IV

Throughout all the early months of that year I was almost heading for a

breakdown myself. I certainly hope that I shall never have to work so

hard again. In a sort of way it was Severn's fault, though he meant well

enough, just as he had meant well enough in getting Terry fixed up with

Karelsky. But Severn was like that; he'd help you so carelessly that

unless you used remarkably shrewd judgment of your own the help might

turn out to be a hindrance. On this occasion he got for me the

editorship of a rather decadent weekly that had already killed or

bankrupted my predecessors and would have done the same to me if I

hadn't thrown up the sponge after three months' hard labour. The

wretched thing gave me no proper time for meals and sleep, let alone for

Hindhead week-ends and the novel about Terry. From Christmas till Easter

I don't think I added a word.

There was, perhaps, another reason for this besides pressure of

business. Terry's continued slackness and inertia disappointed me, and

(I may as well confess it) I began to wonder if he were altogether the

man I had taken him for. Anyhow, if he were going to stay on

indefinitely at the Valley Hotel, I didn't see how I could write a

readable novel about him, unless I chose to end it fictitiously. I

remember, during the few spare moments I had during those days, making

drafts of such possible endings; one of them was that Severn should die

under an operation, and that Terry and Helen, after suitable novelistic

adventures, should marry and end the book happily. Another dragged Mizzi

back into the story, and I think this was the one I should have

favoured, chiefly because the character of Mizzi always appealed to me

But I hadn't time for any of them, which was perhaps just as well.

Karelsky landed, I recollect, in mid-April, and from his first moment on

English soil was never without a posse of newspaper-men at his heels. I

had several chances of meeting him professionally, but avoided them all;

it wasn't possible, unfortunately, to avoid the constant references to

him on placards, in the press, and from platform and pulpit. For over a

week he had Fleet Street positively begging him for copy, and all he

gave in return for fabulous cheques was a vast quantity of worthless

self-advertisement. I found myself loathing the man and his methods so

intensely that I even tried to persuade my proprietors to let me run a

campaign against him in my paper; fortunately for me, in view of what

happened subsequently, they refused.

On the opening day of the Conference the furore of newspaper adulation

rose to an impassioned shriek. In my little office in Gough Square I

took as small notice of it as I could; I wanted to forget, if possible,

that Karelsky existed. But when I went out for my usual cup of tea in

the afternoon, the newsboys were rushing up Bouverie Street with

placards announcing "Karelsky's Great Speech" and "Sensational Scene at

Medical Conference." For the first time for many years I didn't buy any

evening paper at all; I felt that to read of some new self-advertising

stunt of his would be almost unendurable. I worked at my office until

nearly eight, and then strolled quietly through Lincoln's Inn to my

rooms. There was a strange peace in that walk; the old Inn buildings and

the trees just budding into leaf were everything that Karelsky was

not.... I was calm by the time I climbed my own staircase and unlocked

the door. Roebuck was out, and in the letter-box there was a telegram.

It had been handed in at Glasgow at six-thirty that evening, and ran:

"Can you meet me four a.m. to-morrow Crewe Station urgent will look out

for you June ..."

V

Of course I went. As I packed a small hand-bag I thought of that other

telegram that had summoned me, less than a year before, to Vienna.

Crewe, at any rate, was not so far, and there was a suitable express

that left Euston at midnight. But I hadn't the faintest idea why June

could want me, and why she had been to Glasgow, and why she was coming

back to Crewe, and why, above all, she had thought the outrageous hour

of four a.m. most convenient for the appointment.

Nor is Crewe Station an altogether delightful rendezvous before dawn on

an April morning. My train dumped me down soon after three, and for over

an hour I walked up and down enormous lengths of platform and watched

mysterious shunting operations that seemed to provide the maximum of

noise with the minimum of result. Then a train came in from the north,

and out of it stepped June.

"I knew you'd come," she greeted me, smiling. But the odd thing was that

she was nervous; I could deduce that from the way she talked. "It's so

good of you," she went on, "although in the train I was wishing you

wouldn't be here, and that I hadn't sent you that wire, and--oh well,

you _are_ here, anyway, and it's no use arguing about it."

"The question is rather why _you_ are here."

"_Me_? Oh, that's easily explained. I've been doing business for my

father in Scotland, and to-day I've got to do some more for him in

Liverpool. I thought Crewe would be a good meeting-place."

