on HN WIDENER NYU5 3 CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT VALENTINE COLDIE 23625.48.4100 Harvard College Library VE RT TAS FROM THE BOOKS IN THE HOMESTEAD OF Sarah Orne Jewett AT SOUTH BERWICK, MAINE BEQUEATHED BY Theodore Jewett Eastman A.B. 1901 - M.D. 1905 1931 GARDENSIDE BOOKSHOP 280 Dartmouth Street BOSTON, MARR The Case of Sir Edward Talbot THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT BY VALENTINE GOLDIE Author of "THE HAPPY GARRET," etc. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE 23625.48.4100 Copyright, 1922, BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY All rights reserved HARVARD COLLEGE Llohani THE BEQUEST OF THEODORE CVETT EASTMAN 1531 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OT AMERIOA The Case of Sir Edward Talbot CHAPTER I (EATED apart and unnoticed in the embrasure of a window, the girl surveyed with a serene expression of contentment the shouting assembly that crowded the long drawing-room from end to end. At the new arrival within the range of her vision of any woman, her grave eyes studied dispassionately and quickly every detail of her dress, subsequently return- ing to the contemplation of a man who formed the centre of a group almost immediately in front of her. Admiration of his physical qualities could hardly have been the cause of this recurrent attention, for he was a smallish, quiet-looking person, by no means in his first youth. Possibly a sense of sympathy drew her to him; for, except for herself, he was the only guest in sight who had entirely preserved mental and physical coolness. His associates di- rected most of their remarks to him, with vehement cries and gestures; and he replied softly, seriously and with unvarying deliberation. The smooth, hair- less face was one of the calmest imaginable; the lips gently smiling, the pale, luminous eyes alive with a polite receptiveness, the whole expression admirably 2 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT balanced and tolerant. From the demeanour of his satellites one would have guessed him to be some thing of a notoriety, and the conjecture would have been supported by the fact that he had a rather re- markable skull. Its size was not the result of any local exaggeration; it was big and solid in every part, with a slightly convex forehead; a head which must have inspired the highest admiration and respect for its owner in any phrenologist. The pale chestnut hair was cut as short as was consistent with admitting a parting, and brushed smoothly. The ears were oddly, even rather unpleasantly small, with a perfectly straight upper edge. Had not the malformation oc- curred in both, it might have been taken to be due to an accident instead of to a congenital defect. The jaw was firm, but not prominent, the skin fair and the mouth well cut. There was nothing beautiful nor even remarkable in the face, beyond its tran- quillity. His general aspect was that of a man some- where between forty and forty-five years of age. It is scarcely possible to look at a person in one's immediate neighbourhood for many seconds without attracting his notice, and very shortly the glances of the girl and the object of her scrutiny met. Immediately she allowed her eyes to travel slowly and composedly past him; but his remained fixed, and when, after a while, she casually looked back in his direction he was still watching her. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 3 There was nothing impudent or challenging in his stare, which spoke only of an awakened interest; nevertheless it was sufficiently pronounced to cause one or two of his friends to follow its direction. The girl slightly turned her head away and began to in- terest herself in some newly arrived visitors; and while she was so engaged the man left his compan- ions and sauntered down the room, to return a few minutes later in the wake of a portly, grey-haired lady, picturesquely dressed in a loose robe of lace. “Little Shirley !" cried the elderly woman in a full rich voice which accorded with her dignified corpu- lence. “Sitting all alone and neglected! How very pathetic! I'd no idea you'd come, even. Couldn't you find me?" "I did speak to you when I arrived; and really I've been quite happy sitting here watching the people.” “My dear, I haven't the faintest recollection of seeing you before, this evening. But there's such a crowd, isn't there? One's head quite spins. Do let me introduce Sir Edward Talbot to you; such an interesting man—but of course you've heard all about him. He's most anxious to know you. Sir Edward, come here! I want to introduce you to my friend, Miss Cresswell; and perhaps presently you'll take her and give her an ice or something. ... How sweet of you to come, dear Clara! I was so afraid 4 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT that you might be too tired, after the theatre. Isi- dore has been asking anxiously after you. Will you come with me and find him ?” She moved off majestically, and Sir Edward Tal- bot, after bowing with affable dignity, took a seat beside Shirley on the little sofa. "I hope you'll forgive me for forcing my company on you,” he began in a pleasant, if rather expression- less, voice. “But you looked so cool and restful, and I soon get weary of strenuous warmth.” "There's been nothing to break my rest yet," she explained, smiling. "I haven't seen anyone here I know, so far, except Mrs. Cassilis." “And she hasn't been looking after you properly? However, you appeared remarkably contented. I hesitated about disturbing you.” His manner clearly shewed that the approach of middle age had not robbed him of the pleasure to be derived from the society of an attractive woman. "Oh, no! I'm glad to talk, though up to now I've been enjoying the clothes. That's my business in life, you see. I design dresses.” "Mrs, Cassilis was telling me. For Delbruck of South Molton Street, isn't it? I offer you my com- pliments. Several of the friends of whose company I feel proudest get their things there. Shew me some of your achievements here to-night.” “There's Mrs. Cassilis herself.” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 5 “Really? That's quite a triumph. She looks de lightful, and I know that she has the most inno- cently baroque taste. If she was left to herself she would probably make herself as flamboyant and angry in appearance as she has allowed this room of hers to become. It must need great tact and courage to deal with her in matters of adornment." “I have to be obstinate now and then. But she's so handsome and stately that it's pretty easy to make a success of her. Some of the people who come to us really fill me with despair. It's almost impossible to think of any tolerable way of covering them, they're 80—" “Amorphous ?” "That wouldn't matter so much. No, I mean they haven't any shape; nothing to suggest to one any line, however fantastic. I should love to be able to refuse a customer occasionally, when she's an extreme case. But of course I'm not allowed to; and after all it's very good for me to have to get over difficulties that look impossible at first.” “I can imagine that it's a wearing profession- art, rather. But most art is tolerably exasperating, I'm told. May I ask why you took to it? Just for the love of the thing?" “Oh no! Chiefly to make a living." “In that case I congratulate you on having already made such a position for yourself. Were you all 6 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT alone in the world, then, when you set out on this career ?” There was a placid intimacy in his tone that robbed his questions of the suspicion of mere prying, and Shirley made no effort to discourage them. “Not actually. My father was in India-he was a soldier—and my mother died years and years ago. I was twenty, and living with people who were paid to look after me. They were quite nice, but it was all very dull, and I was always hard up. So I tried this, never really believing that anything would come of it.” "I suppose you knew the people who run Del- bruck's, did you ?" “Delbruck's wasn't going in those days. But I had a friend who kept a shop in Brompton Road. She admired the dresses that I used to make for myself, and offered me a job. I was with her for a year and a half. One of her customers was Em- meline Brook—she and her sister are Delbruck's, you know—and when she started her business she got me to come to her. Of course, it was a great lift for me; and my friend was awfully nice about it, and urged me to accept. The Brooks had a Frenchwoman then for their principal designer, but she had a row with them after a year of it and went back to Paris. So for the last three years I've had her place." “That's to say that you are now Delbruck's. You THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 7 ought to set up for yourself. I see no point in mak- ing other people rich.” "But they're awfully kind, and they pay very well.” “No doubt. They're afraid of losing you and most of their customers at the same time. In any case they should take you into partnership; but, if I were you, I should stand alone.” “That means capital.” "I don't imagine that there'd be any difficulty in finding that. So many rich people must know your genius by this time.” "Genius sounds very important,” she said, laugh- ing. “Honestly, I should only make a mess of it, I know. I've no idea of business. I'm more suited for a hireling.” "Anybody can learn business, if they like. But if it repels you, perhaps your father " “He's dead. He was killed two years ago." A girl of seventeen or so, her yellow hair cut in a short straight shock, her eyes and cheeks bright with excitement, passed in conversation with a young man, whose shoulders and complexion told of mili- tary service. She nodded, smiling gaily, to the pair on the sofa, and went on her way, glittering like a Christmas-tree fairy in her dress of silver tissue. Her escort looked back over his shoulder at Shirley, and apparently made some inquiry about her of his companion. 8 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “And you've no relations left at all? You live all by yourself ?" Sir Edward continued with a grave sympathy. "Yes. I've got a little flat in Wigmore Street. On the whole, I'd rather be alone, unless, of course, there was somebody I was really devoted to. ..." Talbot smiled. "I suppose there will undoubtedly be someone be- fore long." "I dare say. Did you like Joyce Cassilis' dress? That's one of mine too.” "I thought that it was charming. Silver suits her exactly." “Most things suit her, with that wonderful skin and colouring. She's very pretty, don't you think?'' “Very; and conceives herself to be even more than that." “Oh, but all pretty girls are a little vain, natur- ally." "Is that so ?” His intonation, at times, very faintly suggested an American origin. “They don't all display their vanity.” “That's only because they're sly." "Don't be so self-depreciatory. It's morbid.” “I'm very fond of Joyce.” “In that case I regret suggesting that she had any faults at all. I agree with you that she's an attrac- tive and lively little person. I've know her since she was fifteen; but she's never really admitted me into THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 9 the inner circle of intimacy. I am not old enough for that honour; and I know now that I shall never be." “Surely she doesn't like old men ?" "You don't quite follow me. She considers that my mind is immaturely trivial. You must have noticed that she even patronises her mother a good deal; and she speaks of her three married sisters with a pity that is akin to love." “She doesn't patronise me, so I suppose I must be old too,” Shirley reflected with a smile. "But she certainly is rather grown-up for her age. I'm eight years older; but I never remember it when we're together.” “I'm glad she's kind to you. She can be very crushing when she likes. I speak from experience," he answered, with a burlesque ruefulness. There was a pause, during which Shirley's eyes wandered over the company, returning to her com- panion with a swift obedience as he spoke again. "You will think me very intrusive, I'm afraid; but there's a purpose in my question. It's not really an impertinence. You have lost someone else lately, besides your father?” “Yes," she admitted, in a slightly hushed tone. “About the same time." "Don't talk about it if it's distressing. Had you been engaged long ?” The girl shook her head dumbly; and her eyes, 10 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT after growing a trifle brighter, softened and darkened. Sir Edward sighed quietly and looked away. "I'm surprised that I haven't met you before, either here or at Overbourne, as you're a friend of the family,” he resumed presently. “Yes. I've been here pretty often lately, but I haven't been asked to their country place yet.” "Have you known them long?" “Not more than a few months; but they're so easy to get on with that it seems much more than that. You're an old friend of theirs, I suppose.” “I met them first two or three years ago, when I came over to England with a business introduction to old Isidore." "Oh?” She hesitated, as if feeling that it was now her duty to ask a few questions, in return for all those which she had answered. “Were you in France, then ?” "No. I had been living for a good while in America.” "Really? I've always wanted to go to New York. They have wonderful ideas of dressing there, haven't they?" “I believe so. I don't know the most fashionable parts well. Much of my time was spent in South Carolina . . . Charleston.” “Is that near New York ?” “Not very.” “You are an American, aren't you ?” