THE SIXTH SENSE
"There was no sound at all within the room. But ... he
saw a woman's face.
"He saw it quite clearly for perhaps five seconds, the
face rising white from the white column of the throat, the
dark and weighty coronal of the hair, the curved lips
which alone had any colour, the eyes, deep and troubled,
which seemed to hint a prayer for help which they
disdained to make--for five seconds, perhaps, the illusion
remained, for five seconds the face looked out at him ...
lit palely, as it seemed, by its own pallor, and so
vanished."
A.E.W. MASON: "Miranda of the Balcony."
Neither by inclination nor habit am I more blasphemous or foul-mouthed
than my neighbour, but I should not relish being ordered a year in
Purgatory for every occasion on which I repeated "Damn you, Seraph!"
in the course of the following nineteen or twenty hours.
It was nearly midnight when we left Adelphi Terrace, and I had in my
own mind fixed one hour as the maximum duration of my patience or
willingness to humour a demented neurotic. Thirty minutes out, thirty
minutes back, and then the Seraph would go to bed, if I had to keep
him covered with my revolver. _En parenthèse_, I wish I could break
myself of the habit of carrying loaded firearms by night. In the
settled, orderly Old Countries it is unnecessary; in the West it is
merely foolish. I should be the richer by the contents of six
chambers before I had time to draw on the quick, resourceful child of
a Western State.... Nevertheless, my revolver and I are inseparable.
We started down the Strand, along the Mall, past Buckingham Palace,
and through Eaton Square to the Cadogan Estate. This was what I ought
to have expected, if I had had time to sort out my expectations. The
Seraph stood for a few minutes looking up at the Rodens' slumbering
house, and then walked slowly eastward into Sloane Street.
"Shall we go back now?" I suggested, in the voice one uses to deceive
a child.
"I'm not mad, Toby," he answered, like a boy repeating a lesson. "I
must find Sylvia."
He wandered into Knightsbridge, hesitated, and then set out at an
uncertain three miles an hour along the border of the park towards
Kensington. I realized with a sinking heart that he was heading for
Chiswick.
"Better leave it till the morning, Seraph," I urged, with a hand on
his shoulder. "She'll be in bed, and we mustn't disturb her."
He shook me off, and wandered on--hands in pocket and eyes to the
ground. Twice I thought he would have blundered into an early
market-cart, but catastrophe was averted more by the drivers' resource
than any prudence on his own part. As we left Kensington and trudged
on through the hideous purlieus of Hammersmith, I began to visualize
our arrival at the Fräulein's house, and my stammering, incoherent
apologies for my companion's behaviour.
The deferential speech was not required. On entering Chiswick High
Street we should have turned to the right up Goldhawk Road, and then
taken the second or third turning to the left into Teignmouth
Terrace. The Seraph plodded resolutely on, looking neither to the
right nor left, through Hounslow, past the walls of Sion Park and the
gas-works of Brentford, into Colnbrook and open country. There was no
reason why he should not follow the great road as far as the Romans
had built it--and beyond. Night was lifting, and the stars paled in
the blue uncertain light of early dawn.
I gripped him by the shoulders and made him look me in the face.
"We're going back now," I said.
"_You_ can."
"You're coming with me."
"I must find Sylvia."
"If you'll come back now, I'll take you to her in the morning."
"I'm not a child, Toby, and I'm not mad."
"You're behaving as if you were both."
"I must find Sylvia," he repeated, as though that were an answer to
every conceivable question.
"If you're sane," I said, "you can appreciate the insanity of walking
from London to Bath in search of a girl who may be in Scotland or on
the Gold Coast for all you know. She's as likely to be in the Mile End
Road as on the Bath Road. Why not look there? It's nearer Adelphi
Terrace, at all events."
He looked at me for a moment reproachfully, as though his last friend
had failed him, then turned and plodded westward....
"God's truth!" I cried. "Where are you off to?"
"I must find Sylvia," he answered.
"But where? Where?"
"I don't know."
"Why this God-stricken road rather than another?"
"She came along here."
"How do you know?"
