the choice as to whether he would go on or turn back was now less than ever in his own hands. For as he automatically resumed his walk the following footsteps quickened and a heavy hand descended on his shoulder.

"What are you loitering here for?"

"I have lost my way."

He spoke like a child, confusedly, as one coming back too suddenly from a dream. He was a little frightened. Lost his way! So indeed he had. But long before that night. Some vague perception of this may have added to the bewilderment with which he spoke. This the policeman took for guilt. The walking-stick was dexterously twisted out of Kinloch's nervous hand.

"Gammon! A clearer case of loitering with intent I never saw. Had my eye on you for the last half-hour. You come along."

His grip shifted to the coat collar.

"I am looking for 28 Albany Road," Kinloch protested, now fully awake.

The policeman gave a grunt of scorn.

"Dining there, I suppose."

"No--er--consulting Dr. Dunn."

"Don't try that gaff on me. Dr. Dunn has no patients of your class--except when he acts as our casualty surgeon. Now then!"

He gave Kinloch's arm a twist, and at the same time trod heavily on his left foot. The old Sandy Kinloch fired up momentarily.

"Are you trying to make me a casualty?" he asked, shoving him off.

The man was on him with a bound, in joyful brutality. Kinloch had heard tales of his sort from other unfortunates. The wantonly inflicted pain was probably intended to provoke resistance, which of course would serve as corroboration of any serious charge. Why should a guiltless man resist? Kinloch knew from experience that here and there a type of officer still remains who believes he must produce cases to justify his own existence.

His foot throbbed with pain, but he restrained the natural temptation to prolong the struggle.

"All right," he said. "So long as I see Dr. Dunn it's all one whether you take me to him or bring him to me."

Have you ever tried to make a policeman change his mind? A forlorn hope it usually is. It puzzled Kinloch as to how he succeeded with that animal. Possibly the careless indifference of his last words had an effect; but more probably it was due to the memory of some recent reprimand for an equally wanton arrest. Anyhow the thick fingers gripping his garments at the back of the neck again shifted to his arm. The officer said:

"Albany Road is on our way. We can call in as we pass." But his grasp was less assured than before.

Albany Road indeed proved to be round the next corner, and the man had just pushed open a gate a little way along it when Kinloch heard a door bang. He could not tell whether it meant some one entering or leaving. Hastily he felt at his torn collar and tried to get it down to meet the tie, also damaged by his recent rough handling. Then a voice boomed out from the doorway:

"What is it, officer?"

The policeman pulled his captive forward, half uneasily.

"This man, sir, I got him loitering. Says he knows you, and was coming here."

"Says he knows me, does he? Put your lantern on his face...."

The next moment a cry came.

"Sandy--Sandy Kinloch by all the--" Dunn broke off short. He must with his quick, professional eye at once have observed the other's affliction. The policeman dropped the arm he held as if it had burned his fingers.

"Oh, Sandy, my poor lad, Sandy!" Dunn said in a low voice.

The policeman here returned the walking-stick, and stepped out nimbly for the gate. A mighty relief it was to hear him go. Dunn slipped a hand under his old friend's arm.

"Och, och, come away in," he said.

"But, Peter, your--your wife," the other stammered.

"My what?" he cried, pulling up.

"I'm in rather a disreputable condition. Will she mind?"

"You mean about her chintz chairs and so on, I suppose. Who told you I was married?"

"Nobody; I guessed it."

"A bad guess, Sandy: there's no minx here to mess up my place with china ornaments and female fallals. So wipe your feet on the bass, lad, and step inside."

Dunn has said that he saw at the first glance just what Kinloch's condition was. No doubt this is correct; his professional eye would give him information not so apparent to others. He says, however, that he made no comment at the time on his old-time friend's affliction, though he admits making a joking remark on the length of Kinloch's hair to put him at his ease. This remark the other turned aside, probably because Dunn would not have understood that where Kinloch had lived for the past year there was a prejudice against the owners of close-cropped heads. Most close-cropped heads in Rowton Street were cropped, without their owners' consent, at their country's expense.

