On leaving the walk-up Jones discovered a restaurant that he judged
convenient and vile. But the convenience appealed, and the villainy of
the place did not extend to the telephone-book, which was the first
thing he ordered.
While waiting for it, it occurred to him that in a novel the death he
had witnessed would seem very pat. Why is life so artificial? he
wonderingly asked.
The query suggested another. It concerned not the decedent but his
daughter.
By the Lord Harry, he told himself, her linen shall not be washed in
public if I can prevent it, and what is the use in being a novelist if
you can't invent?
But now the book was before him. In it he found that Dunwoodie resided
near Columbia University. It was ages since he had ventured in that
neighbourhood, which, when finally he got there, gave him the agreeable
sensation of being in a city other than New York.
Hic Labor, Haec Quies, he saw written on the statue of a tall maiden,
and though, in New York, quiet is to be had only in the infrequent
cemeteries, deep down, yet with the rest of the inscription he had been
engaged all day.
Gravely saluting the maiden, who was but partly false, he passed on to
an apartment-house and to Dunwoodie's door, which was opened by
Dunwoodie himself. In slippers and a tattered gown, he was Hogarthian.
"I thought it a messenger!" he bitterly exclaimed.
Jones smiled at him. "When a man of your eminence is not wrong, he is
invariably right. I am a messenger."
In the voice of an ogre, Dunwoodie took it up. "What is the message,
sir?"
Jones pointed at the ceiling. Involuntarily, Dunwoodie looked up and
then angrily at the novelist.
"An order of release," the latter announced.
Dunwoodie glared. "I suppose, sir, I must let you in, but allow me to
tell you----"
Urbanely Jones gestured. "Pray do not ask my permission, it is a
privilege to listen to anything you may say."
Dunwoodie turned. Through a winding hall he led the way to a room in
which a lane went from the threshold to a table. The lane was bordered
with an underbush of newspapers, pamphlets, magazines. Behind the
underbush was a forest of books. Beside the table were an armchair and a
stool. From above, hung a light. Otherwise, save for cobwebs, the room
was bare and very relaxing.