That night Lord Ottercove slept at The Cottage, and the following night
he spent in the country. It was not till he had got into bed on the
third night and turned over on his left side that he was aware of the
sound of rustling paper in his pyjama coat pocket, which, on inspection,
proved to be a letter, a _billet doux_ from his Eva. She was, she
wrote, with Christopher de Jones, who, as Rex probably knew, had gone
off his chump and had disintegrated the world, which was unravelling
rapidly of its own accord (“like a piece of crochet-work,” she wrote,
“if you know what I mean, whose first stitch he has undone,”) and she
had with difficulty persuaded him to isolate the top of a hill, which he
said he could do by vaccinating it, so to speak, against the spreading
corruption, to save her and himself, and she was now secretly indicating
the exact location of that hill in the Austrian Alps whither he, Rex,
should fly at once. He must not, however, bring anyone with him, as
there would be very little to eat. “_I told Him I’d like to have you
saved, but He won’t hear of it. I am furious. I told him all the Truth
that I have written to you. And He is Furious. Never mind, darling, if I
flirt with him perhaps He will not kill you. Your loving wife_
_Eva._”
Lord Ottercove never weighed or reflected: he knew. Light came to him
without intermediaries, direct from the Holy Ghost. He must save himself
_and Vernon Sprott_. Vernon Sprott was, since the death of a late Prime
Minister, his oldest friend, and friendship was to Ottercove a pure and
sacred thing. In other departments of life he had displayed a versatile
ability, but in friendship he was a genius. No coldness, lack of
response, animosity, or even treachery could dull his friendship. If he
once liked a man, nothing that that man might do to him would stop his
liking him. Equally, he would stop at nothing if he could render even
the smallest service to a friend. Lord Ottercove was said to have made
the war in order to oblige a friend whose special gifts, he thought,
would find their happiest expression in a war cabinet. His tenderness in
the cause of friendship knew no bounds. And so, entering hatless into
his chariot, he muttered the address of Mr. Vernon Sprott.
But when, his heart thumping within him, he dragged himself up to
Vernon’s study at the top of his house in Berkeley-square, Vernon Sprott
was writing a novel. Vernon Sprott was invariably writing a novel. That
was, according to the more esoteric critics, the special trouble with
him. And the special trouble to-night was that Vernon Sprott would not
stop writing the novel, hoping to finish, print, sell it, and retire on
the proceeds before the world came to its final dissolution. Lord
Ottercove beheld the broad industrious back of his friend, who made a
slave of himself to keep afloat a large yacht, and said: “Vernon, you’re
a writer of talent: but a merchant of genius.”
Vernon Sprott turned round on his chair. “You, Rex,” he said, looking at
him with critical thoughtfulness, “who have cut such a figure in the
visible world, why don’t you now turn your mind to the invisible
mystery of things and solve, say, the Riddle of the Universe?”
Lord Ottercove pondered silently awhile. “I cannot solve it,” he said.
Mr. Vernon Sprott turned back to his desk.
Lord Ottercove looked at his friend with grave significance. He loved
Vernon Sprott. All the music, all the poetry in the world was not so
strong nor yet so pure as this devotion of the younger for the elder
friend, and when he spoke of him his voice grew tender and tears came to
his eyes. “Vernon!” he said at last. “I am going to save your life! For,
you know, there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we
may. My chariot is at the door and” (looking at his watch) “we must
fly.”
“Let me put the last stroke to my novel.”
“I advise you against it.”
“Why?”
“Vernon: it would do you no good.”
“But I must. No first-class artist--”
“Vernon: we must fly.”
Vernon Sprott, smoking a long fat cigar, followed Lord Ottercove
critically into the chariot which, cutting sharply round the corner,
took wing, and clearing the roofs of the Berkeley-square houses, soared
into the sky. Lord Ottercove and Mr. Vernon Sprott beheld for the last
time the great city of London which, viewed from this imposing height,
looked as though it had been inadvertently dropped out of the back of a
cart. An architectural effect that, though it was not premeditated,
could hardly be called happy, thought Mr. Sprott. However. He puffed at
his cigar. “Your secretary and telephone operator gone ahead, I expect?”
“Yuh. Can’t get on without them.”
They were now flying right into the dawn.