"Is Grayle at home, Guy?" I asked. "I'm Raymond Stornaway, if you don't
recognise my voice. I have to see him on very important business."
There can be few minor humiliations so disconcerting as to slam a door
and find that it will not close.
"You'll only ruin a good umbrella, Guy," I said. "Listen to reason, man.
You remember our talk the last time I was here? You know that Grayle's
by way of being cited as a co-respondent?"
"Take your umbrella out!" Guy whispered angrily, feeling for it with his
foot, but not daring to detach either hand from the door.
"I've come with a proposal from O'Rane," I said.
The energetic foot relaxed its industry.
"Grayle's given orders that you're not to be admitted," he said.
"I know. And you're enough in his confidence to say whether he's likely
to be interested by hearing O'Rane's proposal. I sent him a note this
morning, but he didn't see fit to acknowledge it. If he's going to take
the same line now, tell me at once, and I'll go away. If, on the other
hand, he'll let us in and behave himself, we'll come. I may tell you, as
I've already told Grayle, that I don't come to see him for any morbid
pleasure which I may derive from our meetings!"
Discretion and discipline did battle within Guy's spirit, and at length
he asked, "Who's 'us'?"
"I have Beresford with me," I said.
"I can't let _him_ in," was the prompt reply.
"Then we'll go home, Beresford," I said. "Good-night, Guy. Open the door
a fraction of an inch so that I can get my umbrella out, there's a good
fellow."
He did as I asked him, though guardedly. I pulled at the umbrella,
turned my back and started down the passage, followed reluctantly by
Beresford. I walked briskly for fear of spoiling the effect, and, before
I had gone ten yards, Guy was running heavily after me.
"If you care to leave a message," he began, bringing a massive hand to
rest on my shoulder.
"I don't," I interrupted.
"But, look here, Stornaway----!"
I walked on and, omitting certain obvious intermediate stages, found
Beresford and myself shortly afterwards ensconced in arm-chairs before
the fire in Bannerman's match-boarded, paper-strewn work-room over the
garage at the end of Grayle's garden. Our surroundings were serviceable
rather than sybaritic. Oil-cloth, a fur hearth-rug and a couple of
Japanese mats covered the floor; the walls were concealed, half by stout
blue volumes of the Parliamentary Debates, half by a map of Canada,
another of British South Africa and a third of the Western Front. A
double writing-table stood in the middle of the room with a sloping
desk, an oil reading-lamp and three numbered deed-boxes. There was a
reek of petrol from a private and probably illegitimate pyramid of
leaking tins, which had projected themselves upstairs from the garage.
Guy produced some cigars and left us to take care of ourselves while he
reconnoitred the house.
"I've let you in on my own responsibility," he said, as he opened the
door leading into the garden. "Whether he'll see you or not I can't
tell."
"I think he will see us," I murmured to Beresford, when we were alone.
I for one had satisfied my intellectual cravings for Canadian geography,
when we heard steps approaching on the gravel. A moment later Grayle was
framed, though he had to stoop for it, in the doorway. He looked at me
with a frown which deepened at sight of Beresford.
"Well?" he demanded.
"Good evening, Grayle," I said. "I've come with a message from O'Rane."
"What are you doing here?" he asked Beresford.
The promise was honourably observed, and there was no answer.
"I brought him as a witness in case you shewed any tendency to be
violent," I said. "Grayle, O'Rane thinks that, the sooner you give up
your seat in the House, the better. For what it's worth, I agree with
him."
He was still standing in the doorway with his fingers on the handle.
Clearly he expected something more.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"All," I said, as I got up from my chair.
"Then what the hell d'you want to come here for, wasting my time?" he
thundered. "You told Bannerman you'd got a proposal to make!"
"O'Rane proposes that you should retire from public life," I explained.
"I always think it's better to do a thing voluntarily than under
compulsion."
On that he left the doorway and came into the room.
"This is a threat, is it?" he asked, looking down on me with arms
akimbo.
"A forecast," I substituted. "I see from the papers that you may be
invited to join the Government. You will never join the Government,
Grayle, or, if you do, you'll leave it before you have time to find out
where your office is. If you retire voluntarily, you may live to an
honoured old age; if you force O'Rane to go through with his petition,
I'm afraid you'll have a very ugly fall."
Grayle loosened his belt, though with too much deliberate preoccupation
to suggest that he was about to use it as an argument in favour of our
retirement; then he unbuttoned his tunic, removed a bundle of papers
from a woollen khaki waistcoat and transferred them to one of his
outside breast-pockets.
"Do you know? your forecast does not strike me as exhaustive," he
observed, as he settled his belt in place once more. "As a preliminary,
however, does O'Rane propose to go on with the divorce?"
