V
It was but a little after daybreak when Mrs. Lawford, after listening at his door a while, turned the key and looked in on her husband. Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking down on the lean impassive face. For the briefest instant her heart had leapt with an indescribable surmise; to fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon the bed. “How can he sleep? How can he sleep?” she whispered with a black and hopeless indignation. What a night she had had! And he!
She turned noiselessly away. The candle had guttered to extinction. The big glass reflected her, voluminous and wan, her dark-ringed eyes, full lips, rich, glossy hair, and rounded chin. “Yes, yes,” it seemed to murmur mournfully. She turned away, and drawing stealthily near stooped once more quite low, and examined the face on the pillow with lynx-like concentration. And though every nerve revolted at the thought, she was finally convinced, unwillingly, but assuredly, that her husband was here. Indeed, if it were not so, how could she for a single moment have accepted the possibility that he was a stranger? He seemed to haunt, like a ghostly emanation, this strange, detestable face—as memory supplies the features concealed beneath a mask. The face was still and stony, like one dead or imaged in wax, yet beneath it dreams were passing—silly, ordinary Lawford dreams. She was almost alarmed at the terribly rancorous hatred she felt for the face … “It was just like Arthur to be so taken in!”
Then she too remembered Quain, and remembered also in the slowly paling dusk that the house would soon be stirring. She went out and noiselessly locked the door again. But it was useless to begin looking for Quain now—her husband had a good many dull books, most of them his “eccentric” father’s. What must the servants be thinking? and what was all that talk about a mysterious visitor? She would have to question Ada—diplomatically. She returned to her room and sat down in an armchair, and waited. In sheer weariness she fell into a doze, and woke at the sound of dustpan and broom. She rang the bell, and asked for hot water, tea, and a basin of cornflour.
“And please, Ada, be as quiet as possible over your work; your master is in a nice sleep, and must not be disturbed on any account. In the front bedroom.” She looked up suddenly. “By the way, who let Dr. Ferguson in last night?” It was dangerous, but successful.
“Dr. Ferguson, ma’am? Oh, you mean … He was in.”
Sheila smiled resignedly. “Was in? What do you mean, ‘was in’? And where were you, then?”
“I had been sent out to Critchett’s, the chemist’s.”
“Of course, of course. So cook let Dr. Ferguson in, then? Why didn’t you say so before, Ada? And did you bring the medicine with you?”
“It was a packet in an envelope, ma’am. But Cook is sure she heard no knock—not while I was out. So Dr. Ferguson must have come in quite unbeknown.”
“Well, really,” said Sheila, “it seems very difficult to get at the truth sometimes. And when illness is in the house I cannot understand why there should be no one available to answer the door. You must have left it ajar, unsecured, when you went out. And pray, what if Dr. Ferguson had been some common tramp? That would have been a nice thing.”
“I am quite certain,” said Ada a little flatly, “that I did shut the door. And cook says she never so much as stirred from the kitchen till I came down the area steps with the packet. And that’s all I know about it, ma’am; except that he was here when I came back. I did not know even there was a Dr. Ferguson; and my mother has lived here nineteen years.”
“We must be thankful your mother enjoys such good health,” replied Mrs. Lawford suavely. “Please tell cook to be very careful with the cornflour—to be sure it’s well mixed and thoroughly done.”
Mrs. Lawford’s eyes followed with a certain discomfort those narrow print shoulders descending the stairs. And this abominable ruse was—Arthur’s! She ran up lightly and listened with her ear to the panel of his door. And just as she was about to turn away again, there came a little light knock at the front door.
Mrs. Lawford paused at the loop of the staircase; and not altogether with gratitude or relief she heard the voice of Mr. Bethany, inquiring in cautious but quite audible tones after her husband.
She dressed quickly and went down. The little white old man looked very solitary in the long, fireless, drawing-room.
“I could not sleep,” he said; “I don’t think I grasped in the least, I don’t indeed, until I was nearly home, the complexity of our problem. I came, in fact, to a lamppost. It was casting a peculiar shadow. And then—you know how such thoughts seize us, my dear—like a sudden inspiration, I realised how tenuous, how appallingly tenuous a hold we every one of us have on our mere personality. But that,” he continued rapidly, “that’s only for ourselves—and after the event. Ours, just now, is to act. And first—?”
“You really do, then—you really are convinced—” began Mrs. Lawford.
But Mr. Bethany was too quick. “We must be most circumspect. My dear friend, we must be most circumspect, for all our sakes. And this, you’ll say,” he added, smiling, stretching out his arms, his soft hat in one hand, his umbrella in the other—“this is being circumspect—a seven o’clock in the morning call!