In Dunn's cosy study that night, after such a meal as had become no more than a dim memory to him, Kinloch told his story. Much more of it was told than need be set down here. Not so much because of its dull and sordid details, but because it has no direct bearing on what was to follow. The real story in fact only began that night--little as either of the men dreamed so then.

Dunn heard it out in silence, except for an occasional grunt or sign of indignation. When he had finished the doctor hit the coal a resounding blow with the poker, as if he wished it had been Maxtone's head. For Kinloch had rounded off his story by telling him of his experiences with Maxtone. Maxtone was the editor who had turned him down.

At the end of a long silence Dunn's voice broke in plaintively:

"I never could understand why you did it, Sandy."

"Did what?" the other asked, coming back startled from his memories of Maxtone.

"Took up this silly writing business, and wrecked such brilliant prospects."

"Because I couldn't help it, Peter."

Dunn gave a grunt of incredulity.

"I had leanings to poetry myself, once," he said, "but it was one of the few temptations I've found it easy to resist."

Kinloch laughed the first mirthful laugh for many a day.

"Yes, you old pill-pusher, and proud you are of it. But then you will never know the joy of creation--to take up an idea and give it flesh and blood, to see the germ of excellence spring out of nothing."

"Ay--and lead to nothing."

The sharp disgust in this muttered rejoinder was probably due to what seemed the extravagant enthusiasm of the other's previous words. But at that moment, when Kinloch was over-sensitive, and in great need, it came to him suddenly that Dunn was now anticipating an appeal for help, and was half-resentful over it. It was like a cold douche after his mirth. His long lost pride came back, as other things came back that night. He would show Dunn he would ask for nothing. So taking this reproach as a warning, he got to his feet. But Dunn took no notice.

"Well, I must be going," Kinloch said with a flourish.

"Going," he repeated; "going where?"

"To the place this scribbling has led to--a cubicle in a doss in Rowton Street," Kinloch replied bitterly.

Dunn shoved him back in the chair with some violence.

"You needn't be so touchy. If I am angry it is solely for you, Sandy, knowing what your capacities once were. Man, man, but you were aye an unco thin-skinned lad."

Dunn, like many of his race, was accustomed to use the broad dialect of his country whenever he was under the stress of some strong emotion of which he was half ashamed. But well as the other knew this national trait he was too fantastically sensitive by this time to be influenced by that knowledge.

"What is the good of reproaches now?" he said wearily. "After all, as things have turned out, what else could I do but write? What sort of a doctor could I make now, after the war has done with me?"

It was here that Dunn blundered.

"No; but if you had qualified in medicine you would never have been in the fighting line, and so have escaped your present calamity," he persisted.

Kinloch fired up at once.

"Been safe at a _base_ hospital, you mean," he retorted hotly.

After that things somehow went from bad to worse. There is no doubt Dunn had intended to stand by his friend. When the other had leisure, with a cooler head, to think over what happened, he saw that, for he knew that Dunn was not of the sort who give good advice when they mean to give nothing else. Dunn no doubt meant to do probably a good deal more than his friend had hoped for, but on that very account he claimed the right, like the dour Scot he was, to improve the occasion.

The rupture came suddenly, before either was aware. Dunn, hot headed, began to preach at him, and Kinloch, sore and sick with the picture of himself as drawn by his candid friend, stung him with a gibe that smacked of the den from which he had emerged.

Dunn rose in wrath.

"You spoke of a _base_ hospital just now," he cried. "It might have been better for you had you died in that same base hospital; it might have saved you from a base existence."

Both were now on their feet; and this time Dunn made no effort to detain the other. He was breathing heavily, and his keys jingled in a hand trembling with anger as he opened a drawer. But Kinloch rejected the money when he offered it: it was not possible for him to do otherwise after the particular gibe he had used, and the retort Dunn had made to it.