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
"She did," was all he would answer.
It was near Langley that I threatened him with personal injury. He had
quickened his pace and shot slightly ahead of me. I have never been of
a fleshy build, and with the exception of excessive cigar-smoking, my
tastes are moderate. On the other hand, I never take exercise save
under compulsion, or walk a mile if I can possibly ride, drive, or
fly. We had covered some twenty miles since leaving home, my feet
seemed cased in divers' boots, my mouth was parched with thirst, and I
was ravenously hungry.
"Are you sane?" I asked, as I caught him up.
"As sane as I ever am."
"Then you will understand my terms. We are going to leave the main
road and walk straight to Langley Station. We are going to take the
first train back to town, and we are...."
"You can," he interrupted.
"You will come with me. Don't tell me you have to find Sylvia, because
it will be waste of breath. I have here a six-chambered revolver,
loaded. Unless you come to the station with me, here and now, I shall
empty one chamber into each of your legs. And if any one thinks I'm
murdering you, I shall say I'm in pursuit of a dangerous lunatic. And
when they see you, they'll believe me."
He looked at me for perhaps half a second, and then walked on. It was,
I suppose, the answer I deserved.
It came as a surprise to me when he accepted my breakfast proposition
at Slough. I put his assent down to sheer perversity, for I should
have breakfasted in any case. My mind was made up. I would ask him for
the last time to accompany me back to London, and if he refused I
would return to Adelphi Terrace and bed, leaving him to follow the
sun's path till he pitched head-foremost into the Bristol Channel....
I breakfasted unwashed, unshaven, dusty, at full length on a sofa in a
private room, simmering with grievance and irritability.
"_Now_ then," I said, as I lit a cigar, threw the Seraph another, and
turned to a Great Western time-table.
"I must be getting on," he answered, giving me back my cigar.
"Just a moment," I said. "Up-trains, Sundays. Up-trains, week-days.
Ten-fifteen. Horses and carriages only. Ten-thirty; that'ull do me.
I'll walk with you as far as the cross-roads."
I was so angry with myself and him that we parted without a word or
shake of the hand. I watched him striding westward in the direction of
Salt Hill, and carried my temper with me towards the station. The
first twenty yards were covered at a swinging, resolute pace, the
second more slowly. I was still far from the station when an absurd,
irritating sensation of shame brought me to a standstill. Mad,
unreasonable as I knew him to be, the more I thought of the Seraph,
the less I liked the idea of leaving him in his present state. The
sight of a garage, with cars for hire, decided me. I ordered one for
the day, with the option of renewing on the same terms as long as I
wanted it.
"Take the money while you can get it," I warned the proprietor, with
the petulance of a tired man. "With luck you'll next hear of me from
the inside of a padded cell. Now!" I said to the driver, "listen very
carefully. I'm about as angry as a man can be. Here are two sovereigns
for yourself; take them, and say nothing, whatever language you may
hear me use. I want you to drive along the Bath Road until you see a
young man in a grey tweed suit walking along with his eyes on the
ground. You're to keep him in sight wherever he goes. _He's_ mad, and
_I'm_ mad, and _everybody's_ mad. Follow him, and address a remark to
me at your peril. I've been up all night, I've walked from London to
Slough, and I'm now going to sleep."
My orders called forth not so much as the lift of an eyebrow. The
difference between eccentricity and madness may be measured in pounds
sterling. A rich man is never mad in England, unless, of course, his
heirs-at-law cast wistful glances at the pounds sterling. In that case
there will be an Inquisition and a report to the Masters.... My driver
left me to slumber undisturbed.
I slept only in snatches. The car would run a mile, pass the Seraph,
pull up, wait, start forward and stop again. Once I invited him to
come aboard, but he shook his head. I dozed, and dreamed, and woke,
asking the driver what had come of our quarry.
"He's following, sir," he told me.
I was struck with an ingenious idea.
"At the next cross-roads," I said, "turn off to the right or left,
drive a hundred yards and pull up. If he follows, we'll lead him round
in a circle and draw him back to London."
