Mr. Satterthwaite quoted gravely: "_A chemical reaction depending for
its success on the presence of a certain substance which itself remains
unchanged_."
"Oh!" said the young man uncertainly.
"I have a certain friend--his name is Mr. Quin, and he can best be
described in the terms of catalysis. His presence is a sign that things
are going to happen; because he is there strange revelations come to
light, discoveries are made. And yet--he himself takes no part in the
proceedings. I have a feeling that it was my friend you met here last
night."
"He's a very sudden sort of chap then. He gave me quite a shock. One
minute he wasn't there and the next minute he was! Almost as though he
came up out of the sea."
Mr. Satterthwaite looked along the little plateau and down the sheer
drop below.
"That's nonsense, of course," said the other. "But it's the feeling he
gave me. Of course, really, there isn't the foothold for a fly." He
looked over the edge. "A straight, clear drop. If you went over--well,
that would be the end right enough."
"An ideal spot for a murder, in fact," said Mr. Satterthwaite
pleasantly.
The other stared at him, almost as though for the moment he did not
follow. Then he said vaguely, "Oh! yes--of course."
He sat there, making little dabs at the ground with his stick and
frowning. Suddenly Mr. Satterthwaite got the resemblance he had been
seeking. That dumb, bewildered questioning. _So had the dog looked
who was run over._ His eyes and this young man's eyes asked the same
pathetic question with the same reproach. "_Oh! world that I have
trusted--what have you done to me?_"
He saw other points of resemblance between the two, the same
pleasure-loving, easy-going existence, the same joyous abandon to
the delights of life, the same absence of intellectual questioning.
Enough for both to live in the moment--the world was a good place, a
place of carnal delights--sun, sea, sky--a discreet garbage heap. And
then--what? A car had hit the dog. What had hit the man?
The subject of these cogitations broke in at this point, speaking,
however, more to himself than to Mr. Satterthwaite. "One wonders," he
said, "what it's all for."
Familiar words--words that usually brought a smile to Mr.
Satterthwaite's lips, with their unconscious betrayal of the innate
egoism of humanity, which insists on regarding every manifestation
of life as directly designed for its delight or its torment. He did
not answer, and presently the stranger said with a slight, rather
apologetic laugh:
"I've heard it said that every man should build a house, plant a tree,
and have a son." He paused and then added, "I believe I planted an
acorn once--"
Mr. Satterthwaite stirred slightly. His curiosity was aroused--that
ever-present interest in the affairs of other people of which the
duchess had accused him was roused. It was not difficult. Mr.
Satterthwaite had a very feminine side to his nature; he was as good
a listener as any woman, and he knew the right moment to put in a
prompting word. Presently he was hearing the whole story.
Anthony Cosdon, that was the stranger's name, and his life had been
much as Mr. Satterthwaite had imagined it. He was a bad hand at telling
a story but his listener supplied the gaps easily enough. A very
ordinary life--an average income, a little soldiering, a good deal of
sport whenever sport offered, plenty of friends, plenty of pleasant
things to do, a sufficiency of women. The kind of life that practically
inhibits thought of any description and substitutes sensation. To speak
frankly, an animal's life. _But there are worse things than that_,
thought Mr. Satterthwaite from the depths of his experience. _Oh! many
worse things than that._ This world had seemed a very good place to
Anthony Cosdon. He had grumbled because everyone always grumbled, but
it had never been a serious grumble. And then--_this_.
He came to it at last--rather vaguely and incoherently. Hadn't felt
quite the thing--nothing much. Saw his doctor, and the doctor had
persuaded him to go to a Harley Street man. And then--the incredible
truth. They'd tried to hedge about it--spoke of great care--a quiet
life, but they hadn't been able to disguise that that was all
eyewash--letting him down lightly. It boiled down to this--six months.
That's what they gave him. Six months.
He turned those bewildered brown eyes on Mr. Satterthwaite. It was, of
course, rather a shock to a fellow. One didn't--one didn't somehow,
know what to _do_.
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded gravely and understandingly.
It was a bit difficult to take in all at once, Anthony Cosdon went on.
How to put in the time. Rather a rotten business waiting about to get
pipped. He didn't feel really ill--not yet. Though that might come
later, so the specialist had said--in fact it was bound to. It seemed
such nonsense to be going to die when one didn't in the least want to.
The best thing, he had thought, would be to carry on as usual. But
somehow that hadn't worked.
Here Mr. Satterthwaite interrupted him. Wasn't there, he hinted
delicately, any woman?
But apparently there wasn't. There were women, of course, but not that
kind. His crowd was a very cheery crowd. They didn't, so he implied,
like corpses. He didn't wish to make a kind of walking funeral of
himself. It would have been embarrassing for everybody. So he had come
abroad.
"You came to these islands? But why?" Mr. Satterthwaite was hunting for
something, something intangible but delicate that eluded him and yet
which he was sure was there. "You've been here before, perhaps?"
"Yes." He admitted it almost unwillingly. "Years ago when I was a
youngster."
And suddenly, almost unconsciously so it seemed, he shot a quick glance
backward over his shoulder in the direction of the villa.
"I remembered this place," he said, nodding at the sea. "_One step to
eternity!_"
"And that is why you came up here last night," finished Mr.
Satterthwaite calmly.
Anthony Cosdon shot him a dismayed glance. "Oh! I say--really--" he
protested.
"Last night you found someone here. This afternoon you have found me.
Your life has been saved--twice."
"You may put it that way if you like--but damn it all, it's _my_ life.
I've a right to do what I like with it."
"That is a cliché," said Mr. Satterthwaite wearily.
"Of course I see your point," said Anthony Cosdon generously.
"Naturally you've got to say what you can. I'd try to dissuade a
fellow myself, even though I knew deep down that he was right. And you
know that I'm right. A clean, quick end is better than a lingering
one--causing trouble and expense and bother to all. In any case it's
not as though I had anyone in the world belonging to me--"
"If you had?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite sharply.
Cosdon drew a deep breath. "I don't know. Even then, I think, this way
would be best. But anyway--I haven't--"
He stopped abruptly. Mr. Satterthwaite eyed him curiously. Incurably
romantic, he suggested again that there was, somewhere, some woman. But
Cosdon negatived it. He oughtn't, he said, to complain. He had had, on
the whole, a very good life. It was a pity it was going to be over so
soon, that was all. But at any rate he had had, he supposed, everything
worth having. Except a son. He would have liked a son. He would like to
know now that he had a son living after him. Still, he reiterated the
fact, he had had a very good life.
It was at this point that Mr. Satterthwaite lost patience. Nobody, he
pointed out, who was still in the larval stage, could claim to know
anything of life at all. Since the words "larval stage" clearly meant
nothing at all to Cosdon, he proceeded to make his meaning clearer.
"You have not begun to live yet. You are still at the beginning of
life."