"Frankly, I can't tell you," I said. "He would like to consult his
wife's wishes. I make no bones about telling you, Grayle, that you get
very little out of any proposed arrangement. If she wants a divorce,
your--fair name, shall we call it?--is smirched, whatever you do; but I
fancy, unless you find your parliamentary duties too exacting for your
enfeebled health--and that within one week from to-night,--your fair
name will be smirched whether she wants a divorce or not. I can't say
what's in her mind, of course, but, if you accept defeat at once,
there's a fifty per cent. chance that you'll escape a scandal in which,
when all's said and done, you don't cut a very gallant figure. By the
way, I have to have your answer to-night."
"My answer's 'no.'"
It was given without hesitation and, so far as I could see, without
bluff. I have been connected with large commercial enterprises long
enough to be a tolerable judge.
"I'll let O'Rane know at once," I said, getting up again and motioning
Beresford to do the same. "It will be an unsavoury case, Grayle."
"Which is presumably the reason he's so unwilling to go on with it,"
Grayle sneered. "But make no mistake who comes out of it worst. _He_
hasn't bothered to think. Your--proposal I reject with thanks, but I'll
make another. You're quite right in thinking that I would sooner not be
mixed up in these proceedings any more; if O'Rane will give me a written
undertaking to drop them _here--and--now_ and never to revive them, we
can let it rest at that."
Beresford had not promised to refrain from laughter, and I excused it as
the only possible comment on the offer.
"Come along," I said to him. "We're wasting the nation's time; and the
nation won't have the benefit of it much longer."
Grayle shrugged his shoulders and led the way to the door on the lane.
"So be it!" he said. "Yet mine was a fairer bargain than yours. There
was at least a _quid pro quo_."
"I'm afraid I don't see it."
"Then I'm afraid your principals haven't instructed you very
thoroughly," he answered impatiently. "From your general tone to me, you
evidently think that I've behaved very badly, that it was my fault, that
the sympathy of the court will be entirely with O'Rane and his wife. It
may be with O'Rane," he added meaningly. "I'll tell you at once that I
propose to defend the action and, though it's only guess-work, I shall
be very much surprised if O'Rane gets a decree.... If he _likes_ washing
his wife's dirty linen in public, that's his affair, but what seems to
have been overlooked is the attitude of Mrs. O'Rane throughout. To begin
with, I can call witnesses to prove that O'Rane repeatedly proclaimed
that he wouldn't raise a finger to keep his wife, if she preferred to
risk her happiness with another man. She used to say _she_ wouldn't stay
with him, if she was unhappy; I can produce witnesses who'll testify to
that, too. Any pretence, therefore, that I burst in on a happily married
couple and forced them apart is historically untrue. And this will come
out in court. But what matters more from the point of view of Mrs.
O'Rane's reputation is the evidence--I think you were with me,
Stornaway, when she rang me up one night at the House. What you've
overlooked in your haste to condemn me, what O'Rane's overlooked in his
haste to save his wife's reputation is the part played by his wife. I'll
accept full responsibility for my share of whatever's happened, but I'm
afraid you'll find it won't ease your position. Mrs. O'Rane's letters to
me, which will, of course, be read in court, prove that it was she and
she alone----"
It was not difficult to imagine the end of the sentence. Grayle spoke
with the bored indifference of a man who has had unwelcome attentions
thrust upon him, who has tolerated them as long as he can, but who at
last and at the risk of wounding an importunate mistress.... I never
heard it, though, because Beresford, unpardonably if excusably
forgetting his promise of silence and immobility, had twitched my
umbrella from my grasp and whirled it backhanded into Grayle's face with
a cry of,
"You cad! you cad! you _bloody_ cad!"
4
The moment that the blow was struck I felt that lives would be lost
before we parted. Beresford had come to the house clamorous for blood, I
will admit at once that I had wrapped a taunt round every word that I
had spoken, and for weeks Grayle had been in a state only describable as
eruptive. I found time, however, with that curious detachment which a
brain shews when it is working with twice its usual clarity and speed to
reflect what an absurd and incongruous trio we made; Beresford dying of
consumption, all skin and bones held together by will-power--lame,
shabby, ill-groomed, with two blazing eyes in a parchment-coloured face;
Grayle towering over the pair of us, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked--with a
thread of blood running from one corner of his mouth,--yellow-haired,
like some giant's child in uniform; and, if I could have seen myself, I
should have looked on a plump, middle-aged man with, I believe, a
benevolent expression, a good many wrinkles on the forehead and round
the eyes and a thick crop of prematurely white hair.
Beresford's action was so unexpected and sudden that we--and I include
him--were temporarily paralysed. After the brief outburst there followed
a silence in which we seemed to be waiting for the end of the world to
be proclaimed. Then Grayle put his hand to his face and brought it away
wet. I watched him raise his eyebrows at the sight, walk to the door
opening on to the garden, turn the key and pocket it. (I suddenly
remembered being bullied at Eton.)