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 11 “Dear me, no! I was born in Worcester, and educated in this country. But since those days I've made my home in various parts of the world. I like change." Shirley seemed to reflect. “You weren't at Oxford, I suppose ?” “Why not? Have I lost the famous manner ?” "I don't know what it's like," she confessed. "I must try and reproduce it for you, if I'm not too much out of practice. Yes; I was there for a short time. I didn't take a degree." "What was your college ?" she asked quickly and gravely. “Worcester." There had been a perfectly noticeable pause before he answered, which suggested strongly that he had either been searching his memory—a manifest ab- surdity-or stimulating his inventive faculty. Yet he appeared too well-bred a man to believe that the fact of having been in residence at a University con- ferred upon one a distinction. Had there been the least trace of boastful vulgarity in his demeanour, an observer might have been excused for suspecting that his undergraduate days were imaginary. Shir- ley considered him with a certain eagerness. "I suppose that was more than seven years ago ?” she suggested, raising her eyebrows in delicate in- terrogation. "My dear Miss Cresswell! More than seventeen 12 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT years ago, I'm afraid,” he answered, with good-hu- moured regret. “But why seven ?" “Oh, nothing! I went to Oxford for the boat racing-Eights' Week, do they call it ?—then; and I was only wondering ... I don't remember Wor- cester College. ...". She broke off again, and looked down at her hands, turning a ring which she wore this way and that, so that the diamonds with which it was set threw off the light in little rainbow sprays. “What was his college ?” asked Sir Edward casu- ally. “Trinity," answered Shirley; and then looked up at him with startled eyes, as though the information had been drawn from her against her intention. His answering glance was both gentle and solemn. “You've been through a tragedy. But half the world has been through similar, or even more dread- ful ones, in the last five years. Our hostess of to- night lost her only son-her favourite child-in nineteen fifteen. Hardly a household in England escaped entirely.” "I know. I'm afraid that doesn't console me," she replied, dropping her eyes once more; and added, after a pause: "But I don't encourage myself, really. As a rule I'm all right. I can't think how we got on to the subject.” “You're all right," Sir Edward persisted, low- ering his voice. “All right! What a lamentable THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 13 condition for anybody, especially for a beautiful young artist !” The words were uttered in the cool tone of one who states a generally accepted fact. The girl's ex- pression grew faintly uncomfortable, but she neither spoke nor looked up. Sir Edward contemplated her for some seconds with a speculative eye. “You aren't one of those, I hope, who see any- thing pious or altruistic or luxurious in keeping alive the memory of a past sorrow?” "Not in the slightest degree. I know that ... that father, for instance, would want me to forget and be cheerful. Only it isn't so easy. I mean, it isn't easy to forget entirely, is it? One gets on well enough for a time; and then, if one's tired or bored or anything, things come back.” "Nothing's easy, until you know how to do it; and everything is, when you do. It's possible to make your emotions, your subconsciousness—yes, and your physical sensations, as they are called—as obe dient to your will as sheep-dogs are to the shepherd.” "People have told me that before, but I suppose I haven't a strong enough will." "Everybody's will is of the same strength." “Oh, Sir Edward !” she protested, smiling again. "Everybody's," he maintained. “Will-power is a force that runs through the animal world continu- ously and at unvarying intensity, as electricity may run round a circuit. Suppose that circuit to pass 14 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT through a thousand houses. One or two of the oc- cupants, skilled electricians, might make the force do nearly all the domestic work; a larger number of smatterers would contrive to get a certain amount of light out of it, or a degree of warmth. The utterly untrained would be able to put it to no use at all; and the ignorantly rash would only succeed in giving themselves painful shocks. You and I and Mrs. Cassilis, let us say, have the same store of will-power to draw upon; but experience has taught her to use it better than you can, while I have con- sciously trained myself to control it better than either of you." Shirley sighed a little. “Well, I dare say I shall be cleverer at it in time. Persistence is everything, isn't it?” "Persistence is something, but not very much. If you gave an intelligent savage a sewing machine, without any explanation of its uses—forgive me for heaping these analogies on you-persistence might enable him to do something with it in a few years' time. But it would save trouble to show him, to begin with, how the thing worked.” "You mean that you can teach people to forget, when they want to; and feel what they like, and all that ?" He smiled. “Much depends on the person taught. The will, as I said, is the same in all; but the intelligence THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 15 varies. I think that any one could acquire com- plete control of the will, if he lived long enough; but the better the brain, the sooner the thing's done. The modern beauty specialists profess to be able to give anyone the ideally perfect face; but, you will agree, they would have a shorter job of it with you than with me.” There were a few moments of silence, during which Shirley studied his serenity with curiosity. “Yes, you look as if you'd done it,” she said, with a note of envy in her voice. "Are you what they call a Christian Scientist ?” "Mrs. Eddy belatedly got hold of a part of the truth. She was a highly incompetent preacher, but her basis (which is, as you know, immeasurably old) was sound enough. Still, it was only a part. There is an ethical Christian Science, as well, which I should like to talk to you about some day; and that, to be sure is only another part of the orderly whole." "I've no brains at all,” Shirley warned him. “These subjects puzzle me dreadfully. I couldn't possibly recommend myself to you as a pupil.” “I'm not proposing to 'take up your character'; I know enough of you already. You are different -not in manner, of course. You haven't yet real- ised the quality of your mind, which, if I may say so, is unusually responsive.” "How can you possibly know?" cried the girl in 16 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT a sort of indignation, as if a reputation for stu- pidity was dear to her. "It is so. How do you know that I am clean- shaven? Or that you will cool your cheek by waving those feathers backwards and forwards ?” "Mummy sent me to tell you that she wants to introduce you to somebody before you go, Ed- ward, but that on no account are you to desert Shir- ley until you feel you've had enough of her," inter- rupted Joyce Cassilis. She was standing alone be fore them, looking down on the pair with a gleam of amusement in her eyes. She had a rather loud voice, like a boy's, and a certain air of defiant jovial- ity which associated oddly with her pronounced femininity of appearance and her fairy dress. “Mummy put it rather differently—I've forgotten how, but that's what it came to. Shirley, do come upstairs presently and have a talk. I want to tell you something. Will you ? Promise!” "All right. When are you going up ?” "Directly. There's nobody left I want to speak to, and I'm getting sleepy." "I'm proud of your frock,” said Shirley. "It's a great success. Sir Edward approves too." "Doesn't it look nice? You were right about the girdle, after all. Of course yours is much nicer; but then you always keep the best ones for yourself, naturally. I love you in black. . . . What shall I tell Mummy, Edward ?” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 17 “Tell her, my child, that I will certainly come as soon as Miss Cresswell dismisses me, and not be fore. You might add that I consider you an impu- dent monkey, and recommend you for a diet of bread and water. ... I grow hot and cold with shame, at times," he continued, as Joyce departed, with a smile of self-assured scorn of his last words, “when I have permitted myself to address that young woman playfully. One feels as if, in a moment of forgetfulness, one had attempted to tickle an arch- bishop. . . . Well, I suppose I shall have to set you free in a minute or two, Miss Cresswell. That's the worst of these parties, and the best. One mo- mentarily tastes a number of new personalities, and then the plate is snatched away, and a new course is put on. There's a charm about it, but often it's a very tantalizing one. To-night I've parted without regret from a number of dishes, all in the wrong order, too; grapefruit, and trifle with too much jam and too little sherry, and Roquefort cheese, and plain roast beef; and now when at last I find one which I confess I should like to linger over ... to what dare I liken you ?” "Porridge ?” suggested Shirley, after considera- tion. "How can you? However, I hope we shall meet again. In fact, unless you decide to the contrary, I shall see that we do. So prepare your excuses." “But I should like it! Why not? I want to hear 18 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT more about your dodge for feeling just as you want to feel.” “The dodge shall be explained up to any point that you desire. Meanwhile-or in case you change your mind, or are only being politely mendacious I should like to ask you this: Are you religious, as they call it?” The question produced its frequent effect. Shirley looked highly startled and confused, and answered with a shamefaced haste. "I-well, I go to church, you know. Not always, but. ..." "I quite understand. But at any rate you are a Christian?” “Oh, yes!” “And have you found that your belief consoles you at all ?” She hesitated. “Yes, Of course, one feels that ... well, every- body's going to meet again some day, aren't they? It's rather hard to remember, just when. ..." She broke off; and Sir Edward, having waited politely and fruitlessly for the end of her explana- tion, came to her rescue. "In fact, it's never really consoled you the least in the world. You believe these promises, just as you believe that one day you yourself will die. You know it is so, and you feel it's utterly impossible.” “Anyhow, it's rather a long way off, and one THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 19 can't quite imagine what it's going to be like, can one ?" "I see that you don't accept the harp and crown idea literally. May I take it that you're not one of those who limit their beliefs to what they are able to extract unaided from the Bible ?” "I don't really know," Shirley confessed, half smiling, half apologetic. "I'm afraid I haven't read the Bible since I was at school.” “The Bible," Sir Edward gravely informed her, “is a great revelation. But it is only one of a number of similar keys to the mysteries; and to the uninitiated it is about as helpful as a German cookery book would be to an Irish general servant. No doubt, however, you have long realized that it covers, under a most elaborately devised cloak of words, some very awful and eternal truths." “Yes. I suppose it does." “You know that many have been brought to be lieve, by it and other writings, to say nothing of spoken words, that the visible world, like the speech of these prophecies themselves, is little more than a splendid and sombre curtain, purple shot with gold, behind which a vast stage is set for the unend- ing drama of which only a few have yet been per- mitted to catch an occasional glimpse.” His manner, during the last few minutes, had changed from a rather formal friendliness to some thing that was almost enthusiasm of a restrained and 20 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT majestic kind, and the girl looked at him uneasily. "Oh, but I think that's such an uncomfortable idea. Mrs. Cassilis believes in spiritualism. Is that what you mean?” "Perhaps we may say that that's a little bit of what I mean.” "But surely you don't believe in all those things that go on in the dark, do you? Napoleon coming to tell you how he's getting on, I mean; and the furniture moving about; and knocks and bells, and tambourines, and all that." "The thing has got, for many reasons, largely into the hands of vulgar or pedantic people, for many years now. But because quacks advertise electric belts, or furriers sell coats of 'electric seal, we don't necessarily deny the existence of electricity, do we?” “I shouldn't think so,” said Shirley judicially. “So what is commonly described as spiritualism; so with the fortunes that gipsies tell, and the glass balls which are common in upper rooms in Bond Street, and many other things, some still partly be lieved, some wholly discredited, some just beginning to come into their own. You have an open mind on the subject, Miss Cresswell, I'm sure.” "I hate being frightened.” Sir Edward smiled humourously at her air of distrustful appeal. . "You shan't be frightened. Fear comes from ig- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 21 norance. To know is to put fear behind you. ... There is Mrs. Cassilis, looking at me in gentle re- proach. I suppose I must go to her, although I'd much rather stay where I am.” He rose from his place, bowed with rather more ceremony than is usual in English drawing-rooms, and crossed over to his hostess, who forthwith in- troduced him to a young foreign woman of unbridled hideousness, of whom, it may be supposed, Mrs. Cassilis was glad to rid herself. Sir Edward, how- ever, was clearly an admirer of other qualities in woman besides physical beauty; for he was soon in deep conversation with the ill-favoured exile, who, rolling great eyes of dubious sanity, submerged him in torrents of oddly pronounced French. After watching the pair, with a faint smile on her lips, for a few seconds, Shirley betook herself to an up- per floor of the house, and passed twenty minutes or so in confidential talk, of a romantic nature, with her hostess' daughter in her pretty bedroom; at the end of which time she discovered that it was late, and that she should have gone home long ago. As, gathering her cloak about her shoulders, she passed through the entrance hall, in conversation with a woman friend whom she had met on the stairs, she perceived Sir Edward Talbot watching her. He wore a dark overcoat, and carried a tall hat in one hand; and as she gave him a smile, he stepped for- ward at once. 22 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT "Have you a carriage here, or will you allow