We shot ahead, turned and waited. In time a dusty figure came in sight
trudging wearily on. At the cross-roads he came for a moment into full
view, and then passed out of sight along the Bath Road without so
much as throwing a glance in the direction of the car.
"Damn you, damn you, damn you, Seraph!" I said, as I ordered the
driver to start once more in pursuit.
At Taplow the dragging feet tripped and brought him down. Through a
three-cornered tear in the leg of his trousers I could see blood
flowing freely; his hands were cut and his forehead bruised, but he
once more rejected my offer of a seat in the car. Opposite Skindles he
stumbled again, but recovered himself and tramped on over the bridge,
into Maidenhead, and through the crowded, narrow High Street.
Passers-by stared at the strange, dusty apparition; he was too
absorbed to notice, I too angry to be resentful.
It was as we mounted Castle Hill and worked forward towards Maidenhead
Thicket that I noticed his pace increasing. A steady four miles an
hour gave way to intermittent spells of running. I heard him panting
as he came alongside the car, and the rays of a July afternoon sun
brought beads of sweat to glisten dustily on his lips and forehead.
"Wait here," I said to the driver as we came to the fringe of the
Thicket. To our right stretched the straight, white Henley Road; ahead
of us lay Reading and Bath.
The Seraph trotted up, passed us without a word or look, and stumbled
on towards Reading.
"Forward!" I said to the driver, and then countermanded my order and
bade him wait.
Twenty yards ahead of us the Seraph had come to a standstill, and was
casting about like a hound that has overshot the scent. I watched him
pause, and heard the very whimper of a hound at fault. Then he walked
back to the fork of the road, gazed north-west towards Henley, and
stood for a moment on tiptoe with closed eyes, head thrown back and
arms outstretched like a pirouetting dancer.
I waited for him to fall. I say "waited" advisedly, for I could have
done nothing to save him. I ought to have jumped out, called the
driver to my aid, tied hands and feet, and borne my prisoner back to
London and a madhouse. Throughout the night and morning, well into the
afternoon, I had cursed him for one lunatic and myself for another. My
own madness lay in following him instead of shrugging my shoulders and
leaving him to his fate. His madness ... as I watched the strained
pose of nervous alertness, I wondered whether he was so mad after all.
With startling suddenness the rigid form relaxed, eyes opened, head
fell forward, arms dropped to the body. He ran fifty yards along the
road, hesitated, plunged blindly through a clump of low gorse bushes,
and fell prone in the middle of a grass ride.
"Stop where you are!" I called to the driver as I ran down the road
and turned into the bridle-path.
The Seraph was lying with one foot caught in a tangle of bracken. He
was conscious, but breathed painfully. I helped him upright, supported
him with an arm round the body, and tried to lead him back to the car.
"This way!" he gasped, pointing down the ride. Half a mile away I
caught sight of a creeper-covered bungalow--picturesque, peaceful,
inanimate, but with its eastern aspect ruined by the presence of a new
corrugated iron shed. I judged it to be a garage by the presence of
green tins of motor spirit.
"She's there--Sylvia!" he panted, slowly recovering his breath as we
walked down the bridle-path. "Go in and get her. Make them give her
up!"
I looked at his torn, dusty clothes, his white face and dizzy eyes. At
the fork of the road I had come near to being converted. It was
another matter altogether to invade a strange house and call upon an
unknown householder to yield up the person of a young woman who ought
not to be there, who could only be there by an implied charge of
felonious abduction, who probably was not there, who certainly was not
there.... I am at heart conventional, decorous, sensitive to ridicule.
"We can't," I said weakly. "It's a strange house; we don't know that
she's there; we might expose ourselves to an action for slander...."
He walked to the gate of the garden, freed himself from the support of
my arm, and marched up to the front door. I took inglorious cover
behind a walnut-tree and heard him knock. There was a pause. A window
opened and closed; another pause, and the sound of feet approaching.
Then the door opened.
"I have come for Miss Roden," I heard him say.
"Roden? Miss Roden? No one of that name lives here."
The voice was that of a woman, and I tried to catch sight of the face.