"He brought this on himself," he observed quietly to me; and, before I
had leisure to guess what he intended or see what he was doing, he had
gripped Beresford by the collar, lifted him off his feet and was
belabouring him with his stick until the ribs cracked like dry wood in a
hot fire. At the end of six swift blows the stick broke in two, and he
looked round for another weapon. A round office ruler met our gaze at
the same moment, and from opposite sides we pounced on it
simultaneously and simultaneously caught hold of it. I had two hands to
his one, however, and with a wrench I contrived to twist it out of his
grasp.
"Drop him!" I cried, but Grayle only looked round for means to renew the
attack. "I'll break your arm, if you don't."
His grip on Beresford, who was still dangling and writhing in the air
with his face purple and his feet rapping out a tattoo on the oil-cloth,
never relaxed. I raised the ruler above my head and brought it down on
Grayle's forearm with all the strength that I could muster. I had aimed
at his wrist, but a plunge by Beresford spoiled my aim. Grayle gave some
body-twist, which I was too much preoccupied to see, and an instant
later I felt his powerful fingers inside my collar and my head being
savagely bumped against Beresford's. Every other time my ear was crushed
against his fleshless skull, and the pain was excruciating. I made
ineffectual backward sweeps with the ruler, hitting Beresford as often
as I hit Grayle; I battered on his fingers and tried to drag them away
from his collar, but every effort that I made and every new injury that
I inflicted made him the drunker with lust of battle. The side of my
head felt bruised to pulp, and, when I put my hand up to protect it,
Grayle only laughed like a maniac and changed his hold so that he could
avoid the buffer and bang us on our unprotected brows.
Beresford was limp and crowing, I breathless and sweating before it
occurred to me to use my feet. Exploring for Grayle's shins with my
heel, I made sure of my mark and lashed out and up as hard as I could
kick. It is to be presumed that I caught him on his injured knee, for I
heard a gasp of pain, we were jerked abruptly backwards, and Grayle
slowly subsided, like a wounded bull in the ring, dragging us on top of
him. For a moment we lay motionless; then I heard Beresford's struggles
for breath beginning again with feverish, rumbling acceleration. He had
fallen on the mat in front of the fire, and his face was pressed so
close to the bars that the heat must have been blinding and
insupportable. I saw him trying to make a screen of his hands and heard
a diabolical laugh from Grayle. The sound gave me new strength, and I
tugged at my collar till it burst away from the stud and remained
emptily in Grayle's hands while I struggled to my feet.
I had always imagined that, however desperate my plight, I should
refrain from some methods of warfare, yet now I struck again and again
at the wounded knee, I kicked him in the wind and, if this last had not
sent him rolling and gasping on to his side, I believe I might have
tried to gouge his eyes out. It was the only time that I had ever had to
fight for my life; the instinct to live was stronger and more
resourceful than I had imagined.
As Grayle's fingers relaxed, I pulled Beresford away from the fire and
set him on his feet with his back to the wall. He was not seriously
injured, despite the drubbing from Grayle's stick, and, as soon as he
could breathe again, I saw him preparing to meet a fresh attack. My one
hope was to escape before Bannerman broke down the locked door and
redressed the balance in our numbers, before, too, Grayle had collected
enough wind to resume hostilities. Without waiting for my hat and coat,
I hurried to the door leading by the stone passage to the lane and flung
it open, calling on Beresford to follow me. As I turned on the
threshold, he made no sign of moving. I called again, telling him that
there was no time to be lost, for Grayle had taken his hands away from
the pit of his stomach and was testing his leg before getting up.
Beresford also saw that no time was to be lost, but, instead of making
for the door, he threw himself on top of his antagonist and dug
furiously in the pocket where Grayle had so ostentatiously secreted his
bundle of papers.
Though the struggle was resumed with more than all of its old fury, I
remember having another interval of lucid detachment. I had intervened
before, because Beresford was being murdered, but I had not come there
to steal papers which did not belong to me and I could not come to his
assistance again.
"Break away!" I roared at them, picking up my ruler again and hitting
both impartially.
I might as usefully have expended my energies on beating the floor. Both
were too busily engaged to heed me until with a short-arm blow of
well-nigh incredible force Grayle lifted his assailant into the air and
dropped him again into the fireplace. Then he scrambled on to one knee
and faced me.
"Stay where you are, or I'll brain you!" I cried.
He dragged himself forward, and at that I struck. I was more frightened
than I have ever been in my life before or since, for, if the phrase
have a meaning, there was murder in Grayle's eyes at that moment. The
ruler came down on the top of his head with an echoing crack, and his
trunk reeled. I hit again, though my first blow was dyeing his hair
crimson. This time a hand shot up in defence and grasped the ruler. I
pulled until I had dragged him forward on his face, but he only added a
second hand and twisted against me, as I had twisted against him three
minutes earlier. It was a question of seconds before I was disarmed, and
I contrived that, as he possessed himself of the weapon, I could spring
to the far side of the writing-table, ready to feint and dodge when he
began the attack.