me to give you a lift home?" “Thank you so much," answered Shirley. “Mrs. Spens is taking me.” She was passing on, with a word of farewell, when he spoke again. "I've made Mrs. Cassilis promise to give me another opportunity of meeting you," he said, gaz- ing earnestly at her. “If she asks you to Over- bourne for a week-end, do accept, will you ?” A faint tinge of pink crept into her cheek, but she kept her eyes on his with a laughing frankness. "I will if I can manage it, of course. Good night!” She stepped into the landaulette, in which her friend awaited her, and Sir Edward watched it thoughtfully as it fussed away; its place at the kerb being taken by a limousine of the most august size and taciturnity, which seemed all too large and lux- urious for the single, small, quiet man whom it snatched away into the starry summer night. CHAPTER II T HE flagged garden at Overbourne was an ideal retreat on such a day as this Saturday in late June, when the sun ceaselessly veiled and unveiled its face in a sky of tumbled blue and white, and the south-easterly breeze rhythmically bent and relaxed the tall poplars that bordered the carriage-drive. High walls of impenetrably dense box shut in the little square, pierced on two sides by deep arches, from which paths wound into other and unseen mazes. At one end a pergola, climbed upon by roses, offered shade beneath which the small house-party was as- sembled at tea; at the other a long narrow bed was set with trim patterns of flowers. The flag- stones, square and uniform in size, were of all shades of yellow, grey and white, and between them grew a thin piping of velvety moss, dark green for the most part, but occasionally widening into a patch of bright viridian. Behind the flower bed, in a niche contrived in the thickness of the hedge, a marble copy of Houdon's frileuse drew her drapery round those portions of herself which, according to conventional prejudice, least demanded it, with a mock modest air of the prettiest indecency. In the middle of the court a shallow stone basin had been sunk below 23 24 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT the level of the ground. Two broad steps led down to the water, which trembled ceaselessly, although al- most imperceptibly, with the passage of the trick- ling stream that kept it fresh, and with the move ments of little fishes. Water lilies, both white and pink, lay becalmed on their dark rafts; and in the glassy and dimpling surface were reflected the tops of the high trees which grew beyond the confines of the garden. Though these images were alive with the wind, hardly a breath of air stirred be tween these quickset walls. Mrs. Cassilis, her abundant grey hair concealed beneath a shady hat, had fitted her generous figure into a somewhat inadequate seat of basket work, and her hands were busy with teapot and milk-jug. Beside her, the slight form of Sir Edward Talbot was almost invisible in an immensely deep arm-chair. His flannel clad shins, neat brown shoes, and an oc- casional plume of grey smoke arising from the depths of his hiding-place were all that told of his bodily presence. On a carved stone bench, the rig- ours of which had been mitigated by a number of gaudy cushions, a bald, pot-bellied, swarthy man was smoking a cigar, his little feet crossed and tidily tucked away beneath the seat; and next to him a thin girl, pale of skin and eyes, with startlingly red hair and lips, lounged in smiling contentment. In a little group apart, Joyce, her crocus head gay in the strong sunlight, was chattering and laughing THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 25 to two young men, of whom one was the sunburnt soldier who had been her squire at the evening party. The other, a handsome fellow of seven or eight and twenty, was plainly in bad health. His eyes were too bright, fixed and anxious, the spot of colour in his cheeks too vivid, his manner, when he spoke, too hectic, his silences too frequent and abstracted. There were signs too of slovenliness in his appear ance, although his clothes were new and admirably cut. Joyce called him Gathorne, and the soldier Billy; and the latter listened and responded to her frivolities with a tell-tale indefatigability. “Isidore," said Mrs. Cassilis to the bald man, "ring the bell. They haven't brought a cup for Shirley, and she may be here any moment. Oh, it's by you, Magdalen, dear. Do you mind ?" The red-haired girl discovered the hanging bell- push among the roses, and obeyed. "Is that Shirley Cresswell? I didn't know she was coming,” she drawled lazily. "I'm so glad. I adore her. Do you know her, Edward ? Isn't she a darling ?” "Oh, Sir Edward knows her,” Mrs. Cassilis in- terrupted, with a significant smile. "We all do, don't we?” "I've only seen her,” said Billy. “That's all there is to do,” suggested Gathorne. "It isn't!" Joyce cried indignantly. “She's aw- fully clever in lots of ways, and jolly nice.” 26 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Really ?" Gathorne answered. “All the better. I haven't got beyond seeing her, myself; but she's quite worth seeing. Who is she, by the way? Any relation of the Whissendines ?” “I don't really know; very likely," said Mrs. Cassilis. “Her father was in command of his regi- ment, I believe, when he was killed, poor fellow. But he didn't leave her too well off, so the brave little thing, without any sort of help, got employ- ment as a dress designer at Delbruck's—indeed that's how I met her; and now she must be earning quite a thousand a year. At twenty-five! Isn't it splen- did of her? Particularly as there's no necessity for her to work at all ?” “What's the matter with her, then? Isn't she all there ?” Billy wonderingly asked. “Very much so," Joyce informed him in a crush- ing manner. "She doesn't like scratching along on twopence a year. Nobody but an idiot would.” "But she could marry well, any time she liked. That was what I meant,” her mother explained. “She's quite a beauty. Everybody who meets her says so. I suppose she prefers to be independent; and then she's devoted to her work. Sometimes, too, I suspect that the poor child was in love with some boy who got killed. ...". “Oh, I know she was,” Magdalen yawned. “Geof- frey Foulkes. ... Of course, that was nothing. Everybody was in love with Geoff. I'm sure I THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 27 worshipped the ground beneath his feet-the only man I ever met that I could stand. But he and Shirley were engaged—” “Actually? It was never given out, my dear, was it?" "I don't think so. He told a few people; me, among them. No doubt he saw that I had de- signs on him myself, and thought it only gentle- manly to warn me not to waste my youth in vain endeavour. ... Dear little Joyce, come and sit by me," she broke off, catching the girl's hand as she passed her, on the way from the tea-table with a fresh supply of cake. "Oh, do let me go !” cried the other, disengag- ing herself testily. "Was that the Foulkes who was brought down somewhere near Douai?” enquired Billy. “I knew him. He was a good sort.” “That's the man. He painted, you know, and was supposed to be going to do something at it.” "I have a couple of hith thingth,” Mr. Cassilis joined in swiftly, taking his cigar from his full lips. "He wath very promithing; not many ideath, but he could draw; and drawing’th rarer than ideath, jutht now." "Dear me, yes !” his wife agreed. "A charming boy! He stayed with us once; and his painting was most distinguished.” "No, no!" maintained Mr. Cassilis irritably. "He 30 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT it hadn't been shoiritualithtic non.. benignant ele “Not in your case, sir, of course," he hastened to add to Sir Edward. "You're quite right,” Mr. Cassilis agreed, with his hurried lisp. "I don't like that Thalomon girl; never did. Never trutht Jewth-never. I wonder you have her in the houthe, Adela. She’th hand and glove with half the thcallywagth in London. If it hadn't been for her, you'd never have got mixed up in all thith thpiritualithtic nonthenthe ..." Mrs. Cassilis turned the gaze of a benignant ele phant on her husband, and was drawing herself up to a reply, when a footman entered the flagged gar- den, ushering Shirley. She looked a trifle alarmed at the general uprisal to greet her; bowed at Gathorne when introduced to Captain Billy Lovat; denied all knowledge of hav- ing met Gathorne Burrell before, subsequently re- canting and blaming herself for her stupidity; ac- cepted the formal kiss of Mrs. Cassilis dutifully, and the impassioned one of Magdalen with an air of startled surprise; smiled upon Sir Edward; and then, losing her head, forgot to take any notice at all of her host, and sought refuge beside Joyce, with an expression of relief. “We've all been discussing you, dear,” Mrs. Cas silis told her in her fatly affectionate, if slightly condescending, manner. "Your ears must have been burning for the last quarter of an hour." THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 31 “Oh dear!” murmured Shirley. Her voice spoke of a grave dismay. "Miss Herbert-oh, of course, you know Mag- dalen, don't you ?-has been saying such nice things about you; and Captain Lovat was most anxious to make your acquaintance.” The soldier's brown face took on a deeper colour. “By Jove! Rather!” he cried, and proved his de light at the fulfilment of his ambition by turning his shoulder to the new-comer, and devoting himself al- most feverishly to Joyce. Mr. Cassilis, who was on the other side of Shirley, scarcely looked at her, and greeted her conversa- tional efforts with the briefest words of agreement. A furtive embarrassment showed itself in his averted eyes and uneasy fingers, which he sought to alleviate by talking loudly to his wife, from time to time, across the intervening bodies of his guests. Shirley, relapsing into silence, glanced at Magdalen, who re plied with a smile of sleepy amorousness; at Ga- thorne, who appeared unaware of her notice; and finally at Sir Edward Talbot, who had once more sunk into the recesses of his deep chair. His lips curved in polite recognition as their eyes met, but he made no attempt to entertain her; and it could hardly have been guessed that it was due to the re quest of this apathetic spectator that the girl had been included in the party. His heavy white eye 32 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT lids drooped, and his body lay relaxed in luxurious carelessness of his surroundings. The air of the lit- tle, sunny enclosure grew drowsier. Only Joyce and Billy continued to talk and laugh unbrokenly; and the efforts of the girl to draw Shirley into a three-handed conversation were consistently de feated by the determination of the young soldier to address all his remarks exclusively to herself. Be- fore long she rose to her feet. “Would you like to have a look-round, Shir- ley ?” “Yes, do, dear,” Mrs. Cassilis said, "and tell us if you approve of it. It's so delightful to have got you here at last." The suggestion of the words was that Shirley had, till now, hard-heartedly declined to visit the house and issue such directions for alterations and improve ments as seemed desirable to her superior taste. Joyce lighted a cigarette from Billy's case, and passed her hand through her friend's arm. "Come along !" she said. "No, you stay where you are, Billy. I want Miss Cresswell to myself.” And passing through one of the deep archways, the two girls shortly emerged from the winding paths of the box labyrinth on to the broad and velvety lawn which lay beneath the southern windows of the house. Overbourne was a big, flat-faced, red-brick build- ing, of no architectural beauty, but warm and THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 33 friendly in tone, and cosily wrapped in creepers. It was raised above its surroundings upon a double ter- race, balustraded with grey stone and set with large craters in which red and yellow flowers flamed like beacon fires. In the middle of the lawn a fountain threw a waving scarf of sequinned gauze into the wind and sunshine. There was a golden liveliness in the air which came as a pleasant change after the hushed warmth of the paved garden. "What a lovely place!” said Shirley, standing still to admire the scene, her skirts fluttering, and one hand to her wide hat. Joyce paused at her side. Although eight years younger than her companion, she topped her by half a head, and the two made a vivid contrast, the girl strongly built, upright, and brilliantly coloured, the young woman small, slen- der and delicate in tone. Their voices too were widely dissimilar, Joyce's ringing out firmly in a boyish alto, Shirley's dancing and sparkling in the upper register. “It's not bad, is it?” said Joyce. “Bad! I wish it was mine." "You may have it, as far as I'm concerned. I hate the country. There's nothing to do." "But it's so pretty to look at.” "You can't go on looking at the same thing for ever; and it's never any different, except in the win- ter, or when it rains; and then it's beastly." “Well, I think I'd rather live in London, as a 34 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT general thing; but I should love to have a country place like this to run down to when I felt rustic. One can have nice people to stay. ..." “But they're just as nice in a town; nicer, be cause they don't get bored and sleepy and stodgy." "Does Captain Lovat get stodgy?” asked Shirley, looking at the other with a smile. "Billy's only been down two days," replied Joyce, blushing brightly, but with an increased resolution in her voice and eyes. "I love him at present, but I dare say that in a few days he'd be as big a bore as Gathorne or Edward." “Are they bores ?” “Gathorne's awful here. I can't think why he comes. Perhaps to get a good sleep. They say he never goes to bed in London. Edward's a dud any- where." “Oh, I thought him rather attractive." “Did you really? Sorry!" “Please don't apologise,” said Shirley, laughing. "I've only spoken to him that one evening at your house; and you saw he wasn't very excited at meet- ing me again. He's an interesting looking man; that was all I meant." "I know. Most people say that. I can't see the attraction. He's got a face like a blank wall.” "I think that's partly the interest. One wonders