"As you please," he said.

"Fortunately I'm not quite penniless," Kinloch proclaimed with ludicrous dignity and entire untruth. "It would be painful to have to pocket your insult with your money."

"Oh, I did not mean to insult you," the other man said, almost humbly.

Kinloch said nothing.

When they reached the door Dunn gave a sudden exclamation.

"Lord, I had forgotten that!" he cried.

"What?" Kinloch asked, surprised at his sharp exclamation.

"The fog. I can't let you go, Kinloch. It's thicker than ever. Even a beggar's dog would lose his way to-night."

It may have been his unaccustomed use of the surname--never had he been other than Sandy to him--or perhaps his reference to a beggar that touched Kinloch on the raw once more. Without a word he stumbled quickly to the gate.

"Come back, Sandy," Dunn called, following. "On a night like this--"

"Fog makes no difference to me, Dunn," Kinloch cried, as with an affected laugh he slammed the gate.

Touched with remorse the other started after him, but Kinloch hurried away; and it needed but a few steps in that fog to be beyond finding.

Kinloch, indeed, had not gone far in the fog before the awkwardness of the situation pulled him up. It was somewhere after eleven, he was many miles from Rowton Street, and with not a penny in his pocket to get there. Cool enough he was now as he stood against a wall and under a dripping, overhanging tree in that sodden, deserted road. For half an hour he must have leant against that wall dully considering the plight in which his foolish quarrel with Dunn had placed him. His clothes, too, had suffered much in his brief interview with the policeman. Though worn threadbare, his suit had been of good quality originally, and he had always taken care of it. It is extraordinary how important the condition of a last suit becomes to a man who has reached the end of his resources. At an interview with a possible employer boots can be more or less hidden, and a shabby hat can be held negligently behind one's back, but one's suit takes the eye, and supplies the first impression by which most men judge. But these were not thoughts that occupied him for long. His one thought soon turned to how he could get back to Rowton Street. For the Underground barriers cannot be passed without a ticket. Then he remembered the Ealing Great Western Station, close to the District. If he could slip into a carriage there he should reach Paddington, where, in such a large station, it would be easier to evade the collectors at the exit. If not--well, arrest at least would provide a shelter for the night.

He had gone some distance towards the station when a new thought came, one which would probably never have occurred to him but for the recently recovered memories of better days. It was this: if he had to risk arrest he must see to it that his name did not come out. It is almost comical that he should have been so sensitive about this all at once. Anyhow the fact remains that he went methodically through every pocket, and tore into scraps every paper that could serve as a clue by which his identity could be traced. Dunn must not know--this was his motive, probably. So all along those suburban roads and avenues he laid down something like a paper-chase trail, and only when the job was finished and he had left himself with nothing in his pockets did he begin to heed where he was going.

The fog seemed to be as thick as ever. Behind its almost impenetrable wall he knew there lay on each side of him rows and rows of houses, each separated by no more than a yard or two of turf from the road, but for all that showed of the life within them he might as well have been limping through a dead city.

A little later, finding himself alongside a great line of massive iron railing, so stout that he knew they must have been built with public money, he felt he was passing beyond the suburban villa region, and became doubtful of his direction. When the road began to make a great sweeping uphill curve, doubt became certainty: he knew he had not come that way.

Something like a tremor of anxiety passed through him, while he stood, doubtful as to what course to pursue. It was very cold, in a raw, penetrating fashion; for by this time his clothes were fairly sodden from exposure to the fog. Eagerly as he bent for any sound, his ear caught nothing but the eerie drip, drip, drip of the condensing moisture falling from some trees inside the railings.