I had heard that voice before, or one suspiciously like it.
"I will give you two minutes to produce Miss Roden."
The answering voice quivered with sudden indignation.
"You must be intoxicated. Take your foot out of the door and go away,
or I'll call a man and have you given in charge."
The voice, rising in shrill, tremulous excitement, would have added
something more, but was silenced by a fit of coughing. I left my
walnut-tree, pushed open the gate, and arrived at the bungalow door
as the coughing ceased and a handkerchief dabbed furtively at a fleck
of bright red froth.
"Miss Draper, I believe?" I said.
She looked at me in surprise.
"That is my name."
"We met at Miss Davenant's house in Chester Square. Don't apologize
for not remembering me, we were never introduced. I just caught your
name. We have called...."
"Is this person a friend of yours?" she asked, pointing a contemptuous
finger at the Seraph.
"He is. We have called for Miss Roden."
"She is not here."
"One minute gone," said the Seraph, watch in hand.
Miss Draper turned her head and called to some one inside the house. I
think the name was "John."
"I am armed," I warned her.
She paid no attention.
"One minute and a half," said the Seraph.
I put my hand out to cover the watch, and addressed Miss Draper.
"I don't think you appreciate the strength of our position," I began.
"You are no doubt aware that the office of the _New Militant_ has been
raided; your friend Mrs. Millington has been arrested, and there is a
warrant out against your other friend, Miss Davenant."
"They haven't caught her," said Miss Draper, defiantly.
I could almost forgive her when I saw the look of doglike fidelity
that the mention of Joyce's name brought into her eyes.
"Do you know where she is?" asked the Seraph.
"I shan't say."
"I think it probable that you do _not_ know," I answered. "Miss
Davenant is critically ill, and is lying at the present time in my
friend's flat."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. The flat is already
suspected and watched."
"Why don't they search it?"
"Because England is a corrupt country," I said, boldly inventing. "I
have what is called a friend at Court. Miss Davenant's sister--Mrs.
Wylton--is an old friend of mine, and I wish to spare her the pain of
seeing Miss Davenant arrested--in a critical condition--if it can be
avoided. My friend at Court has been persuaded to suspend the issue of
a search-warrant, if Miss Roden and the others are restored to their
families before midnight to-night. I may say in passing that if Miss
Davenant were arrested, tried and imprisoned, it would be no more than
she richly deserved. However, I do not expect you to agree with me.
Out of regard to Mrs. Wylton we have come down here. I need not say
how we found Miss Roden was being kept here----"
"She is not."
I sighed resignedly.
"You wish Miss Davenant to be given up?"
"You don't know where Miss Davenant is, and I do."
It was bluff against bluff, but we could go on no longer on the old
lines. I produced my revolver as a guarantee of determination,
pocketed it once more, pushed my way past her as gently as I could,
waited for the Seraph to follow, and then closed the door.
"I am now going to search the house," I told Miss Draper. "This is
your last chance. Tell me where Miss Roden is, and I will compound a
felony, and let you and every one else in the house escape. Put a
single obstacle in my way, and I will have the lot of you arrested.
Which is it to be?"
She started to tell me again that Sylvia was not there. I made a step
across the room and saw her cover her face with her hands. The battle
was over.
"Where is she?" I demanded, thanking God that it has not often been my
lot to fight with women.
Miss Draper pointed to a door on the left of the hall; the key was in
the lock.
"No tricks?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"You had better make yourself scarce."
Even as I put my hand to the door she vanished into the back of the
house. I heard the sound of an engine starting, and rushed out to see
if I had even now been outwitted. The garrison was driving out hatless
and coatless, stripped of all honours of war; in the driving-seat sat
my friend the bearded priest of the Orthodox Church, his beard
somewhat awry. Miss Draper was beside him; there was no one else.
I returned to the hall--where the Seraph was sleeping upright against
the wall--opened the door and entered a darkened room. As my eyes grew
accustomed to the subdued light, I traced the outline of a window, and
drew back the curtains. The sun flooded in, and showed me that I stood
in a bedroom. A table with an untasted meal stood against one wall; by
the other was a camp bedstead. At length on the bed, fully dressed but
blindfolded, gagged, and bound hand and foot, lay Sylvia Roden.