what's behind it." THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 35 “Probably nothing." "Oh, there must be something, surely.” “Well, nothing to write to the papers about. Of course silly asses like Magdalen and Rita say he's so wonderful; they've always got to be swooning over somebody or something. But when you ask what he's done, they can't tell you. No, I believe he just lives on a sniffy manner.” Shirley shook her head. “I'm sure he's clever, even if he doesn't do any- thing out of the way. By the bye, what is he? A writer or something ?” "Nothing nowadays, as far as I know. He must be pretty rich; he's got two or three cars, and a house in the country that he's just had built or al- tered for himself, and a flat in Sackville Street. He told me once that he was a speculator in his young days." "The Stock Exchange! That's the last thing I should have taken him for." "I don't know. I think he looks the part. He lived in America, you know; and Daddy knows lots of those Wall Street men, and they're mostly like that-clean-shaven and frightfully pleased with themselves and dressed like boys and not saying much except 'Sure' and 'Nope' and 'Gee' and that sort of rot." “But that's just it; he does. Last time we met, 36 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT he talked a lot; and all about things which I should never have thought stockbrokers bothered themselves with; religion, and so on.” "I suppose he caught that from living among American millionaires. They're all very religious, Daddy says. Haven't you heard about James G. Stoniman, and that old Irishman who's got a castle in Galway about the size of the Crystal Palace, and is building Roman Catholic churches anywhere they'll let him, so as to get rid of all his money before he dies, for fear his sons might get hold of some of it afterwards ? But I must say I didn't suspect Ed- ward of being religious. When he first knew us, he was always asking me to things, and paying rotten compliments, and holding my hand when we were alone together. I couldn't stand it; so now he hardly speaks to me, except to say 'Run and play, child,' and infuriating things of that sort. I expect he'll begin holding your hand before long." The two companions were walking slowly up and down the long stretch of shaven turf as they talked; and each time they passed the fountain the wind threw a few drops of fine spray against their faces. Swallows were wheeling in swift circles about them. Shirley made no reply to her friend's last anticipa- tory remark; and Joyce, after looking at her side- ways, put her hand through her arm again. “Do you know I never knew until to-day that you were engaged to Geoffrey Foulkes? He used to THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 37 come and see us sometimes. He seemed awfully nice." She waited for an answer, but, seeing that Shirley only nodded vacantly, she squeezed her arm and let it go. "Poor old Shirley,” she said briefly, and added, after a pause, “I don't suppose Edward meant to be anything more than fatherly, but I hate father- liness, don't you? No father ever goes on like that.” "Judging by his manner to-day, I should imagine that he hasn't the slightest intention of adopting me.”. "I shouldn't worry. His friends are rather a scratch lot; except Mummy, of course; but she's friends with everybody. There's Gathorne, about as cheery as Good Friday in Aberdeen; and a whole tribe of women, like Rita Salomon, in sage-green jib bahs, with dirty silver rings on their thumbs, and their heads tied up in dish-cloths, and strings of brickbats round necks like a plucked chicken's; and Basil Jacinth-his real name's Bumpus—who's mad, and sits in corners saying nothing, with long hair combed down to join a loathsome soft beard; and that disgusting old E. D. Lewis, who shaves his forehead to make himself like Shakespeare, and writes the sort of books that people wrap up in brown paper if they want to read them in public; and Mag- dalen-I don't know; I always feel she's hiding 38 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT something nasty. But she does dress decently, at least. So does Edward. But most of the gang look as if they'd been acting an historical pageant in the rectory garden, for the organ fund, and got caught in the rain." "Sir Edward looks so sensible himself. Why does he like people of that kind ?" "Probably he enjoys being worshipped; and only that sort of idiots will do it. If you really want to keep in with him, you'll have to worship too.".. "I couldn't really. I'm far too prosaic. And I should get the sack if I turned up at South Molton Street in a jibbah. But I don't think you're quite fair about him, Joyce. He wasn't the least bit god- like or condescending to me." "Well, you wait and see ... I say, shall I take you and shew you the orchid house? We shall have to be dressing for dinner before very long." At table that night Shirley found herself placed next to Sir Edward. He was serenely polite, in- clining his head in silent acquiescence to most of her remarks, and leaving the choice of subjects wholly to her. The effect he produced was that of a cour- teous foreigner, imperfectly understanding the words addressed to him and capable of only the simplest replies. After a little of this collar-work, Shirley turned her attention to her other neighbour, Gathorne Burrell, who, stimulated by a good deal of cham- pagne, was highly conversational in a vain and in- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 39 tolerant manner which soon reduced the girl to a resentful subjection. It was not until the following morning that the ex-speculator emerged from his cool reserve. The bell of the parish church was sending its cracked summons across the sunny meadows, and the mem- bers of the party at Overbourne were ignoring it in their various ways. Mrs. Cassilis, seated beside the tennis court in a beehive chair, was reading “The Pretty Lady," while Joyce and Billy were knock- ing the balls up aimlessly, having failed to induce anyone else to play, and being quite unsuitable op ponents for a single. Gathorne, pleading neuralgia, was still abed; Magdalen, declaring that she could only do herself justice with her own racket and shoes, which she had forgotten to bring, was smoking con- tentedly indoors. Shirley, quite willing to join them, was as indifferent a performer as Joyce; and neither girl was disposed to match herself against Billy unless she had a reasonably good partner. Mr. Cassilis was doing nothing—his usual occupa- tion when not engaged in money-making. He would sit for hours, his feet tucked primly under his chair, his hands folded on his stomach, motionless and un- vocal, except when he cleared his throat in an ugly manner. As for Sir Edward, he had missed break- fast, and only emerged, dressed in snowy flannel, at eleven o'clock, when he immediately appropriated Shirley for his own entertainment. 40 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Tennis ?” he replied to Joyce's suggestion. “Cer- tainly not. I don't approve of games on Sunday.” "Don't be such an idiot!" she irritably begged him. “What possible harm can they do ?” "None whatever," he agreed with perfect amiabil- ity. “Indeed we may say that physically, if over- strain is avoided, they do good, no doubt. Come along, Miss Cresswell. I cannot believe that you are set on getting hot and dishevelled; and I must have company. Lovat, you can look after the child, and keep it in order.” And uncheered by any answering smile from Joyce, he led his captive away towards the laby- rinth of cut hedges that surrounded the Dutch gar- den. "You must pardon me for carrying you off from your friends," he told her, considering her gravely. “I haven't had a word with you, beyond the baldest formalities, since you arrived; and I only consented to come here at all on the understanding that I should meet you." "But that wasn't my fault, really. I tried to talk to you." “Yes . . . I was interested, for a time, in watch- ing how you hit it off with Gathome Burrell. Ga- thorne has many faults of manner; I have told him so often; and you are almost excessively considerate of the feelings of others. I fancy that your tempera- ments are too remote to make for friendship. His THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 41 attitude of superiority amused me a good deal. I hadn't supposed him to be so blind.” "How do you mean?” Sir Edward covered her with his cool, bland smile. “Why am I talking to you ?” "I can't imagine.” “That's insincere. You think it is because you are a beautiful girl, with a genius for adorning beau- ty. Well, you are partly right. There's no need to be embarrassed by the confession of a man so very much older than yourself that he finds in you, on this sunny morning and in this delightful garden, all the appeal of the lilies and pale roses that surround us -enchanting and pathetically fragile. But that's not all; indeed it's the smallest part of it. To my mind, there are other and stronger attractions in you.” Shirley, who had looked supremely ill at ease, during the exhibition of these late-Victorian compli- ments, made an obvious effort to treat the matter with appropriate frivolity. “Please go on! I love feeling conceited.” “Well, for one thing, you are not grown up.” "I'm ashamed to say I'm twenty-five; but I know I'm stupid for my age. Are you fond of children?" “That depends. I like children who are not grown up; and you are wrong in thinking that I describe you as immature because you are stupid. It is, in fact, exactly for the contrary reason." 42 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT "I don't understand.” "Shall we take this path ?” he asked, pausing at one of the entrances to the box-maze. “There's rather an interesting thing that I want you to see. . . . Let me explain a little. You are not grown up at twenty-five, and you are therefore not stupid. But Mrs. Cassilis at fifty, and her husband at something more, and Captain Lovat at about your own age, and Joyce at seventeen are all thoroughly mature and, according to my standards, irredeemably stupid. You see, then, that it's natural for me to seek your society while I am down here." "How about Miss Herbert and Mr. Burrell ?” “They are neither entirely children nor altogether stupid, which happens at times. But I know them too well. There is no sense of adventure in talking to them. . . . Stupidity, you see, Miss Cresswell, is a sort of disease-germ. It is not the absence of wis- dom, as darkness is the absence of light, but an op- posing force. It is positive, not negative. We are born wise, but the microbe of stupidity is in all of us, waiting to be cultivated or destroyed—or, at least, scotched. If you could get any baby born into the world to speak to you before stultifying influ- ences have got to work on its congenital wisdom, you would find it perfectly wise." "But surely experience” interrupted Shirley, with a face of incredulity. "Experience is not wisdom. So far from being a THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT paradox, the phrase "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings' is the purest statement of fact. Wisdom, like will-force, is a natural and universal gift; the power to judge, reason and discriminate. By ex- perience one may learn to use the power—no more than that. Yet you see people with every form of experience growing daily stupider and stupider; one may say it is almost a general rule. They have cultivated their stupidity to a point where experi- ence is not only useless but actually pernicious. They misapply it in every action and every thought. Taken in time, all human creatures could be saved from this creeping sickness; but the swiftness of its advance depends on surrounding influences, and many are past cure before they have learned to artic ulate. That, perhaps, is just as well. A world populated by wholly wise men and women might turn out to be a dull spot, after all.” “Then you mean," cried Shirley, her eyes and lips undisguisedly amused, "that if you were given charge of all the newly born babies you could make them all clever.” "Exactly. What a picture it presents to the mind! But ... exactly!” "And you still think there's hope for me?" "I think so,” he replied, shaking his head at her, with a smile of reproach, “although I am not sure that you have not over-fostered a sense of derision, which is not a part of wisdom, you know. But take 44 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT Joyce, now. When I saw her first she was fifteen, or a little less, I believe; like yourself, physically in- teresting, and still capable, so it seemed to me, of learning rightly. I was mistaken. I was too late. Before I finally decided this, I had patiently borne a great deal of the society of her extremely kind and hospitable relations-people who, otherwise, I should scarcely have pursued. In sheer politeness, I am compelled to frequent them still, at times; even though I gave up all hope of the child a good while ago. She is old-oh, so old! Will you believe that the only idea that she got (at fifteen!) of my efforts to draw her out of the ruck of the dull was that I was attempting to make love to her? ... So I may be mistaken in you; but I am of a sanguine nature. Would you care to become the object of an experi- ment ?” "Honestly," Shirley protested, after some hesita- tion, "you're quite wrong in thinking me the least bit clever. I really know nothing at all, except how to make dresses.” "I have told you that that is all to the good. There is the old simile of the clean slate. But the mind, unfortunately, is neither a slate nor a wax tab- let. It is a granite block, on which the lettering is cut to an indelible depth. By degrees it becomes filled from top to bottom and side to side, and there's an end. Now there is still plenty of space left in your mind." THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 45 "Plenty. It's nearly all space." “Well, that's nothing to be ashamed of. It's hardly an advantage, surely, to work at high speed, and over-time, to cover the whole surface with false and vulgar inscriptions, like a grocer's grave-stone. Will you accept advice about its decoration ?” The girl was silent for a few moments. “When we were talking about