Using the stick on these same railings he worked along them, trusting to come on the gate of some house at which he might obtain guidance. Failing in this he crossed the road in the hope of finding houses on the other side, and eventually after fumbling along a high blank wall he came on a little iron gate that certainly belonged to a villa. Without one thought as to the late hour, Kinloch mounted the steps and pulled the bell. By this time he was so eager for the sound of a human voice that if any inmate were only to lift a window to curse at him he would have welcomed the voice. But that did not happen. No one responded. Peal on peal he sent through that house before realizing from the hollow, ghostly re-echoing of the bell that the house was empty.

Up and down how many roads he went after that in search of something human he never knew. What, however, he could never forget is that in rounding a new corner in a dull despair he walked suddenly into something soft and human--a stout man of middle height in a thick overcoat with fur collar and cuffs. The man gripped at Kinloch to save himself from a tumble.

"Damn you," the stranger cried, irascibly shaking him. "Are you quite blind?"

The unexpectedness of the meeting more than the violence of the collision left Kinloch for a moment speechless.

"Sorry, sir, but you were certainly going the faster," he said.

The stranger was passing on, but stopped at the other's words.

"H'm, a man of some politeness. You recognized who I am, no doubt."

When Kinloch haltingly explained his plight, he emitted a quiet whistle; but not, as it turned out, from any sympathy.

"Not acquainted with this neighbourhood?" he queried, coming nearer again.

Wondering who this man could be who expected to be recognized by any chance passer-by the young man explained that, so far from being familiar with the locality, he had not the least notion of where he then was. If, he went on, he could be put on the way to the railway station he would be very thankful. For a moment the stout gentleman said nothing, but seemed to stand there in the fog debating something with himself.

"I can put you on the way to something much better," he said at length. "You are just the man I want. There's something providential in our meeting. Yes, sir, I seem to detect a Higher Hand in this, though I am not a superstitious man."

When he took him by the arm, his hand trembling with eagerness, it struck Kinloch that the man was in a state of agitation or anxiety. He freed himself half uneasily.

"Look here, come to business. What do you want?" he asked.

"A small service, for which I will pay much."

"How much?"

The man in the fur coat hesitated. It is significant of Kinloch's desperate condition rather than of his nationality that he enquired as to the amount of the reward before asking the nature of the service.

"Five pounds for half an hour or so seems ample."

Kinloch laughed, exhilarated by the prospect held out to him. The stout man evidently took the laugh for one of derision.

"Five pounds. It's surely enough," he said.

"That depends. I've gone through half-hours I wouldn't repeat for five hundred."

"But this is merely to sit still in a chair, in a quiet room, and rustle some papers."

Kinloch's heart sank as he realized the man must be a lunatic, a harmless wandering lunatic. Of course he was! Who else would be abroad on such a night--owning a fur-lined coat? When he recalled, too, that the man had expected to be recognized, no doubt from supposed portraits in the papers, suspicion of his insanity turned to certainty. Kinloch's hopes sank to zero.

"If you tell me where you live," he said soothingly, "I'll take you home. Your people must be getting anxious."

"You think it too little?" the stranger said sharply, and the tone was not that of a man with wandering wits.

Kinloch shook his head.

"No; too much, unless something shady lies behind it."

"Nothing lies behind it that need concern you. I offer you so much because, to be quite frank, I admit that if I had searched all London I might not have found a man better suited for my purpose. Come; time presses. Is it a bargain?"

But his ill-concealed eagerness roused a new suspicion.

"You must be more explicit," he said, wondering to find himself so curiously unwilling to go with the man.

An impatient exclamation came. A masterful, domineering man Kinloch now judged him to be, certainly no lunatic in the ordinary sense. It was evident that he could barely restrain his temper while the young man dallied with his proposal. With quite apparent effort he now spoke calmly:

"An important interview lies before me at my own house. A man is coming to confer with me, and it is essential that a third party should be present. Not to see, still less to overhear what is said, but simply to make it evident to my visitor that I am not alone. Now I am the last man in England to be caught in a corner, as you would know if I were to reveal my name. So, needless to say, the witness had been arranged for; but he has failed me. This cursed fog," he burst out uncontrollably, breathing heavily. "Chance has got lost in it, no doubt."