There was a second pause, a second silence. With the same movement we
looked towards the fireplace, but Beresford was lying huddled and
motionless. Grayle once more put his hand to his head, once more raised
his eyebrows when he brought it away covered with blood. Dragging a
chair by his side and using its back as a prop, he limped to the second
door, pushed it closed and locked it.
"_You_ brought this on _your_self," he whispered in a voice that choked
with rage.
In equipment, physical power, training, endurance, even in length of
reach, Grayle was my superior. His one weak point was the injured knee,
and I concentrated my attack on that before he could reduce the distance
between us. Picking up the first of the deed-boxes from the table, I
raised it above my head and discharged it at his legs. It struck his
feet, I believe; certainly he staggered. Either the second was lighter
or I was over-anxious not to throw short again, for this time I hit him
in the chest and sent him stumbling and cursing until his back met the
door. He stooped as though he would return my fire, but evidently saw
the wisdom of not replenishing my ammunition. I picked up the third box,
waited until he was back in his old position and then let fly with all
the strength that I could put into an overhand swing. The missile was
too big and swift to avoid easily at so close a range, but Grayle
contrived to make a bend in his body, the box flicked his tunic over one
hip and slid along the floor until it bumped into its fellows at the
door.
"And _now_," said Grayle. "Bannerman's out of ear-shot, and even the
fiendish noise _you_'ve been making won't bring anyone to save you.
Before I've done with you, I _think_ you'll be sorry you interfered
quite so much."
He dragged himself and his chair to the edge of the table and leaned
upon it with his fists, gripping the ruler. The next moment I had sprung
back, as he threw himself forward and aimed a blow at my head with the
full reach and swing of his long body and arm behind it. The point of
the ruler glanced off the welt of my boot and dented the oil-cloth.
Grayle pulled himself back, rested his hands again on the table and
waited, eyeing me reflectively. I was coming cautiously back to my
place, when he projected himself suddenly to the right; I jumped in the
opposite direction, he stopped, and we gradually came back to our old
positions. A moment later he dived to the left, but I had hardly to
move, for he was throwing his weight on to a leg which would not bear
it. The next plunge was to the right, and this time he made a
half-circle of the table until each of us was occupying the other's
stance. With these tactics I could keep him at bay for as long as I
liked; and I have no doubt that he realised it. While he panted and
looked round him, I turned my head for an instant to see whether he had
left the key in the door. The one table-lamp, however, threw a yellow
circle of quavering light over the middle of the room and left the
extremities in shadow. Whether Grayle divined my thoughts, whether he
even noticed or understood my action, I cannot say, but the next moment
I received a violent blow on the thighs and was hard put to it to keep
my balance, as the table, furiously impelled by him, careered madly
towards the door, pinning my legs and holding me, as though I were
buried to the waist, to await his attack.
He gave himself a moment to draw breath and enjoy his triumph. The
murderous blow which had just missed me never left his intentions in
doubt, but in that moment he gave me time to use the last and only
weapon left to me. Snatching the big lamp, which flared afresh at my
grasp, I raised it aloft and brought it with a crash and tinkle on to
his head. For some time I could not understand what had happened, for
the room seemed in darkness and yet brighter than before. By the dancing
light of the fire I saw that Grayle had disappeared; and the table
yielded when I pushed against it. Then a blaze of yellow sprang up in
front of me, and I caught sight of him lying on his back with a flood of
burning oil spreading over his clothes, lapping the disorder of books
and papers which we had tumbled on to the floor and licking the border
of the Japanese mats. How much I had injured him with the lamp I could
not see; he was clasping his head with one hand and still gripping the
ruler with the other.
"Grayle, pull yourself together, man!" I cried, as though by raising my
voice I could penetrate his unconsciousness.
In a moment the flames would be pouring over his neck and face; in five
minutes, if the petrol cans were reached, the whole lath-and-plaster
shanty would be a roaring and crackling furnace. I had to extricate
Beresford and Grayle or rouse them to extricate themselves--and I
discovered that my body was trembling from the excitement of the duel
and that my head was aching savagely. I had hardly found time to think
of my injuries until then; to think of anything, indeed, but the next
thrust or parry; I had no idea how long the engagement had lasted--and
was astonished to find that less than twelve minutes had passed since
Grayle first entered the room.
"Pull yourself together!" I cried again, looking for my overcoat to wrap
round him and smother the flames. In the unevenly distributed light I
could not see it. The oil was sinking into the closely woven tunic
instead of flaring itself out on the surface, and above the pungent
smell of hot petroleum rose the more pungent smell of singeing cloth. I
caught him by the arm and tried to drag him towards the door, but at my
touch the body subconsciously grew rigid. I pulled again, and this time
he opened his eyes, frowned uncomprehendingly at me and then stared at
his blazing clothes with the stupid wonder of a drunken man trying to
remember how he came to his present plight.
"Water!" I roared. "Where shall I find water?"