I cut the cords, tore away the bandages, and watched her rise stiffly
to her feet. Then I shut the door and stood awkwardly at the window,
while she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
It was soon over, but she was the better for it. I watched her drink
three tumblers of water and seize a crust of dry bread. It appeared
that she had conducted a hunger-strike of her own for the last
twenty-four hours; and I think she looked it. Her face was white with
the whiteness of a person who has been long confined in a small, dark
room. A bruise over one temple showed that her captors had had to deal
with a woman of metal, and her wrists were chafed and cut with the
pressure of the cords. Worst of all was her change of spirit; the
voice had lost its proud ring of assurance, the dark eyes were
frightened. Sylvia Roden was almost broken.
"You didn't expect to see me, Sylvia," I said, as I buttered the stale
crusts to make them less unappetizing.
She shook her head without answering.
"Did you think no one was ever coming?"
She looked at me still with the frightened expression in her eyes.
"No."
The uncertainty of her tone made me wonder whom she had been
expecting. My question was answered before I could ask it.
"How did you find me?"
"The Seraph brought me here."
Her pale cheeks took on a tinge of colour.
"Where is he?" she asked.
"Outside."
"I must go to him!" she exclaimed, jumping up and then swaying
dizzily.
I pressed her back into her chair.
"Wait till you've had some food," I said, "and then I'll bring him
in."
"But I don't want any more."
"Sylvia," I said firmly, "if you're not a good girl we shan't rescue
you another time."
She ate a few slices of bread and butter while I gave her an outline
of our journey down from London. Then we went out into the hall. The
Seraph had collapsed from his upright position, and was lying in a
heap with his head on the floor. I carried him out of the hall and
laid him on the bed in Sylvia's prison. His heart was beating, but he
seemed to have fallen into a deep trance. Sylvia bent down and kissed
the dusty forehead. Then her eyes fell on a faint red mark running
diagonally from one cheek-bone, across the mouth, to the point of the
chin. She had started crying again when I left the room in search of
brandy.
I stayed away as long as I thought necessary to satisfy myself that
there were no other prisoners in the house. When I came back, the
tears were still wet on her cheeks, and she was bathing his face and
waiting for the eyes to open.
"Your prison doesn't run to brandy," I told her. "We must get him to
Maidenhead, and I'll give him some there. I've got a car waiting about
half a mile away. Will you look after him while I fetch it?"
"Don't be long," she said, with an anxious look at the white, still
face.
"No longer than I can help. Here's a revolver in case any one wants to
abduct either of you. It's loaded, so be careful."
I placed the revolver on the table and picked up my hat.
"Sylvia!" I said at the door.
"Yes?"
"Can you be trusted to look after him properly?"
She smiled for the first time since her release from captivity.
"I think so," she said. Then the voice quavered and she turned away.
"He's rather precious."
The car was brought to the door, and the driver--who, after all, had
been paid not to be surprised--looked on unemotionally as we carried
the Seraph on board. I occupied an uncomfortable little seat backing
the engine, while Sylvia sat in one corner and the Seraph was propped
up in the other.
On the way back I was compelled to repeat _in extenso_ the whole story
of our search, from the hour we left Adelphi Terrace to the moment
when Miss Draper bolted with the Orthodox Church priest and I forced
my way into the darkened prison cell.
Sylvia's face was an interesting study in expression as the narrative
proceeded.
"But how could he _know_?" she asked in a puzzled tone when I had
ended. "You must explain that. I don't see how it's possible."
"Madam, I have provided you with a story," I replied in the manner of
Dr. Johnson; "I am not obliged to provide you with a moral."
As a matter of fact I had reversed the natural order, and given the
moral before the story. The moral was pointed when I drank a friendly
cup of tea in Cadogan Square; the day before she marked his cheek with
its present angry wale.
Of course, if you point morals before there's a story to hang them
from, you must expect to see them disregarded.