“And do you often have—er—guests, doctor; guests such as myself?”
The doctor’s geniality seemed suddenly to contract a little.
“Occasionally,” he said briefly.
“Quite so,” agreed Mr. Hobhouse. “Too often would be a great nuisance. Occasionally—yes, yes, that must be much pleasanter. Just when you feel inclined; I see. And I hope you get decent fellows as a rule, doctor. It would be very unpleasant otherwise.”
“It is,” said Dr. Rendall with distinct emphasis.
“I trust I won’t be a nuisance,” said Mr. Hobhouse anxiously.
“Oh, no, no,” said the doctor hurriedly, “I was thinking of—”
He broke off, and his amiable guest tactfully changed the subject. A little later, with what he hoped was equal tact, he returned to it again. Assuring the doctor of his anxiety to give no trouble, he said,
“I’ll do just as the last fellow did. You just put me into his shoes, doctor, and then you’ll always know where you are.”
There was no doubt about the oddness of the glance which Dr. Rendall shot at his guest this time. His answer was a murmur that might have meant anything. Mr. Hobhouse innocently rattled on.
“I presume he fitted into your ways all right and so will I if you tell me first what—er—you did mention his name—or didn’t you?”
“O’Brien,” said the doctor.
“O’Brien?” repeated Mr. Hobhouse with a distinct air of distaste for so mild a gentleman.
The doctor looked at him quickly.
“Do you know him?” he asked sharply.
“Oh, no, no! Oh dear me, no! It’s only that I have a very foolish and very stupid prejudice against Irishmen—as I presume he was.”
Mr. Hobhouse laughed pleasantly, and inwardly he laughed still more pleasantly, for his shot came off.
“So have I,” agreed the doctor, and there was no doubt that he was in earnest.
Mr. Hobhouse decided that he had probed the matter sufficiently for the present, and with what he was now beginning to consider his usual tact he changed the subject.
Before they parted that night he could not resist one touch of art despite the counsels of Sir Francis.
“Before we go to bed, doctor,” he said, with his most ingratiating smile, “do you think one little drop would do us any harm? I feel as though I might have a little cold coming on—”
But the doctor was shaking his head, kindly but firmly.
“Well, well, better not; I quite agree with you, doctor,” gushed his guest. “Good night, doctor. Good night!”
“I wonder if the doctor ever had such a blinkin’ ass in his house before!” said the amiable gentleman to himself as he shut his bedroom door behind him.
Looking at myself in the glass with a kind of chastened complacence, I decided that the man who could perceive in Mr. Hobhouse any reminiscence of the mysterious young stranger of six months ago would have a singularly piercing eye. At the same time it was a sobering experience to gaze at that black-bearded gentleman, with his hair parted in the middle and brushed low down over his forehead, and his foolish looking pince-nezs, and reflect that there was no artificial difference between him and the vanished Roger Merton save those eyeglasses and a little hair dye. That was my own face, and my own hair, and, I presumed, my own natural latent idiocy blinking behind those glasses. I turned away from the mirror with mingled feelings.
As the hour was not late (early to bed being part of the cure), I put on my dressing gown and sat down to smoke and chew the cud of my evening’s conversation with Dr. Rendall. The more I saw of him, the more favourably on the whole the man impressed me. He was a gentleman and seemed a good fellow. Being a bachelor with outdoor tastes and an easygoing disposition, it was not at all impossible to understand his choosing the estate of his family to settle down on, isolated though it was. Certainly one could not honestly charge it against him as a suspicious circumstance.
By far the most interesting discovery was his obvious dislike to Mr. O’Brien. Not once but several times he had shown it in the course of our talk. He conveyed the suggestion moreover that the man had oppressed him in some way and that it was a relief to have got rid of him. In view of the fact that he had been so anxious to secure another resident patient, this seemed a little odd, and a theory began to take shape in my mind. Supposing O’Brien had in some way induced the doctor unwillingly to abet a treasonable scheme, that would account for his feelings very well, especially looking to O’Brien’s unpleasing personality. But on the other hand, events had made it clear that treason was going on without O’Brien, so how could the doctor have got clear of it? And if he were still in it, this theory of his relations to his late patient was manifestly weak.
“To bed!” said Thomas Sylvester to himself, after an hour of these reflections. “You are theorizing too soon.”
In the morning he was up betimes and downstairs a good ten minutes before he knew the doctor was likely to appear. Into the smoking room he went, shut the door carefully behind him, and made for the window. A grey and windy prospect met his eyes, but they scarcely glanced at it. Mr. Hobhouse had something else to think of. Twice or thrice he pulled the blind up and down, and minutely examined the string and the little brass pulley.
“That blind certainly does not come down at a touch,” he said to himself, “and there is not a sign of its having been repaired within the last few years. Therefore it did not drop accidentally six months ago.”
IV
The