He looked up at me and the expression of wonder gave place to dawning
recollection. In another moment his face was transformed. I was still
holding one arm, and he allowed himself to be pulled to a sitting
posture. Then leaving the flames to shoot vertically on to his neck and
face, he swung the ruler for a last blow on the side of my head. I
remember that I saw it coming; one's moods change so quickly that I was
aghast to find Grayle still intent on murder when I had forgotten all
that nonsense and only wanted to help him. It was so ungrateful.... And
it was so incredible! I did not even let go his arm or relax my
efforts....
The ruler struck where my head was already soft and bruised from its
late banging against Beresford's. I felt my knees slowly bending, my
body gently collapsing. Five and thirty years before a party of
second-year men had decided that no one's education was complete until
he had once at least had experience of intoxication. I was plied with a
very great deal of liquor, very scientifically mixed; and I remember
watching for the danger-signals of oncoming inebriation. Throughout the
evening I could think rationally and speak clearly; I was neither
excited nor noisy, neither elated nor depressed. I even played a game
of whist, I believe, and won a few shillings from my host. The parting
brandy and soda, however, hit me like a battering-ram; I subsided on the
ground with every muscle limp and, to my shame, crawled downstairs and
across the court on hands and knees. When Grayle's ruler brought me
down, the same partial paralysis of brain and body must have taken
place. I remember lying on my back with my knees in the air, I remember
turning on one side and raising myself on my hands; I remember crawling
with vast preoccupation to the door, feeling for the key, turning it
and, as I hope to be saved, noticing my skill in going down the short
flight of steps on all fours without pitching forward on to my head in
the passage.
Outside in the lane I paused to take breath and test my strength. By
leaning against the wall I could draw myself upright and follow a
stumbling course into the Brompton Road. A girl walking by on a
soldier's arm pointed at me and tittered; an elderly woman paused to
exclaim "Disgusting!" Otherwise no one took any interest in the
absorbing story which I could have told him--the fight, the fire.... I
turned round, all but over-balancing, to see whether the wooden
work-room was yet burned down; to my amazement there was no sign of a
single flame. Was that because you were not allowed to shew lights owing
to the war? There _was_ a war; someone had told me, or I had dreamed
it--or else I was astonishingly drunk.... Was I really trying to crawl
home from Mark Goldsworthy's rooms in King's? If so, I must have been
drunk for a very long time, for I had been dreaming all sorts of
things--dreaming that I had gone down from Cambridge, that I had done
this and that, that I was an elderly man.... It had been so vivid, this
life-story which I had dreamed in a few seconds, that I could see again
the bluest water in the world, which I knew to be the Caribbean Sea,
though no one could possibly have told me; and the approach to Colon
(what other name _could_ it have?) ...
Then I felt overpoweringly sick, but what else was to be expected when
Mark Goldsworthy had laid himself out to make me drunk? It was curious
that I should have been dining with him that night, because I knew that
he had been killed years later at Omdurman; or would be. Did he know? It
was an astounding piece of second-sight, if I knew the name of the
battle before it took place.... And how dreadful for poor Mark, who had
been at my tutor's! He was going to be killed accidentally, shot in the
back by one of his own men who had been wounded. I must never tell him
of course.... And how absurd it would all seem when I awoke, but at the
moment it was so real that I could not help believing it.... Could I or
could I not get on to my feet before I came to the gate? It would look
so bad if I were found bestially drunk before I had been a week at
Cambridge. Perhaps, if I hailed a taxi and got inside and curled myself
up on the floor, we could drive out of college unseen. It was worth
trying....
"Take me to the House of Commons, please," I said.
The man stared at me and laughed insolently. I was so tired that I could
hardly resent his manner.
"I'll pay you now, if that's what you mean," I said; and, feeling in my
pocket, I took out two half-crowns and closed the discussion by entering
the cab. He shrugged his shoulders, laughed again and pulled down the
flag of his meter; it was the last movement of which I was conscious
until he opened the door and jerked out over his shoulder,
"Here's the House of Commons."
We were by the entrance to the yard. I got out and asked him how much
the fare was.
"You've paid me once," he answered with a mixture of sympathy, cynical
amusement and sluggish concern. "You've been knocking about a bit, you
have."
I turned away and walked unsteadily along Millbank. I suppose my brain
was about three parts clear by now; I no longer fancied myself to be
leaving an undergraduate debauch of thirty-five years before. Somewhere
and somehow that night I had met with severe physical injuries; Grayle
was involved in it--and Beresford--and a strong smell of singeing, but
my head was aching too much to let me think consecutively. I wanted to
lie down and close my eyes, I would have lain down on the pavement but
for the rain (and I had lost hat, collar and coat at some point in this
nightmare evening) ... but for the rain and the risk of being thought
drunk. Anyone but a fool would have turned the head of the taxi and
driven home; I knew the hotel--though I could not give it a name, and
the number of my room; but I could only think of one thing at a time and
I longed before everything else to lie down on one of those long sofas
in "The Sanctuary" ... which was so near, too.