will—the last time we met, you know," she reminded him, "you told me that intellects varied. Now you say we're all born equally wise.” “Quite so. Intellect varies; and intellect is only a loose form of expression to describe the power, which may be acquired from experience or surround- ing influences or both, of employing one's natural wisdom. Some force has already increased this power in you, while, at the same time, your innate germ of stupidity is still latent. But look at the Cassilis'! Content and convinced in their fostered blindness! What could one hope to do with them ?” As he ceased speaking, the winding path along which they had been slowly sauntering emerged in- to an enclosure at the end of the labyrinth most re- mote from the house. “This is the place I wanted to shew you,” said Sir Edward. “Shall we rest here for a little? Or are you bored with my chatter ?” CHAPTER III M HEY found themselves in a mere circle of turf, 1 hidden by its dark walls from everything with- out, except the immaculate blue of the sky. A rough wooden seat was placed close under the hedge, and in the middle of the grass a term of grey stone, sur- mounted by a placid and bearded head, formed the genius of the place. Sir Edward halted in front of this battered image, his hands in his pockets, and contemplated it thoughtfully. “You hadn't seen him before ?” he asked. “No. Who is he? Homer?” “I should say not. He appears to be Silvanus. Once upon a time, long ago, he was erected over the bones of a sacrifice, and with proper ceremonies, on the outskirts of some Roman garden, and hung with garlands. He was an important member of that vanished household, Miss Cresswell; and fulfilled, with greater effectiveness probably, the duties of our 'trespassers will be prosecuted' boards." “Then he's really Roman?” “Undoubtedly. He was once my guest, and will shortly be again; for lately I have prepared a coun- try home for myself. Meanwhile I had, for a time, 46 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 47 no suitable place to put him. The first time I visited this house, I said, when I wandered by chance into this grove: “Here is the very shrine for which I have been looking for my friend.' So I offered to lend him to Mr. Cassilis for a while; and you will see from his benignant expression that he approves of his lodging." “He's a nice old thing. Where did you get him ?” "He was dug up by a farmer in Somerset, at a time when I was in the neighbourhood; and I se cured him for thirty shillings, plus sixpence to the labourer who brought him to my house.” “I suppose he's really worth more than that ?” “Yes. Shall we sit down ?” They took their places side by side on the bench, facing the image. The morning grew hot, and the thin, penetrating hum of flying insects made the air vibrate, but the blue shadow of the tall hedge protected the seat from the sunshine. "So you see that there were great and wise civilisa- tions before our own,” said Sir Edward tritely. “May I smoke a cigarette ?” “Do. ... Of course I know all about Rome and Greece" Sir Edward nodded, with a slight lift of his eye brows, expressive of a gratified surprise. “But surely," continued Shirley, "that old man with a beard isn't the best proof of how wise they were, is he? I mean, we don't hang wreaths on 48 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT statues nowadays, and trust our affairs to them, do we?” "Don't we?” “You mean Roman Catholics? I thought their images were just meant as symbols. They're not idols, are they ?” “And this is a symbol.” “Yes, but what of? They had heaps and heaps of gods, and they went on anyhow." “Who is to lay down a standard of conduct for a god ? Does the world strike you as being directed in the manner in which you would do it yourself ?” "But, Sir Edward, you don't really believe in the Roman idea of godsJupiter and Achilles and Aph- rodite and all those ?” "I believe in various unexaminable forces that to gether make up the universe as our senses display it. It seems to me immaterial what names we give them: Elohim and Beelzebub, with his train, or Ormuzd and Ahriman, or the thousands of other labels that men have attached to them. Silvanus Orientalis here formed part of a pretty old and wise belief; and wisdom is older than the hills, and is constantly be- ing lost, rediscovered and lost again.” “Then do you think the Romans were wiser than we are?” "That is to cast too wide a net. Rome was some times startlingly wise, sometimes unimaginably silly. I am speaking of the scholastic average of knowledge, THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 49 of course. There are wise individuals in all ages, even the grossest. As far as we are concerned, we are, to my mind, just rising from one of our lowest falls, and slowly beginning to work our way up the slope once more. This I should venture to say: that Western Europe was further advanced four hun- dred years ago than it is to-day.” "Was it really ?” cried Shirley, her lips parted and her eyes dilated. “Haven't we made a lot of wonderful discoveries lately, though ?” “They were equally wonderful the last time they were discovered.” “Oh, I know! The Chinese! They always dis- covered everything six thousand years before we did -gunpowder and compasses and suspension bridges. I used to think they were the most tiresome people, and dreadful liars, too." "I wasn't thinking so much of the Chinese, al- though many of their claims are demonstrably true. But take one of the very basic facts of the universe the radio-active energy. What is being laboriously pieced together in our days was not only known but controlled centuries ago. The wise men who had the secret, however, dared not share it with the mob. If we have lost in knowledge lately, we have at least gained in tolerance probably in consequence. Tolerance is the virtue of the supremely wise and the profoundly ignorant; and in the days of which I speak vast numbers of men were in the search for 50 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT knowledge, and bitterly hostile to opposing schools of thought. So the great secret was hidden away; fondled in hiding by the comparatively few; and a ridiculous, pseudo-scientific conception of the uni- verse was constructed, which at one time it was rank heresy to doubt, but which has been blown into frag- ments by the partial exhumation of the old wisdom.” "I don't know much about radium. It's got some thing to do with X-ray photographs, hasn't it?” "You would be in tears if I attempted to give you a lecture on radio-activity; and so should I, at the sight of your martyrdom. But this you certainly know: if there was one sheet anchor in which the sci- entists trusted until lately, it was the stability of the atom, wasn't it?” Shirley nodded, wide-eyed. "The whole of their theories was held by it; and now the cable has parted. We know that everything changes, endlessly and inevitably; that variations are not due to mere rearrangement, but to actual trans- formation of constituents, proceeding from a force that lurks within every atom; that we can pin our faith to no material thing; that uranium becomes ionium, ionium radium, and so on. We can imagine no limit upwards or downwards to these metamor- phoses. Some have guessed that the entire process is a mere circle, though too vast to be conceived; and that agrees well enough with the views of certain THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 61 geometrists who have, in recent times, questioned the authority of Euclid, and conceived a spherical uni- verse, beyond the limits of which human reason and imagination can never travel. . . . Well, these things are taught in the schools in our time, but the men who knew all this and much more, some cen- turies back, would have been burnt if they had not kept their lips shut. They knew; they even em- ployed their knowledge in a way still impossible to our modern scientists. No doubt you have laughed, yourself, over the wild tales of those who transmuted the baser metals into gold; or who tore the vital energy from the heart of the elements and absorbed it into their own bodies. Miss Cresswell, those stories were true.” “But how can you possibly know ?" “Secrets have a way of surviving. I know more than that; I know of many things that have not yet been accorded a pompous public ceremony of unveil- ing. All these theories of natural science merely touch the surface. They are convenient working hy- potheses; they are handy, like the mathematical sym- bols; they are not the truth." "I don't quite follow that.” "Take an instance. It has been suggested that our world is about a hundred and ten million years old, geologically. But the world is an instant-nothing -eternal." 52 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Oh dear!” cried Shirley despairingly. “Then what is true?” The flying insects hummed and circled about them as Sir Edward smilingly contemplated her confu- sion. “That's hardly a thing that can be explained in a morning's talk, nor to an unprepared mind, however receptive.” “Can't you give me some sort of hint ?”! "I could give you many, but they would probably only worry and weary you. What you have to de- cide is : do you want to know the truth? Or, rather, to be put on the path that leads to it?”. "Of course I do.” "You say that without reflection. Remember that far the greater part of mankind has died without having a glimpse of it, and many of them have got a good deal out of life.” Shirley considered this proposition for a time, with her eyes on the ground; while Sir Edward watched her with an expression almost of tenderness on his smooth face. "That's true," she said presently. “Perhaps it may be better to live in an imaginary world. ... What do you think ?”' she concluded, looking up at him suddenly. “Do you really want my advice?'' *Please!" “It's prejudiced, you understand.” 54 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT tience to learn enough, you could be entirely happy." “That sounds too good to be true. Why doesn't everyone leam, if that's so ?” “Everyone isn't given the chance. Those who know much are not necessarily philanthropists. And most, as I told you, are unable to learn, even if they get a chance; for it generally comes too late. But you, I am pretty sure, can learn if you like.” "I wonder. ... You told me in London that, if I let you, you could teach me to forget what I wanted to, and to feel as I liked to feel, but I didn't understand then that it would be by being let into secrets about the world. I thought it was only by ex- ercising my will—by pretending that everything was all right, like the Christian Scientists. You said (didn't you?) that their ideas were true enough, as far as they went; but that there was another sort of Christian Science that you'd explain to me some day—ethical, was it?" "You remember me perfectly. But don't speak of the Christian Science method as that of pretending to be well, and so being, or getting, well. According to them, it is the exact contrary; realising that sick- ness is an illusion, that, in fact, one is pretending to be ill. That, however, is equally untrue. Health or sickness, quietude or pain, are merely the result of a deliberate choice. You can have which you like. To-day you are wearing that very pretty white dress; THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 55 yesterday, when you arrived, you had an equally pretty one of blue. When you dressed this morning, you did not say 'Let's pretend that my blue dress is white,' or: 'I was deluded yesterday into believing that this white dress was blue. You chose the one you wanted to wear, and put it on." She wrinkled her smooth forehead faintly. "I see. . . . And what about the ethical part of it? What is ethical, exactly ?” “Shall we say the rule of conduct, the idea of Good and Evil, you know?” “You mean that one can choose to do right or wrong? But we all do that." “No, no. You misunderstand me. We can choose whether we will make what we are about to do right or wrong.” "But that's the same thing.” “Surely not. Let's assume an absurd instance. I contemplate killing Mr. Cassilis, for no reason, or because, perhaps, I dislike his habit of snorting, which I certainly do. If Lovat did the same action he would be wrong. If I did it, I could make it right." “That would only prove that you thought more of yourself than Captain Lovat does. I suppose most murderers think they were quite right to do their murders." “Doubtless; but they are often mistaken. In my 56 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT case, it would not be a question of personal prejudice. The killing would be right. I should have made it right beforehand.” Shirley shook her head. “I don't see that a bit. Besides, what would be the good of it? They'd hang you just the same.” "No." “You mean that you could persuade them ... ?" “There would be no need for persuasion. Why should there be ? One is hanged for doing evil, not for doing good. At least, that's the the ory.” "Sir Edward! Do you mean to say that if I had enough will—or knowledge, or whatever it is, I could go and steal half the Crown jewels to-morrow morn- ing, and everyone would agree that I was quite right; and that if Mrs. Cassilis stole the other half in the afternoon, they'd send her to prison ?" "Roughly, that is so.” "But that's really altering the whole course of nature.” "Exactly." “Nothing's real ... is that the idea ? It's only a sort of dream, and we can learn to dream what we like ?" "Not quite that either, although something like it. We are all world-creators; but most of us create blindly. The stuff is all ready to our hands, without form; and the unskilful compound it into shapes that THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 67 partially please and partially disappoint them; and the few achieve masterpieces.” "It sounds to me I know I'm silly, and don't think I mean to be rude but it sounds to me quite mad,” Shirley sighed hopelessly. “Anyhow, I should think it's rather a dangerous sort of belief- immoral, isn't it? A few of us could go rushing about killing people and taking their money and running off with their husbands and wives; and, however little the others enjoyed it, it would be all right, because we said it was.” The