"Chance?" Kinloch repeated, bewildered.

"Did I say Chance? Well," he laughed, "chance has put five pounds at your disposal, my needy friend. You agree?"

"Sir," was the reply, "I am one who has had to part with most of his scruples, and to earn five pounds at this moment I would do much."

From the other came a grunt of coarse satisfaction.

"So I judged," he remarked. "A gentleman on his uppers! Just the man for my money; I cannot understand why you hesitated."

But the coarse joviality of his new tones had an effect opposite to that he probably intended.

"I said most of my scruples. Unfortunately I have still one or two left."

"Set your mind at rest, then. Had you retained as many as your maiden aunt, you might still come with me. You are not engaged for housebreaking or deeds of violence. You will expose yourself to no danger of arrest, for I am asking you to my own house solely for my own business. Is that enough assurance?"

"Quite," Kinloch agreed with great relief. "So long as the police are not in it, five pounds will do."

And, as the stranger slipping an arm through Kinloch's began to lead him eagerly down the road, the younger man puzzled over the way in which the other had used the word "chance." In his own mind no doubt existed that, despite his clumsy attempt to use the word in another sense, Chance was the surname of the man whose job he was now undertaking. The name had slipped out in the stress of the other's anxiety and excitement. Chance: it was a name too uncommon to be readily forgotten.

But, however that might be, the man in the fur coat meant to let nothing else slip out; for, as if annoyed with himself, he remained silent till they reached his house. Having opened a door with a latch-key--a door which was certainly not the main entrance to a house of the size this proved to be--he led the way through a corridor into his study. The room was very long, and rather narrow. A big, crackling fire diffused a warm glow as they passed it to reach the niche at the far end which it appeared had been prepared for Mr. Chance to occupy. This niche seemed like a semi-circular bow window opening possibly on to a lawn, and into this apse he was placed after stumbling against the screen drawn across its entrance to prevent Mr. Chance from seeing--or being seen. Only when he had Kinloch seated at a table behind the screen did he speak again.

"Your part in this comedy is not a speaking one," he said. "All you have to do is to prove your presence when I give you the signal. Then you may make a rustling noise as if busy with papers. But on no account are you to speak or show yourself. And remember this"--his stumpy forefinger tapped Kinloch's ribs--"the signal may _not_ be given at all."

"What is the signal to be?"

"Three taps with the poker," he replied promptly. "We'll rehearse it now."

It was at once evident that all had been carefully arranged--even to keeping control of the poker, Kinloch said to himself, while feeling about on the table for the paper with which he was to operate. When his host returned after making three audible taps and the alert young man remarked that he appeared to have forgotten the paper, the man threw something on the other's hands.

"There, try that; it will sound like music in your ears."

Kinloch tried it, and it made an admirable sound, the crackling sound that a new crisp Bank of England fiver always makes. Still, as Kinloch remarked, it wouldn't be so audible at a distance, and in the midst of talk might be unheard.

"Then you are to cough. Yes, as the night is raw you may cough. Indeed, it may be well to do so from time to time--of course after I have given the signal--as a reminder to my caller of your presence."

He left his guest alone after that. What he did, or where he went, Kinloch did not know. And at the moment he did not care. For at once he fell to spinning glorious dreams as to the spending of the fiver. He held it between his fingers, making it talk to him with its cheery, crackling whispers. Untold wealth that crinkly note seemed to him then. To the passage of time he gave no heed. But to judge by the number of things he decided to do with the money it was certainly an under-estimate on his host's part to say that the business would only take half an hour.

Then with a start he heard the murmur of voices at the far end of the room. A door shut. Kinloch came out of his dreaming and sat up attentive. Chairs were moved about, as if for more comfort before settling down to business. But when he heard the clink of glasses that spoke of friendly intercourse, it struck him that his host had been unduly timorous in engaging anyone for protection.