Some time later I remember standing with my watch in my hand, trying to
strike a match against a wet lamp-post.
Later still George Oakleigh was bending over me and trying to carry me
from the door-step into the house. He was in pyjamas, an overcoat and
slippers; I cracked some feeble joke about his hair, which was
unwontedly disordered; then I saw that I was speaking in atrocious
taste, because poor George had been in bed and asleep, and I had
unfeelingly disturbed him. I apologised, and he said that it was of no
consequence, but I had to apologise again and again, because I could not
let him be so magnanimous and, moreover, I was not at all sure that he
was accepting the apology.... He told me that I was ill and must not
excite myself. To shew him that I was not ill, I struggled to my feet
and walked into the house.
"No bones broken," he muttered. "Lie down, while I get you some brandy.
Is Matthews still your doctor?"
"I don't want a doctor, George," I said. "I shall be all right when I've
rested a bit."
He gave me nearly half a tumbler of neat brandy. As I drank it, I
experienced the most curious sensation of my life; as though a thick
cloth had been tied round my brain, I now felt it being gently
withdrawn. I saw the room steadily and could tell George not to look so
anxious; I remembered the forgotten chapters of the night, even to the
last stumble when I fell on the door-step and beat on the panels with my
fists until I became unconscious. Piece by piece my memory reconstructed
the changing scene; I wondered what had happened to Grayle and
Beresford, whether the fire had been put out, what people were
thinking....
I was too warm and drowsy to wonder long, but I remember saying very
distinctly and, as I thought, impressively,
"Don't get a doctor to me, George; and don't let anyone know I'm here."
Then I dropped asleep.
5
George came into the library next morning on his way to the Admiralty. I
was awake, because after an hour or two of sleep the physical exhaustion
which made it possible gave place to physical discomfort which
effectually banished it. My head had a collection of dull, throbbing
pains which played for a while, each by itself on its appointed spot,
and then joined hands and danced in a ring with an initial kick-off
under my swollen right ear; over the forehead they went and under the
back of the eyes, scampering to the nape of the neck, drawing breath and
toe-ing and heeling it to the starting place once more. I had a basin of
water by my sofa and relays of handkerchiefs which I dipped and spread
over my temples, but by three o'clock my arms had stiffened until I
could not bear to move them, and I spent the remainder of the night
turning from side to back and from back to side, trying to find some
surface of my body which did not feel as if the bones were running
through the flesh.
"I told Bertrand you were here," George said, "and the housekeeper, of
course. But _she_ won't say anything. How you got yourself into that
condition----"
He broke off and smiled at my cuts and bruises. Later in the day, when
I got a chance of looking at myself in a mirror, I could forgive his
smile.
"It's a long story, George," I said. "Leave it till my head feels a bit
clearer. And, once more, don't tell anyone I'm here. At the present time
I don't quite know what my civic status is, whether I'm a fugitive from
justice or what. Have you seen the papers? Is there anything that you
can fit me into?"
"I only had time to read the war news," he answered. "Look here, I've
given orders for a bed to be made up in Raney's room, and we'll shift
you, as soon as you feel like moving. Is there anything else you'd care
for?"
"The one thing I want is the papers," I said.
They were brought me ten minutes later by Bertrand, who strolled into
the library, raised his eye-brows and withdrew his cigar long enough to
give a short whistle of surprise.
"You're a pretty sight," he chuckled. "George said you wanted these. I
suppose you've been fighting the police and want to see if they're
advertising a description of you."
I hunted through the main news sheets, losing myself in columns of
official _communiqués_ and unofficial cabinetmaking, before I was
rewarded with a four-line paragraph:--
"Accident to Well-known M.P.," I read, and underneath the heading,
"A fire broke out last evening in the house of Lieutenant-Colonel
Vincent Grayle, M.P., in Milford Square. It is not known how the
conflagration originated and, at the time of going to press, it is
not possible to gauge the amount of damage done. We regret to say
that Colonel Grayle has sustained severe injuries, which might
easily have proved fatal. His condition is critical, and it is
feared that there may have been actual loss of life."
I put my thumb against the paragraph, handed it to Bertrand and resumed
my search. The "Times" and "Morning Post" contained no reference to the
fire, but the late London edition of the "Daily Gazette" gave me
plentiful reading matter and rich food for reflection. There was a
title, sub-title, headings to the paragraphs and a column and
three-quarters of close, descriptive print. It opened promisingly with
"Tragedy in M.P.'s House" and progressed through "Mystery Fire in
Milford Square" to an account which must have been supplied two-thirds
by Bannerman and the rest by the constable who had directed me to the
studio in the lane. Grayle's physical state or the delicacy of his
position had kept him from contributing anything.