man laughed at her fractiousness. “I agree that it sounds rather like the Saturnalia; but I warned you that the subject was practically impossible to set out clearly in a short talk. Notice this, however: it couldn't possibly be described as an immoral philosophy. To do right is not immoral.” “Please! I'm so confused." "Let's leave that side of the question, then. In broad terms, you see the general effect on one's per- sonal lot; the power to control fate absolutely, and to make one's experiences whatever one chooses. Do you consider that that offers sufficient inducement to study the matter a little further? You can stop at any point you like; anywhere you feel you disagree, or instinct, or prejudice-yes, or superior wisdom, perhaps—tells you that you are on perilous ground. You understand that all this talk about murders and what not is only for the purpose of letting you see, THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 59 "I was thinking of that while we were talking about it,” Shirley interrupted intelligently. “I sup- pose you'd say that there's no such thing scientifi- cally, as either. Of course, I can't help fancying there is, but then I haven't got a scientific mind.” “And you are perfectly right. You have fore- stalled my very words. Logically one can place be yond all possible doubt that the conceptions of right and wrong are only based on variable social conven- ience; that any eternal, world-wide, immutable stan- dard must be an absurdity. And, while we prove it, our whole nature rejects the conclusion, in defiance of our reasoning minds. How then are we to ap- proach the knowledge of these two great opposing forces ? Through the emotions, stimulated by a suitable ritual.” "So Mrs. Cassilis was right when she told me, last night, that you had started a new religion ?” “A new religion is not an accurate description. The materials of which my belief is built are prob ably much the same as your own, although the com- pleted construction is different. I am not trying to lead you away after false gods. Don't think that. Your God, the Almighty One, is mine also; your Devil ..." “Oh, but I don't believe in him," she cried de- fiantly, “The powers of evil exist; be sure of that. How can you look about you and doubt it? But they are 60 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT slaves, not lords. You need not fear-or possibly hope that my object is to persuade you to transfer your allegiance from the master to the servant, as certain sects of mystics are reported to do. My fol- lowers do not attempt to enter into bargains in which their souls are the purchase money or consideration; and I suppose I need hardly tell you that no man has been held bound by such a contract since the world began.” “Of course not,” Shirley agreed, risking a laugh. “So you have followers, then ?” "Let's call them associates. We are all on the road; some in front, some behind. None of us have arrived. I make no claim to be in the very forefront, although my nearest competitors seem to wish to give me the first place.” “Who are they? Anyone I know ?” Sir Edward hesitated; and when he spoke again his voice, face and manner had discarded a certain glowing and sombre exaltation which had begun to make itself manifest. "For various reasons I never mention names in this connexion. Every one of us has necessarily a commonplace side to his life, from which he prefers to keep his spiritual experience separate." “You don't like your friends to talk about this be lief of yours?" "I am quite indifferent; it doesn't affect me. Please don't imagine that I am going to extract a THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 61 vow of secrecy from you, or that there is anything underhand or insincere in our proceedings. You will be quite at liberty to talk about them to anyone you like; or to send an account of them to 'John Bull,' if you prefer. In practice, however, I find that initiates are disposed to keep their own counsel. Such subjects are hardly suitable for small talk, are they ?" "No, I see that,” answered Shirley; and the pair fell into silence. The sun had found them out in their hiding place, and Shirley opened her white sunshade. From under the edge of it she kept glanc- ing doubtfully, almost humourously, at her compan- ion who, in his smartly cut flannels, with his big, smooth head bare, his shaven face tranquil and un- compromisingly modern, and his illegible eyes watching the blue and brown wreaths of tobacco smoke, looked particularly unlike the prophet of an occult sect. Presently he dropped his regard unex- pectedly on the girl, and spoke as if in reply to a remark. "Yes; it all sounds very absurd; and it is absurd, if it's approached frivolously or even apathetically. Go into it out of inquisitiveness, teased with the itch to mock at anything serious which is almost universal at present, and you may get a certain amount of laughter out of the thing; but you could get more, with greatly less expenditure of time and money, by going to see Harry Tate sell his motor-car.” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 63 "I want you to believe in something," he urged, with an almost passionate instancy. “Anything- wisdom, an ideal, love, God-anything that will lift you out of this wretched business of setting the teeth and shutting the eyes and waiting for the end. There is no end. There is all life and eternal life before you. But to waste even a day over a useless and painful treatment of your sickness is tragic. Will you try my way? You must see that yours has been a failure. Will you see if mine suits you better ?" “There's no harm in trying,” she said, with obvious reluctance. “But I'm afraid. ..." “Stop!” he said smilingly, still keeping hold of her hand. “You musn't start off in that spirit. If you can't, for the moment, feel confident, which I could hardly expect, at all events keep an open mind. A very short trial will be enough to persuade you whether there is any hope in the new prescription or not." "It's kind of you to bother about it,” murmured Shirley, without looking at him. “And I do feel pretty beastly, at times. . . . When would you find time to teach me, though? You know, I'm at work all day." He released her hand, shook the ash from his cigarette, crossed his legs, and spoke in the kindly, formal manner which he had used at their first meet- ing. 64 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Yes. I should imagine that you might do a good deal by yourself, in your spare moments.” "Books ?" There was a note of apprehension in her voice. "Books; varied by conversation, when you could spare me an hour or so. Don't look alarmed. I think that, in your case, the preliminary study might be cut down fairly low, though some is essential, I'm afraid. To your nature emotion is more suggestive than argument. If you will give me your address in London, I'll let you know shortly what I propose for you. First of all, though, tell me frankly what makes you contemplate exhibiting my remedy." "I won't do that,” she assured him. "I won't let anyone see it, truly.” "I'm sure you wouldn't, although I've told you that you're quite at liberty to. What I should have said was: Why are you inclined to take advice from me? I can see that the idea of a ritual presided over by me not unnaturally amuses you a little. Is it merely an appetite for new sensations, or have you really a feeling of hope? And, if so, why?" She pondered. “Well, I don't quite know, but I have; and I didn't mean to be amused. You see, one doesn't often come across a person who takes anything seriously; at least, they're ashamed to say so, if they do, until they've known you for years. So I wasn't quite sure whether you were laughing at me, or not. ... THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 65 And it isn't only inquisitiveness, although I am in- quisitive, too. New things, particularly if they're odd or a little uncanny, always thrill me a good deal. But, besides that, I do feel that you may be able to help me to fuss and bother myself less. Of course, you're clever, and you look so sure of yourself and calm and contented. I should like to feel like that. Nerves and depression are horrible. Do you think there's any real cure for them, or must they just be lived down ?" “With good will, you shall be as impervious to trouble as myself, before many months; so you see that, even if you choose to stop at that point, you will have gained much. But you will go on. I know it.” He threw his cigarette under the hedge, and rose from the seat. “We'd better be getting back to our hostess, I suppose,” he said with a polite regretfulness of tone. "She won't forgive me if I monopolise you for the whole morning; moreover, I have lectured you enough, goodness knows, for one day. You've borne it with exemplary patience. I can see that you'll be the best of pupils; and it shan't be my fault if you don't live to be glad of it." During the return to the lawn, he said no more on the subject of their long duologue, but talked pleasantly and at random of more commonplace mat- ters. Mrs. Cassilis, still seated in her wicker chair, THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 67 "I'll go up and have a look at him," said Sir Edward, without any display of sympathy for the sufferer. "Do. He sent down word that he couldn't see anybody; but, of course, that wouldn't apply to you." "It was probably aimed directly at me,” Sir Ed- ward smiled, "but I shall go, for all that. He gives way, on these occasions; lets himself go altogether; and he'll probably lie there for two or three days starving and pitying himself, if I don't take him in band firmly. I shall bring him down to lunch all right-you see!” Still smiling, he wandered away towards the house, his large, well shaped head bare to the sun, his eyes unwinking in the glare. Magdalen had slipped from her chair to the grass beside it, and caught Shirley by the hand affectionately. “Sit down here," she begged, studying the other's face with half closed eyes, in which laughter and ad- miration seemed to be at war with utter weariness. “What a gorgeous morning! I wish one never had to move again. May I lean my head against your knee, darling ?” Shirley agreeing to this arrangement with an ami- able lack of enthusiasm, Magdalen dropped her flam- ing locks against the white of her friend's dress, with a comfortable sigh. For all her superficial cynicism, she seemed to have a foundation of senti- mentality to her character; for by and by the scar- 68 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT let head turned slowly on the knee, and Shirley, who was at the moment speaking to Joyce, broke off and looked down with raised eyebrows as Magdalen pressed her lips to the hand which she held in her own. The crouching girl did not lift her eyes, how- ever; but, having given this slow caress, fell back with another small sigh into her former position. Shirley glanced across at Joyce, who had been watch- ing this pretty interlude, and they both smiled, the elder with mere amusement, the younger with mani- fest scorn. CHAPTER IV M HE two young women encountered at the entry T of Delbruck's in the second week in July. The day was sadly overcast, and an occasional chilly breath of air spoke of coming rain; but Magdalen was in festal array. Shirley, on the other hand, al- though as enviably clothed as became the representa- tive of a noted firm of dressmakers, had taken the possibilities of the weather into consideration to some extent. "Here you are! What luck to catch you !" "How do you do?” said Shirley, submitting first one cheek and then the other to an enthusiastic kiss. “Where are you off to ?” "I was just going out to get something to eat.” “Alone? That's splendid. I flew down here from Lord's, on a sudden inspiration, to ask you to lunch with me and come up to the match afterwards. My young brother's playing—Chris; I forget if you've met him; and I've got a ‘rover' ticket to spare for you. Do say yes !” "I'm afraid I can't possibly," Shirley lamented, opening her eyes wide. “I must get back this af- ternoon.” “But that's ridiculous. Don't you ever take a day 74 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT wholly artificial, for the four windows at the back of the room, which presumably, when open, com- manded a view of a yard or mews, were filled with coloured glass set in lead cames. The general effect, if not actually equivocal, was rather notably discreet, and seemed to have its influence on the company, which conversed, for the most part in confidential half-tones. An occasional plainly audible phrase or laugh came rather as a surprise. Magdalen and Shirley found places beneath one of the glowing win- dows. "I come here when I've got someone with me that I want to talk to as well as look at,” Magdalen ex- plained. “When I don't want to talk to them, I go to the Carlton; and when I don't want to look at them, I go home and have a cup of tea in bed. So restful! ... You'll have a Bron first, darling, won't you? Honestly? I will, then.” When the cocktail was set before her, she lighted a cigarette, and began to study the bill of fare idly. “Shall I order? I think it's such a tedious job.” “Yes, will you ?" “What sort of thing do you like? Are you hun- gry?" "Not frightfully. Anything that sounds nice.” A swarthy young waiter in black livery, with knee- breeches and white cotton gloves, stood silently at Magdalen's elbow, awaiting her commands, but the fact did not flurry her in any way. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 75 “I'm simply ravenous. We breakfasted at nine we're down at Hackhurst now, you know. Oh, didn't you? Yes; Phillimore Gardens is shut up till Octo- ber. So stupid of mother to insist on going down just a week before Lord's; or, rather, inconsiderate, because she didn't want to go to the match, though she knew I did. I had to leave the house before ten. Chris wouldn't forgive me if I turned up late, dear old boy!” At the momentary pause in her remarks, the waiter broke in, speaking in a tone of mystery, and bending his gleaming head low towards her. “You like-a to start off with some Cantalupo melon ?” “It was quite cold, coming up,” Magdalen con- tinued, deaf to the suggestion, “and I've been sitting in the Mound Stand all the morning; so you can imagine if I want my lunch. ... Well, what about some melon, my child? You're sure you like that? Or hors d'oeuvre? They've rather a pretty fancy in hors d'oeuvre here. Melon you think's nicer? Yes, I do too, really. ... What fish? Or would you rather have an omelette? I think they're the most filthy compounds. Do have one! They can make you quite a little-y one, all for yourself.” "Omelette aux rognons? Wiz some kittanies in- side ?” the servant insinuated. “My dear man, don't talk !” protested Magdalen. “How can I possibly think while you're talking? No, THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 77 No, I must face another early breakfast, and the rigours of the road. Who'd be a sister ? But Chris is such an angel-lamb!” Shirley leaned back in her chair, and contemplated such lunch-parties as were visible. At a neighbour- ing table, a stout moustached man of middle age sat opposite a slim, fair boy. Both were dressed in the extreme of fashion, and their meal, which they attacked in silence, was a complex one, judging by the array of bottles and dishes. As Shirley turned her head towards them, the boy laid down his knife and fork and stared at her intently. His compan- ion, attracted by this sudden immobility, followed the direction of his eyes, and frowned when he dis- covered what the object of interest was. The girl immediately transferred her attention to a table straight in front of her, where a man and woman, both of Southern appearance, were murmuring in- audibly to each other, their faces as close together as the width of the table would permit. "More incendiarism !" commented Magdalen, in her languid drawl. “That's boy's spell-bound. I'm sure I'm not surprised; you look too ducky in that demure little frock. If I was a man, I should be getting my lugger round to Port of London to day." "Oh, boys of that age always stare at every woman in sight. It shews what dogs they are. His father didn't seem to approve of his goings-on.” 78 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT While she was speaking, Magdalen watched her slyly, between narrowed eyelids; and, when she ceased, gave a short, odd laugh. “No. ... Jealous, no doubt.” “That poor old thing, too? You are silly,” replied Shirley genuinely amused. The waiter putting two vast crescents of melon before them at this point, and adding silver castors, she was free for a few seconds to continue her dis- coveries. Her eyebrows suddenly lifted and her lips slightly parted; and, when the servant had re- tired, she leaned towards Magdalen, and spoke in a lowered voice. "I say! I believe Sir Edward Talbot is sitting at the second table behind you, with another man. You can just see him, now and then, through the palm-leaves." “Tell me when to look !" Magdalen did not seem best pleased at this encounter. “Yes, that's Edward, all right; and Gathorne's with him. Don't catch his eye, if you can help it. We don't want him coming over here and monopolising the conversation. You'll have plenty of him before long, you may be sure; and very likely I shan't have a chance of talking to you alone again before the middle of October. You don't mind, darling ?” “Not a bit. I don't care much for three-handed conversations. The other two always talk to each other, and I get left out in the cold. ... He isn't THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 79 likely to see us, unless he leaves before us. He's quite hidden from me, except when he's sitting right back, like that, and I'm leaning sideways, to look round you." “So you haven't lost your heart to him yet ?” "To Sir Edward ? I thought him very interesting and nice, but not in that way at all.” "He'd be flattered to hear you. And yet I don't suppose he'd care, really. He can get most women to think of him in that way, if he wants to.” "I can quite imagine,” agreed Shirley, in polite ellipsis. "But not me.” There was a little silence, during which Magdalen once more seemed to be scrutinising her friend's sen- sitive and faintly coloured face. "Nor me. I'm not awfully interested in that sort of thing, are you ?” A slight shake of the head was all the reply. “Men become so disgusting, somehow, when they begin to make love. Of course, on paper, Romeo and Cyrano said some ripping things; but probably even they had nasty red faces and hot eyes while they were saying them; and most men only have the faces and eyes, without the silver tongues. Edward's never tried his fascinations on me. He'd see at once that it was a waste of time and trouble. Or perhaps he didn't want to? I never thought of that. . . . Still, he's a thrilling creature.” "You mean his ideas are thrilling?" 80 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT "Partly that. Or, rather, it's one's own ideas- which one didn't know one had until he drew them up to the surface that are so engrossing." "I thought he seemed very kind and sympathetic.". “Oh, that be blowed! He isn't one of the brothers Cheeryble; he's a gigantic egoist—the completest that ever lived, I believe. And, like all egoists, he must pass on his opinions, or bust. He can't keep them corked up. Kind, sympathetic people are only per- nicious; they encourage you to grovel and snivel- strew cushions before you, and lend you hankies. All clear thinkers are as cold as this melon and harder (I'm not going to pay for it) and so's Ed- ward. If you're looking for someone to mingle your tears with, you might as well try to snuggle up with the Matterhorn. But if you want to know how to stop them, he's the boy.” Although Shirley's face shewed no great convic- tion that this estimate of his character was a true one, she did not dispute the point. "He's really made you happier ?” "I was happy before I ever heard of him. I never went in much for low spirits. But since I've known him well. ... Oh yes!" She had plainly been going to say more; but, be- fore speaking the last two words, she broke off unex- pectedly, the enthusiasm that was beginning to light . her calm face faded, and she momentarily closed her eyes, with a faint shiver, suggestive of a disgusted THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 81 realisation of her unwonted want of reticence. When she completed the sentence, she became as lazily cyni- cal as usual. “You're great friends with him, aren't you ?” en- quired Shirley, beginning to eat her omelette. "We were pretty thick for a time; but we don't meet very often now. I don't need him any more.” “How cruel of you! How do you know he doesn't need you ?” "He? He doesn't need anybody. So long as they find a use for him, they interest him. The moment they don't, they cease to exist for him, except as part of the landscape.” The statement had the effect of silencing Shirley for a while; and her eyes were thoughtful. When she spoke again, she hesitated over her choice of words. “Suppose a person asked him to asked his advice about things in general, you know; and didn't like it -wasn't inclined to take it, I mean, after all. Do you think he's the sort of man who'd be offended who'd try to argue. ...?” “You needn't be discreet, darling,” said Magdalen, coming to her rescue, and sliding a thin hand, on which a large acquamarine gleamed coolly, across the table-cloth, to press her friend's pale fingers. “Ed- ward's offered to experiment on you, now—I knew he had, down at Overbourne; it was perfectly obvious— and you're afraid of letting yourself in for some 82 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT thing tedious that you won't be able to get clear of without unpleasantness. Don't be alarmed. He'd no more dream of pestering you with unwanted ad- vice than he would of making love to a woman who didn't enjoy it—not even if it was you. Why should he bother? He'd have no difficulty in booking him- self up, a year or two in advance, for any part that he fancied would amuse him." “You make him out quite a dangerous character," said Shirley laughing. “How old is he?" "Oh, no age! Does he strike you as an old man ?" “Not old, no; but very dignified. I couldn't be lieve Joyce Cassilis when she told me that he used to try to make love to her. It seemed so utterly unlike him—as I saw him—to be running after a little thing of fifteen. I thought it was just a de- lusion of hers; in fact, something he said to me seemed to prove it was. But perhaps there was some thing in it after all. What do you think ?”. “Quite likely,” said Magdalen, shrugging her shoulders. “She's pretty enough; but so frightfully Philistine that nobody of any intelligence would be able to stick her long.” “Oh, I think she's a dear.” "Do you really? I tried to, for a time. But that manner! Can you imagine regarding her in a ro- mantic light ?” "Lots of men do. She goes very well." THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 83 "Soldier boys and so on; yes, it's a fact. But I don't understand it. Captain Corrie told me once that he'd as soon think of kissing a naval Master-at- arms as Joyce; and, according to him, they're not what you might call sentimentalists. However, some people enjoy being rolled in the mud. The more you insult them, the more fascinating they think you. Personally I like girls to be awfully feminine other girls, anyhow. That's what makes you so irresist ible.” "Joyce has got a boyish manner,” Shirley began, in defence of her absent friend. "I never could see that she had any manners at all,” Magdalen objected; but before the argument could proceed any further, a loud voice broke across the hushed murmur of the room. "I'm damned if I do. ... I'm damned if I do." Shirley started violently; Magdalen looked quickly over her shoulder; and the two foreigners at the next table were also screwing their heads in the direction of this sudden outcry. “I'll see you damned,” the voice went on, in a gabble of fury. “No more! I'm fed with the whole damned thing. ... I won't be quiet. You be damned! Who are you to tell me to be quiet? I'm damned if I'll be quiet." With the harsh rush of angry words, complete silence fell on the assembly. Such of the lunchers 84 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT as could be seen were all staring the same way, some perturbed, some faintly smiling, some in offended protest. Magdalen turned back towards Shirley and raised her eyebrows in amused curiosity. "Hullo!” she said softly. “'Ark to our Gathorne! What's gone wrong with him?" "Is that Mr. Burrell ?” As Magdalen nodded, Gathorne's voice broke out afresh. "Yes, you did! Yes, you did! It's a damned lie . . . you did!” Ten, twenty seconds of noiseless calm succeeded, and then the subdued murmur of conversation, a trifle increased in vivacity, and the faint tinkle of glass and silver, filled the room once more. Sir Ed- ward's voice had been wholly inaudible during the short controversy. Magdalen looked at her compan- ion's face, which had blushed brightly at the first sound of Burrell's wrath, and immediately after- wards turned white. "Why, you were quite frightened, darling," she said, laughing with a sort of tenderness. "I thought-I was afraid there was going to be a row." "Oh, nobody would dare to have a row with Ed- ward; and Gathorne must be drunk to cheek him as much as he did. But you see Edward's suppressed him already; unless he accidentally dammed the flow of his own eloquence." THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 85 "I do hope he isn't drunk. I hate drunken people.”, "He pretty often is, these times. But don't you worry. He's in good hands; he won't be allowed to make himself a bore. . . . I've been expecting something of this sort, for some time now." “Why? I thought they were such friends.”. “So they are, or were. Edward's as fond of him as he is capable of being of anybody. They were al- ways together for a year or so. But Gathorne's rather a fool. He overdoes everything. When he's trivial, he puts in as much work at playing the goat as if he'd got to complete a contract against time; and when he's virtuous, which he is in patches, despite all efforts to keep him straight, he takes himself as seri- ously as Jeremiah." "Jere-mi-ah ?” repeated Shirley, with the faintly frowning glance at the ceiling which often accom- panies an effort to fit a face and personality to a familiar name. “So naturally he knocks his nerves to pieces. He looks pretty washed-out, and he's got a perfect genius for getting himself into hot water. ... If you take a doctor's advice, you must take it whole, mustn't you? You must follow it more or less closely. If he prescribes a dose of digitalis, it's unreasonable to drink it out of tumblers every day for lunch, and then blame him if it makes you feel cheap. Or if he recommends a light diet, you're wrong in supposing 86 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT that he means you to go without food for a fortnight, and then try to balance things by overeating for a week.” “What doctor does he go to ?” “I don't think he's ever been to one in his life, so far. But, if he goes on like this, he'll need the services of two, and a certificate. ... What would you like after that noisette, Shirley ?” "I couldn't eat anything else, truly, thanks very much. Besides, I must be getting back directly." “Oh, not yet. Have a zabajone? They make them rather well. Just ten minutes more ... do! I ought to be going too, then.” "Really ten minutes, then,” Shirley stipulated. "In which case, coffee, Giulio," Magdalen told the waiter. “No, don't describe puddings to us. Coffee, like lightning, and some yellow Char- treuse. Will that suit you, darling? No liqueur ? Yellow Chartreuse, then; and the bill, at the same time.” She handed her cigarette case to Shirley; and, blowing a cloud of smoke herself, stared into her friend's eyes. "I say! An idea's just occurred to me. I wonder if you'd be an angel-child, and do me a favour.” “What's that?” "Put me up for the night. I do shy at the idea of the journey to Hackhurst and back. I don't want any meals. You can come and dine with me THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 87 somewhere; and I only have a cup of tea in the morn- ing.” The proposal did not seem to appeal to the other girl, who replied with a troubled politeness. “I'm so sorry. I've got such tiny rooms—just my bedroom and sitting-room and the