II
“This throws a quite unexpected burden on our resources,” said Wither to Frost, where they both sat in the outer room with the door ajar. “I must confess I had not anticipated any serious difficulty about language.”
“We must get a Celtic scholar at once,” said Frost.
“We are regrettably weak on the philological side. I do not at the moment know who has discovered most about ancient British. Ransom would be the man to advise us if he were available. I suppose nothing has been heard of him by your department?”
“I need hardly point out,” said Wither, “that Dr. Ransom’s philological attainments are by no means the only ground on which we are anxious to find him. If the least trace had been discovered, you may rest assured that you would have long since had the-ah-gratification of seeing him here in person.”
“Of course. He may not be in the Earth at all.”
“I met him once,” said Wither, half closing his eyes.
“He was a most brilliant man in his way. A man whose penetrations and intuitions might have been of infinite value, if he had not embraced the cause of reaction. It is a saddening reflection-”
“Of course,” said Frost, interrupting him. “Straik knows modern Welsh. His mother was a Welsh woman.”
“It would certainly be much more satisfactory,” said Wither, “if we could, so to speak, keep the whole matter in the family. There would be something very disagreeable to me-and I am sure you would feel the same way yourself-about introducing a Celtic expert from outside.”
“The expert would of course, be provided for as soon as we could dispense with his services, replied Frost. “It is the waste of time that is the trouble. What progress have you made with Straik?”
“Oh, really, excellent.” said the Deputy Director. “Indeed I am almost a little disappointed. I mean, my pupil is advancing so rapidly that it may be necessary to abandon an idea which, I confess, rather attracts me. I had been thinking while you were out of the room that it would be specially fitting and-ah-proper and gratifying if your pupil and mine could be initiated together. We should both, I am sure, have felt . . . But, of course, if Straik is ready some time before Studdock, I should not feel myself entitled to stand in his way. You will understand, my dear fellow, that I am not trying to make this anything like a test case as to the comparative efficiency of our very different methods.”
“It would be impossible for you to do so,” said Frost, “since I have interviewed Studdock only once, and that one interview has had all the success that could be expected. I mentioned Straik only to find out whether he were already so far committed that he might properly be introduced to our guest.”
“Oh . . . as to being committed, said Wither, “in some sense . . . ignoring certain fine shades for the moment, while fully recognising their ultimate importance, . . . I should not hesitate . . . we should be perfectly justified.”
“I was thinking,” said Frost, “that there must be someone on duty here. He may awake at any moment. Our pupils-Straik and Studdock-could take it in turns. There is no reason why they should not be useful even before their full initiation. They would, of course, be under orders to ring us up the moment anything happened.”
“You think Mr.-ah-Studdock is far enough on?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Frost. “What harm can he do? He can’t get out. And in the meantime we only want someone to watch. It would be a useful test.”
III
MacPhee, who had just been refuting both Ransom and Alcasan’s head by a two-edged argument which seemed unanswerable in the dream but which he never afterwards remembered, found himself violently waked by someone shaking his shoulder. He suddenly perceived that he was cold and his left foot was numb. Then he saw Denniston’s face looking into his own. The scullery seemed full of people-Denniston and Dimble and Jane. They appeared extremely bedraggled, torn and muddy and wet.
“Are you all right?” Denniston was saying. “I’ve been trying to wake you for several minutes.”
“All right?” said MacPhee, swallowing once or twice and licking his lips. “Aye, I’m all right.” Then he sat upright. “There’s been a-a man here,” he said.
“What sort of a man?” asked Dimble.
“Well,” said MacPhee, “as to that . . . it’s not just so easy . . . I fell asleep talking to him, to tell you the truth. I can’t just bring to mind what we were saying.”
The others exchanged glances. Though MacPhee was fond of a little hot toddy on winter nights, he was a sober man: they had never seen him like this before. Next moment he jumped to his feet.
“Lord save us!” he exclaimed. “He had the Director here. Quick! We must search the house and the garden. It was some kind of impostor or spy. I know now what’s wrong with me. I’ve been hypnotised. There was a horse, too. I mind the horse.”
This last detail had an immediate effect on his hearers. Denniston flung open the kitchen door and the whole party surged in after him. For a second they saw indistinct forms in the deep, red light of a large fire which had not been attended to for some hours: then, as Denniston found the switch and turned on the light, all drew a deep breath. The four women sat fast asleep. The jackdaw slept, perched on the back of an empty chair. Mr. Bultitude, stretched out on his side across the hearth, slept also: his tiny, child-like snore, so disproportionate to his bulk, was audible in the momentary silence. Mrs. Dimble, bunched in what seemed a comfortless position, was sleeping with her head on the table, a half darned sock still clasped on her knees. Dimble looked at her with that uncurable pity which men feel for any sleeper, but specially for a wife. Camilla, who had been in the rocking-chair, was curled up in an attitude which was full of grace, like that of an animal accustomed to sleep anywhere. Mrs. Maggs slept with her kind, commonplace mouth wide open; and Grace Ironwood, bolt upright as if she were awake, but with the head sagging a little to one side, seemed to submit with austere patience to the humiliation of unconsciousness.
“They’re all right,” said MacPhee from behind. “It’s just the same as he did to me. We’ve no time to wake them. Get on.”
They passed from the kitchen into the flagged passage. To all of them except MacPhee the silence of the house seemed intense after their buffeting in the wind and rain. The lights as they switched them on successively revealed empty rooms and empty passages which wore the abandoned look of indoor midnight-fires dead in the grates, an evening paper on a sofa, a clock that had stopped. But no one had really expected to find much else on the ground floor.
“Now for upstairs,” said Dimble.
“The lights are on upstairs,” said Jane, as they all came to the foot of the staircase.
“We turned them on ourselves from the passage,” said Dimble.
“I don’t think we did,” said Denniston.
“Excuse me,” said Dimble to MacPhee, “I think perhaps I’d better go first.”
Up to the first landing they were in darkness; on the second and last the light from the first floor fell. At each landing the stair made a right-angled turn, so that till you reached the second you could not see the lobby on the floor above. Jane and Denniston, who were last, saw MacPhee and Dimble stepped dead on the second landing: their faces in profile lit up, the backs of their heads in darkness. The Ulsterman’s mouth was shut like a trap, his expression hostile and afraid. Dimble was open-mouthed. Then, forcing her tired limbs to run, Jane got up beside them and saw what they saw.
Looking down on them from the balustrade were two men, one clothed in sweepy garments of red and the other in blue. It was the Director who wore blue, and for one instant a thought that was pure nightmare crossed Jane’s mind. The two robed figures looked to be two of the same sort . . . and what, after all, did she know of this Director who had conjured her into his house and made her dream dreams and taught her the fear of Hell that very night? And there they were, the pair of them, talking their secrets and doing whatever such people would do, when they had emptied the house or laid its inhabitants to sleep. The man who had been dug up out of the earth and the man who had been in outer space . . . and the one had told them that the other was an enemy, and now, the moment they met, here were the two of them, run together like two drops of quicksilver. All this time she had
