I stood still, held my breath, and listened. The scratching was
repeated, prolonged. It was gentle, surreptitious almost, yet
insistent, a summons to me to return.
Again my body sickened. I was physically afflicted. Nausea seized me.
But now my mind rose up and protested against the condition, against
the domination of my body, like a thing angry and ashamed. Suddenly I
took a resolution. I would open the door without delay in answer to the
appeal of the black spaniel. Swiftly I went back to the door, grasped
the handle, turned it, pushed. The door resisted me. It was locked.
As I realised this I heard from within the desolate whining of a dog
imprisoned.
“Luttrell! Luttrell!”
Vernon’s voice called to me from above, and at the same time I heard a
footstep. Cragg was coming down. I moved swiftly back into the hall and
met him. He glanced at me inquiringly, looked down the passage, then
at me again. His face for an instant was eloquent with inquiry—with—was
it sympathy? Then he was once more the discreet servant, saying in a
formal voice—
“Please come up, Sir; Mr. Kersteven will be very glad to see you.”
Vernon met me on the landing by the drawing-room door. I saw at once
that he was not well. His face was very pale, and had a peculiar look,
as if the skin were drawn upward towards the wrinkled forehead, which I
had sometimes noticed in people suffering from prolonged insomnia. It
gave a horribly strained appearance to his countenance, in which the
eyes looked unnaturally eager and full of curious observation.
“Were you in the hall?” he said, taking my hand for the fraction of an
instant, and then dropping it as if with relief.
“I waited in the hall,” I replied evasively.
“You were there then while Cragg was up here?”
“He asked me to wait there,” I said. “While he went to see if you were
well enough to receive me. I’m sorry to hear you’re seedy.”
“Oh, it’s of no consequence. Come in.”
We went into the drawing-room.
“What’s been the matter?” I asked, as we sat down.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been overworking, I suppose.”
“With Gernham?” I said.
“Gernham!”—he looked at me narrowly. “You—have you seen Gernham to-day?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
He sat silent for a moment. I could see that he was hesitating whether
to tell me about his breach with Gernham or not.
“How d’you like Gernham?” he said at length. “He likes you. He told me
so.”
“I know him very slightly, but one can’t help respecting such a genuine
fellow,” I replied.
“Genuine—yes, he’s that.”
“If he undertook a thing, nothing would stop him from going through
with it.”
“You think so?”
He slightly smiled.
“But suppose he were to encounter an opposition as thorough as his own
attack? What then?”