The narrative, so far as I remember it, ran on these lines. Mr. Guy
Bannerman, who acted as secretary to Colonel Grayle, had been reading in
the smoking-room and went upstairs at about eleven o'clock. His bedroom
looked on to a strip of garden, and in making the window secure he had
observed that the curtains in the wooden loft over the garage were on
fire. After telephoning to the fire brigade, he had seized a jug of
water, hurried into the garden and tried to force his way into the loft.
The door was locked on the inside, however, and he had to run back and
round to a second door opening on to a lane at right angles to the
Brompton Road. The room, when at last he got into it, was a sea of fire.
Some years earlier it had been roughly fitted up as a work-room and was
filled with books, loose papers and maps. There was nothing to shew how
the fire had started nor how long it had been going on, but the papers
on the floor, the table-cloth and curtains, several straw mats and a fur
hearth-rug were blazing. However it had started, its destructive course
had been materially assisted by the oil from a big lamp which had been
overturned and broken. By the door the flames were fortunately less
fierce than at the far end of the room, or Bannerman would have been
unable to enter. He emptied his jug in front of him, ran down and
refilled it from the garage, emptied, filled and emptied it again until
the fire had been driven back a few yards. It was now possible for the
first time to see through the glare of the flames, and he was horrified
to catch sight of Grayle's body lying motionless half under the table.
Dragging him to the door, he was about to carry him downstairs when he
observed a second body on the far side of the fire-place. Then he
remembered that two men had called to see Colonel Grayle on business
half an hour before; he had assumed that they must have left before the
fire broke out, as it was inconceivable that three men should have been
unable to conquer the flames at the outset.
After carrying Grayle into the garage, Bannerman returned for the second
victim, whom he recognised as a young man named Beresford. Of the third
there was no sign in the front half of the room, and he had to go for
more water. The wooden walls had now caught fire, the book-cases and
chairs were smouldering and the oilcloth had blistered and cracked and
was smoking ominously. A very few minutes' work were to shew him that
one man armed with one bedroom jug could not even keep the flames from
spreading. He ran backwards and forwards drenching the floor with water,
but never clearing a path sufficient to allow of his advancing more than
a third of the way into the room. When the fire-engines arrived, the
flames had eaten through the walls and were licking the wooden gables of
the roof; they had licked to so great effect that the first jet of water
brought down a cascade of tiles and charred rafters.
While the hoses played, Bannerman looked to the men whom he had
succeeded in carrying out. Grayle was alive and breathing faintly,
though his clothes fell away in handfuls of black ash at the first
touch, and his face and head were shockingly burnt and disfigured.
Beresford gave no sign of life. His hair was singed and blackened where
he had fallen on his face against the bars of the grate; his clothes
were as much charred as Grayle's, but his body was almost unmarked, save
for a bruise over the heart, no doubt from contact with the point of the
fender. Death was probably due to asphyxiation; this was the unofficial
opinion of the doctor, pending the inquest. Partial and temporary
asphyxiation, indeed, was the only explanation why the three men had
not either put out the flames or escaped from the burning room.
There remained the second visitor, and, as soon as the fire had been put
out, Bannerman returned to the loft. By the light of a stable lantern,
it was possible to make a cautious search. Three-quarters of the roof
had disappeared, burnt away or fallen in heaps of broken tiles and
blackened timber on the floor or in the garden; the walls on two sides,
the floor at one end had disappeared equally. On what remained lay a
pile of charred table legs and chair backs, broken glass and blistered
deed-boxes, scorched books and odd, unidentified metal fastenings and
joints, the whole dripping and lapped with sinister black water.
Bannerman explored every inch of the wreckage and returned to the garage
empty-handed. At the end, where the ceiling had fallen in, a smaller
pile of wreckage reared itself fantastically on a platform of petrol
cans. A revolving book-case and a filing cabinet, charred but intact,
were half buried under broken tiles and blackened volumes of
Parliamentary Debates; a stout table leg and a small safe lay further
away; and there was the reeking half of a burnt fur-coat.
My interest in the "Daily Gazette" narrative quickened at this point.
Mr. Bannerman had admitted Beresford and another (whose name was not
given). They had tried the front door-unsuccessfully, because all the
servants were out for the night. A constable had suggested their going
round to the door in the lane; they had entered; there was no hint that
one had left before the other. No doubt in a few hours negative proof
would be forthcoming, but, until that appeared, or until a further
examination could be made, it was possible that the second visitor had
been a second victim.
"I'm afraid we've seen the last of young Beresford," I said to Bertrand.
"What's happened to him?" he asked.
"You haven't read this yet?" I said. "Well, wait till George comes back
at lunch-time, and I'll tell you the whole story. I rather fancy that a
good many people have seen the last of me. I say, Bertrand, have you
ever been present at a cremation?"
He looked at me sorrowfully.
"I should have thought you'd had enough trouble for one night," he said.
"I have, I can assure you. But my career of crime is in its
infancy--I'll explain all this at lunch;--I want to know what sort of
fire it takes to consume a human body so that there's no trace of flesh,
blood, hair, bone, clothing----"
"God knows!" he interrupted. "You'd better ring up Brookwood."
