one of those «fresh starts» which I have so often hoped would lead on to achievement. He was a schoolmaster, having lately graduated in English literature at the university of Reading. We met at a meeting. He coyly confessed his novel. I expressed polite interest. He sent me the almost completed typescript. (This was, of course, Tobias and the Fallen Angel. Still, I think, his best work.) I thought the piece had some merits and I helped him to find a publisher for it. I also reviewed it quite favourably when it came out. Thus began one of the most, commercially speaking, successful of recent literary careers. Arnold at once, contrary, as it happens, to my advice, gave up his job as a teacher and devoted himself to «writing.» He wrote easily, producing every year a book which pleased the public taste. Wealth, fame followed.
It has been suggested, especially in the light of more recent events, that I envied Arnold's success as a writer. I would like at jnce and categorically to deny this. I sometimes envied his freedom to write at a time when I was tied to my desk. But I did not in general feel envy of Arnold Baffin for one very simple reason: it seemed to me that he achieved success at the expense of merit. As his discoverer and patron I felt from the start identified with his activities. And I felt, rather, distress that a promising young writer should have laid aside true ambition and settled so quickly into a popular mould. I respected his industry and I admired his «career.» He had lany gifts other than purely literary ones. I did not, however, much like his books. Tact readily supervened however and, as I have said, we soon instinctively avoided certain topics of conversation.
I should make clear that Arnold was not in any crude sense «spoilt» by success. He was no tax-dodger with a yacht and a house in Malta. (We sometimes laughingly discussed tax-avoidance, but never tax-evasion.) He lived in a fairly large, but not immodest, suburban villa in a «good class» housing estate in Ealing. His domestic life was, even to an irritating extent, lacking in style. It was not that he put on an act of being «the ordinary chap.» In some way he was «the ordinary chap,» and eschewed the vision which might, for better as well as worse, have made a very different use of his money. I never knew Arnold to purchase any object of beauty. He was indeed quite deficient in visual taste, though he was rather aggressively fond of music. As to his person, he continued to look like a schoolmaster, dressed shapelessly, and retained a raw shy boyish appearance. It never occurred to him to play «the famous writer.» Or perhaps intelligence, of which he had plenty, suggested this way of playing it. He wore steel-rimmed specs, behind which his eyes were a very pale bluish-green, rather striking. His nose was pointed, his face always rather greasy, but healthy looking. There was a general lack of colour. Something of an albino? He was accounted, and perhaps was, good-looking. He was always combing his hair.
Arnold stared at me and pointed mutely at Francis. We were standing in the hall. Arnold looked unlike himself, his face waxy, his hair jagged, his eyes without glasses crazed and vague. There was a red mark like a Chinese character upon his cheek.
«This is Dr. Marloe. Dr. Marloe-Arnold Baffin. Dr. Marloe happened to be with me when you rang up about your wife's accident.» I stressed the last word.
«Doctor,» said Arnold. «Yes, you see-she-«She fell?» I suggested.
«Yes. Is he-is this chap a-medical doctor?»
«Yes,» I said. «A friend of mine.» This untruth at least conveyed important information.
«Are you the Arnold Baffin?» said Francis.
«Yes, he is,» I said.
«I say, I do admire your books-I've read-«What's the situation?» I said to Arnold. I thought he looked as if he was drunk, and immediately after I could smell drink.
Arnold, making some sort of effort, said slowly, «She locked herself into our bedroom. After it-happened-She was bleeding a lot – I thought-I don't quite know what-the injury was-At any rate-At any rate-« He stopped.
«Go on, Arnold. Look, you'd better sit down. Hadn't he better sit down?»
«Arnold Baffin,» said Francis, to himself.
Arnold leaned back against the hall stand. He leaned his head back into a coat that was hanging there, closed his eyes for a moment, and then went on. «Sorry. You see. She was sort of crying and wailing in there for a time. I mean in the bedroom. Now it's all quiet and she doesn't answer at all. I'm afraid she may be unconscious or-«
«Can't you break open the door?»
«I tried to, I tried to, but the chisel, the-outside woodwork just broke away and I couldn't get any-«Sit down, Arnold, for Christ's sake.» I pushed him onto a chair.
«And you can't see through the keyhole because the key-«She's probably just upset and won't answer out