Very little of the talk came to Kinloch's ears for some time. Both men were speaking in an even murmurous undertone which might have been chosen either to be persuasive or to prevent him from hearing. Not that he had any other thought than to be alert for the signal and honourably earn the reward he had already received. He was happy in a quiet way, feeling assured that his luck had turned, that his dark hour had passed, and he sat behind the screen with his hand motionless on the fiver which he dare not play with any more for fear of prematurely indicating his presence. He was hard put to it in his damp clothes to restrain from the coughing which was not yet required.

Then quite abruptly, heat and excitement broke out between the two men. One voice rose in pitch as if to warn Kinloch the crisis approached.

"So you think you have me cornered!"

In a flash Kinloch thought he understood--a blackmailing visitor.

"That depends entirely on yourself."

"How?"

"Tut, tut. For a man of the world like you, that is surely a needless question to put."

"Ah, needless, is it? Yes, I suppose so--to put to a devil like you."

"No devil at all," said the other, "neither devil nor angel, but just a plain business man ready for a deal. Do not pretend that anything in this takes you by surprise."

"It does not. I am prepared for it."

There was something in the way the man snapped out these words that Kinloch at least found ominous. A quiet laugh came.

"In that case we had better get down to business at once."

The last three words were accompanied by three distinct taps as if to emphasize the statement, so anyhow Kinloch took them, for he promptly made the prearranged reply.

"_What was that?_"

To leave the man in no doubt he followed up his signal by a cough, and a very genuine cough it was.

"We are not alone," he heard his employer say in a bantering tone. "I, too, prepared for our meeting here to-night."

Again there was a pause. The stranger seemed to be readjusting himself to the new situation created by the revelation of Kinloch's presence. He did not take long.

"By God, so that is your game, is it? This time you've mistaken your man!"

There came a sudden quick scramble of feet: a crash of glass followed as a table overturned with a dull thud.

"Keep off, keep off!"

The sudden, wild scream sent Kinloch's nerves leaping. He rose amid the struggle and the thud of chairs overturning on the thick carpet. He knew the man who had hired him was stumbling towards him, calling for help. But almost before he could move there came a sound he recognized--a sound more horrible to the ear than the startling cry of pain or terror--a tired kind of sigh followed by the noise of a heavy body collapsing in a heap on the floor. Starting up in the dark Kinloch blundered into the screen, plunged forward in an effort to retain his balance, tripped over a chair and shot headlong to the floor. Groping about quickly with both hands to recover his stick as a weapon, his hands went slithering into something warm and wet.

"Ah, the rat leaves his hole!" a voice cried viciously.

He knew the man was coming for him. He came slowly, though, walking as if he himself had been hurt, or was impeded by the scattered furniture.

Kinloch worked rapidly along the wall with some dim idea of finding a window or a door. He heard the man close behind, but by an instinctive swerve he evaded the clutching hands and went on. The room was silent now, so silent that in the darkness Kinloch could hear the man's quick breathing, and the smothered oath that followed his own momentary escape. Yes, the man appeared to have been hurt himself in the struggle, for his soft padding steps sounded uneven.

Then abruptly the stillness was rent by a piercing cry:

"Don't. Oh, don't!"

It was a woman's voice, and at the shrill and imploring cry, which revealed to Kinloch the unguessed presence of a woman, he stopped dead. In a moment the man was on him. One hand clutching his hair, pulled the head backward. The strength of madness was in that man.

"_Safe bind, safe find_," he shouted fiercely, as if it were some sort of slogan.

In the horror of that paralyzing moment Kinloch's nerve snapped, and he began to plead, weakly re-echoing the woman's entreaty.

"Don't, oh, don't! Look at me, I--"

But something struck him heavily. A brilliant light flashed through his brain, and he went in a heap to the floor.