"Charming," I assured her, and then we both laughed and said no more

till we were at a table in the refreshment-room. There her manner

altered; she became more serious and less nervous; her cheeks, too, were

slightly pale beneath their open-air tan. She declined food, saying that

she would take an early train to Liverpool and breakfast there. And so,

over cigarettes and cups of that dark and bitter liquid sold by railway

companies as coffee, she told me why she had sent for me.

"You've seen the papers, of course," she began.

I said I hadn't. The answer seemed to put her off; she replied, almost

resentfully: "I never thought you'd have missed them. About Karelsky, I

mean."

"_That_ man?" I told her frankly that I was sick of hearing and seeing

his name, and that I had deliberately avoided the papers because I knew

they were all full of it. She nodded slowly and said: "I'm afraid you'll

_have_ to read about him, all the same. Unfortunately I didn't bring a

paper with me.... It's this speech he made at the Conference yesterday."

"What about it?"

She stared at the table and said, after a pause: "I don't suppose you'll

believe me--especially as you haven't read the papers.... But what

happened--roughly--was this. Karelsky announced in his speech a new

discovery--about cancer--and everybody clapped and cheered and made a

hero of him. Apparently it's a big thing--this discovery."

"Well?"

She tried hard to be calm. "But the fact is--the fact is--it's not

really Karelsky's discovery at all!"

"No?"

"Not his, I tell you."

Even then I wondered what she was driving at. "Then whose is it?" I

asked.

"It's Terry's."

"_Terry's_? ... You mean----"

"Just exactly what I say. It's Terry's discovery."

It was minutes before I grasped what she meant, and then only hazily.

She had to keep on saying: "Terry's--not Karelsky's--don't you see what

I mean? Karelsky's stolen it. I've proof--loads of proof. I've been

copying out for the last month the very same stuff that Karelsky gave to

the Conference yesterday...." She tried to give me details, but they

weren't very coherent; she could only assure me that the theft was

flagrant and indisputable.

"Of course you don't believe me," she said. "I don't blame you. I hardly

believed myself when I found it out.... But it's true, all the same."

"You mean that what Karelsky's getting all the fame and credit for now

is something that Terry found out while he was in Vienna?"

"Presumably."

"Then, by God, we'll expose the man! We'll fight it out in the courts,

and we'll----"

"I guessed you would talk like that," she interrupted, half-smiling.

"But for the present there's an even more urgent matter to be settled.

And that's to do with Terry himself."

"He doesn't know yet?"

"Probably not. He doesn't read newspapers--perhaps it might be weeks

before he'd hear about it at all. But he's bound to know some time,

isn't he?"

"He _ought_ to know--so that he can fight it out----"

Again she half-smiled, and again, so it seemed to me, she had to make a

great effort for self-control. "I told you a little while ago," she said

quietly, "that he gave me the impression of having suffered blow after

blow. This is another blow--and perhaps the worst. How do you think

he'll stand it?"

I didn't answer, and she continued: "It's rather an awful thing--to have

your life-work stolen and used by somebody else. I wonder if you can

imagine it. I've tried to--and I think I can--just a little.... And I

pity him when he finds it out."

"How do you think he will find it out?"

"I'm going to see him the day after to-morrow."

"And tell him?"

"Yes. He'll have to learn--somehow and from somebody. And I think I can

tell him better than anybody else."

Then she told me why she had sent for me. "I felt I had to tell somebody

about it," she said, "and you were the only person I could think of."

She added: "That's a compliment, though it mayn't sound one. You can

guess how I felt--reading that speech and recognizing parts of it....

I'm so glad--_now_--that you came--it's doing me good to have this talk

with you...."

We talked on, but there wasn't much else to say. The Liverpool train

came in at an adjoining platform; I wanted her to stay for a later one,

but she wouldn't. Then I offered to go with her to Liverpool, but she

said (sensibly enough) that I had my own work to do and must get back to

it. Just before the train started she leaned out of the window and

touched my arm. "We mustn't let Terry go under, must we?" she said

eagerly. "This _may_ seem--when he hears about it--the last straw--but

he won't go under, will he?"

"Not if you can stop him, I know."

"And you," she insisted. She went on quickly: "I don't want to have all

the job to myself. You've got to help--we've all got to help.... You

_will_ help me, won't you?"

"All I possibly can," I answered, and she smiled happily as the train

separated us.