"I don't think I'm likely ever to ring up anyone again," I said--rather
rashly.
Some while before his usual hour George hurried in with a scared
expression and wondering, wide-open eyes. He was carrying the mid-day
editions of two or three evening papers, and I saw that I should not
have to explain much after all. The only point of interest to me was
that Colonel Grayle was not yet in a position to give any account of
what had happened.
"And, until he does," I told Bertrand and George, "I propose to keep
quiet, too. You see, there's unfortunately no doubt that he and I each
tried to kill the other and between us we've succeeded in killing
Beresford, though I can't say for certain if it was asphyxiation or the
blow on the heart. I'm responsible for that fire. When I see what story
Grayle puts up, I shall be better able to decide."
It was not going to be an easy explanation to frame, and the papers were
already beginning to wonder how two, and perhaps three, grown men could
be imprisoned in a room with two doors, one of them unlocked. If
Bannerman could get in some time later, they could have got out some
time earlier. I was only wondering why Bannerman had suppressed my name;
did Grayle think that he had _two_ lives on his conscience?
The evening papers gave a better account of him, though he was still
too weak to satisfy the curiosity of the reporters. They also reminded
their readers of his political career and the possibility of his being
included in the new government.
"Have you thought out your own position?" Bertrand asked me uneasily,
throwing aside his paper.
"I don't know that I have," I answered. "I'd sooner leave Grayle to
explain."
"H'm. You came here, stayed here--as much knocked about as you please,
raving, unconscious. But, when everyone in London's asking how the fire
broke out, no one in the house can find a word to say."
"If Grayle's unconscious, I'm unconscious," I answered. "He can invent
the explanation of the fire, and I'll stand by what he says."
Bertrand sat heavily on the foot of my bed with an expression of obvious
dissatisfaction.
"Every hour you stay here----"
"I don't pretend that it's ideal," I interrupted. "But I shall wait for
Grayle."
I was not allowed to wait for Grayle. And, if neither Bertrand nor I
were satisfied with my silence, we had no reason to be more satisfied
when I broke it. Yet I hardly see how I could help myself and I am sure
that on balance I do not regret my action. The morning papers next day
added little to the established facts and wide-ranging guess-work of the
evening before, though, as a humane man, I was glad to see that Colonel
Grayle's progress was as satisfactory as could be expected. There was a
brief report of the inquest on Beresford--death by misadventure, with
asphyxiation as the immediate cause, unsatisfied wonder on the Coroner's
part that such a fire could have taken place, coupled with regret that
Colonel Grayle was not well enough to give evidence. Of greater interest
to me was an obviously inspired hint that a new department was to be
formed for the control of recruiting and that Grayle was likely to be
made its head. If the announcement lacked novelty, its setting did not;
for the first time Grayle's own paper--he subsidised it, if he did not
in fact own the controlling majority of the shares--accepted
responsibility for the forecast.
I read the announcement about eleven in the morning. I thought over it
for perhaps half an hour. Then an idea came to me, which I was powerless
to resist. Without considering its effect on him or on myself, without
thinking of anything but that I meant to do this, had to do this, I
crawled out of bed and made my way painfully downstairs to the library.
I was astonishingly weak in body and I have good reason now to think
that I was a little light-headed at the time, but I am not looking for
excuses. When I had made sure that I had the library to myself, I
dragged two very stiff legs to the writing-table at the far end, sat
down and asked for Grayle's number on the telephone. It was repeated to
me, and I realised for the first time that I had not yet decided what to
say. And, before I could collect my thoughts, a woman's voice was
exclaiming rather impatiently,
"Hullo! Yes! Hullo!"
"I want to speak to Colonel Grayle," I said.
"I'm sorry to say Colonel Grayle is ill."
"It's essential that I should speak to him. Will you please have me put
through to his room?"
There was a perceptible pause, and I chose to fancy that my voice had
sounded impressive.
"Er, who shall I say it is?" she asked.
"It will be enough, if you say that it's very urgent."
"I don't know that he's well enough to speak. Are you sure you can't
give me a message?"
"If he's well enough to take a message from you, he's well enough to
listen to it from me. Please be as quick as you can."
The pause this time was longer, there were mysterious metallic clicks
and buzzes; then a man's voice said,
"Hullo?"
"Is that Grayle?" I asked.
"Yes. Who's speaking?"
As he had not recognised my voice, I could leave recognition or avowal
to come later.
"It's about this announcement, Grayle," I went on.
"_Who_ is _speaking_?" he asked again with growing irritation.
"Your appointment, I mean. You know what will happen, if you take it;
you can't say you haven't been warned. I suggest that, before it's too
late----"
Faintly, as though the sound were coming through cotton wool, I heard a
muffled cry. I waited, but there was no other sound.
"Grayle?" I began again.
But there was still no sound.