kitchen. I really haven't got a corner for a guest." "My dear, I'm not a guest. I can double up with you, or sleep on a sofa, or anything. ... Oh, don't be formal, Shirley! It'd be such a lark. We could go to a theatre, or I'd get you into Murray's. Say yes, there's a darling! I'll be eternally grateful.” A conciliatory stubbornness took possession of Shirley's face. "I would if I could, really; but, you see, I've had the most awful job to get a servant. Three de serted me in a fortnight, before this girl came along; and she looks like staying-she's been with me nearly a month. But I told her, when, I en- gaged her, that I never had guests, except perhaps one to tea or dinner, once in a way. ..." "But I shouldn't make any extra work. In fact, I'll help her to make the bed, if she likes.” "Yes, but you know what servants are, this last year or two. I'm sure she'd walk straight out of the place; and I really can't face looking for another yet." "Give her an evening off then, and I'll do the housework,” urged Magdalen; and Shirley, looking 88 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT supremely uncomfortable, shewed signs of surrender; but just then the voice of Gathorne came to her aid. "I don't believe a word of it. It wasn't her at all, and you know damned well it wasn't. . . . It was a damned dirty trick. ... Oh, go to Hell ! I'm off; I've had quite enough of you.” There was the sound of a chair colliding with a screen, as the speaker thrust it away from him, and of a glass knocked into a plate. The head- waiter hurried to the table, and the murmur of Sir Edward's voice could be faintly heard. “There! Take for my lunch out of that!” cried Gathorne loudly; and the next moment he stormed past the table at which the two girls were sitting, cannoned lightly off a dumb-waiter, and disappeared through the door. His face was as white as paper, and his eyes blazed; but he shewed no other signs of intoxication. For a few moments the maître d'hotel remained in subdued colloquy with Sir Ed- ward. "Thank goodness he's gone!” Shirley said, catch- ing her breath. “What an awful temper he was in!” She laughed nervously as she met Magdalen's eyes ; but the other preserved an immovable countenance. “Then you won't?" she persisted, returning to the subject of the interrupted discussion. "I'm awfully sorry. I really darn’t risk it. But I tell you what,” hastily added Shirley, avoiding THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 89 Magdalen's sullen gaze, “why not ask Emily Brook? They've heaps of room at Bloomsbury Square; enough for a regiment. I can telephone her up for you, if you haven't time, and. ..." "I'm not going to stay with Emily. I can't stand her,” Magdalen answered crossly. "I think you're beastly, Shirley.” Under the imputation of bestiality, Shirley again faltered; but at this moment Sir Edward, on his leisurely way out of the restaurant, perceived his two acquaintances, and approached their table. In his placid face and pleased half-smile of greeting there was no memory of the quarrel which had recently been thrust upon him. "How do you do, Migs Cresswell? It's very nice to see you again. I have been trying to find time to call on you, for the last three weeks; but fate's been against me. Well, Magdalen. ... You've been quarrelling, I see.” “Oh, no!” Shirley earnestly cried. "And so have I, as I'm afraid you heard. I hope that your estrangement is not final, as ours was, so Gathorne informed me. What a noise he made about it, too, didn't he? Curious fellow! ... Magdalen, I can't think you mean to be implacable towards such a sensitive person as Miss Cresswell." The red-haired girl had already recovered her weary smile, and added to it a new touch of easy- going contempt. 90 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Oh, reassure yourself, Edward; there's no harm done. I haven't anywhere in London to sleep to- night, and I thought Shirley might give me a shake down; but she's afraid of her skivvy; so I shall have to get back to the country, after all. I'm up for Eton and Harrow, you know. ... Shirley dear, if you really won't come to Lord's with me you won't do anything to-day—shall I drop you at the shop on my way?” “That would be awfully nice of you," Shirley replied with eager contrition. "But I was just going to ask Miss Cresswell if she'd stroll there with me,” Sir Edward interposed, his eyes on Magdalen's. “I very much want a word or two with her, if she could spare me a few minutes." Shirley looked at her entertainer for permission to agree; and Magdalen withdrew her claims with perfect amiability. Any disappointment that she might have felt at Shirley's refusal of hospitality had passed away, to all appearance, as rapidly as it came. She received thanks for her entertainment with the friendliest protests, kissed her guest fondly, and, as she drove away, continued to wave her hand as long as she was in sight. Sir Edward's face softened into an amused sympathy with this maidenly tender- ness. "A pretty, attractive creature-Magdalen,” he ruminated as he paced along, by Shirley's side, to mi THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 91 wards South Molton Street, "but, I suspect, a little exuberant for your taste.” "I'm not much given to hugging and kissing my friends," Shirley confessed. “I suppose I've got a hard nature; anyhow, it makes me feel uncomfor- tably shy, particularly in public. But she's very kind and nice to me I really can't think why; for we've only met a few times, and I can never think of anything to say to her. And she has heaps of clever friends, and is clever herself.” “Personalities take hold of us, quite apart from any intellectual affinity,” Sir Edward abstractedly remarked. “I myself enjoyed an idyllic friendship of some months, when I was only a few years younger than I am now, with a young Frenchwoman who waited in a small restaurant in Charleston. She was a strong, square-shouldered, thick-ankled girl, with a pale, oval face-placid and kind, but by no means beautiful—and two queer dark corkscrew curls dangling at her cheeks. She knew nothing and had no conversation. I was very fond of her. ... Poor Rose! ... You have my full permission to laugh, Miss Cresswell. As you see, I am hardly the type of man that makes a habit of flirting with servants and barmaids." “But I don't want to laugh. I think it was nice.” "Most of us feel at times the need of somebody or something to sentimentalise over a little, however 92 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT unsentimental we may ordinarily be. Magdalen has no sister, no intimate girl-friend, I fancy; not even a cat or a dog. She might, of course, have a lover, if she chose; but that is not the same thing. So she has made a little niche for the reception of your image. I should say that it is likely to remain empty, however. . . . And how have you been get- ting on? Have you thought any more of our talk in the grove of Silvanus ?” “Often.” “Are you still in the same state of mind ? Am I to be allowed to help you ?" "It's very kind of you." “No kinder than for a doctor to take up a case.” “But he gets paid for it.” "Not necessarily; and in any case, if he's worthy of the style of doctor at all, the essence of his pleasure lies in the cure and not the fee. For that matter, I shall be paid, and overpaid, by the privilege of your company." The girl laughed at the compliment, but blushed a little at the same time. Sir Edward smiled good- humouredly. "You think me dreadfully old-fashioned; and I myself, notice a tendency to a sort of ponderous formality in my speech. I think it must be an unintentional reaction from the brutality of manner which most of our young Englishmen have prided themselves on during the last few years. I must THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 93 98 try to strike a medium. Meanwhile, we are to be friends, I hope.” “I should like to be." “Good! And, to begin with, shall we clear a tiresome obstruction to intimacy out of the way, and agree to call each other by our Christian names ?" "All right; but I'm sure I shan't be able to think of you as anything but Sir Edward.” "How very discouraging! One feels quite senile. Well, Shirley, you must please yourself about that. Whatever comes naturally to you will be what I prefer. And here is Delbruck's, where I suppose I must say good-bye. When can we have a long talk ?" “Will you come to tea, some Saturday or Sun- day, about half past four? Or are you going out of London again at once ?" "I shall be up and down . . . Saturday is nearer than Sunday. May I come then? Yes, I have your address. And then we'll take the thing in hand seriously.” "I'm sure I shall be very interested.” "I think you will; and, if you are, I can guarantee that you'll be immeasurably happier. Till Satur- day, then.” Shirley nodded pleasantly and vanished into the gloom of the private entrance; while Sir Edward, settling his hat with a slight shake of the head, re traced his steps, in grave thought, towards Bond Street. CHAPTER V UTSIDE, in the hall, a meditative clock quietly recorded the hour of seven; and Shirley checked its accuracy with a glance at her watch- bracelet. "I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to go before long,” she said. “You won't mind, will you? I'm going out to dinner, and I shall have to dress pretty soon.” Sir Edward lay on a low divan beside the fire, watching Shirley with his expressionless eyes, as she sat in her arm-chair beside the small tea-table, her feet tucked under her. Upright on its haunches, with its fore-paws touching the fender, a sleek tabby cat stared unwinkingly into the dancing flames. The room was of no great size, plainly and sparely furnished, its walls hung with a patternless paper of an.indeterminate blue-grey. There were no pictures, pottery, polished brass or silver; no piano; not even a clock on the mantel, which bore no more than a card- board box of cigarettes, and a few other trifles of daily use which seemed to have found their way there by accident. But the carpets on the floor and the divan, the heavy curtains which hid the window, the shawls which covered the two easy-chairs, and 94 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 95 Shirley's own robe of Chinese embroidery, smoul- dered and flamed with colour, and told of a passion for splendid fabrics, thrown up against an austere background. The effect produced was agreeably dif- ferent from that of other London middle-class draw- ing-rooms, with their shiny furniture, gleaming mir rors and photograph-frames, trivial German china, negligible water-colour drawings, and more or less unclean and crumpled hangings and cretonnes. On the writing-flap of an open bureau there was a por- celain bowl of big yellow chrysanthemums. The man shifted lazily on his couch, for the air was drowsy with silence, tobacco-smoke and the warmth of the chuckling fire. “At once?” "Oh no! Ten minutes, or quarter of an hour. That'll give me, time enough." "I was hoping you were free for dinner. I've hardly seen you, this last week. Where are you din- ing ?” “With Joyce.” "Joyce? ... Put her off, and spend the evening with me.” "I can't very well. She's alone to-night. Mr. and Mrs. Cassilis are going out; and I promised her I'd come, three or four days ago." “Yes? You're often with her, aren't you ?" “Fairly often.” “What do you see in her, if one may ask ?” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 97 much, if I'm so hopelessly incapable of judging you.” "But surely I must know myself better than any- one else can, even you. All the same, I think it's very nice of you to go on believing in me, particu- larly as you say that I'm not getting on anything like as well as you expected.” “I know you," he insisted, “far better than you know yourself; and I tell you that you're worthy of better company than that stupid little girl and her stupid little girl friends and her chuckleheaded boy admirers. As for getting on, you don't try to get on." “Oh, I do!" He shook his head amiably. "I do," she persisted. “And I have learnt a lot, considering. I'm ever so much steadier and happier since I knew you; and I'm awfully grateful. If you hadn't helped me, I should probably have made myself miserable for years over what's past. You can see yourself how different I am." “My statement was that you don't try to get on, not that you didn't try to get on,” he distinguished. "Up to a point, you were a good girl enough; and it seemed that my first estimate of you was absolutely right; but it wasn't. It never occurred to me that you were likely to give so much trouble to be so unaccountably recalcitrant. You have the brains; you have the temperament; you appear to be as anx- ious to please as a puppy. And beneath it all lies a 98 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT strain of stubborn triviality which utterly defeats me.” "I'm so sorry,” Shirley answered, with an ingra- tiating penitence. "I did warn you, didn't I ?" “Not at all. You said you were silly, which isn't true. What you really lack is pluck and energy. You find it less risky and exhausting to stick to the worn paths, however ugly and stony. At first sight I read more of the spirit of enterprise into you.” She hung her head mutely before this passionless rebuke. “We've been fairly intimate now," he continued, “for over four months; and you agree that our friend- ship has resulted in giving you a less hopeless out- look. September and October pass. The introduc- tory stages are past; I am just waiting for you to take the next step, when you suddenly pull up dead, and declare that you are not yet ready to go any fur- ther. To be sure, you're at liberty to drop your en- quiries at any point you like; I've always admitted that. But you will neither say definitely that you don't want my guidance any more, nor follow where I try to lead you. If one has offered to take a friend to the top of Mont Blanc, one may be par- doned for objecting to settle down permanently at the Grands Mulets. The obvious alternatives are to finish the climb, or call the whole affair off. You trust me very little, Shirley; yet the mere fact of my persistence ought to reassure you. Beyond the pleas- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 99 ure of watching your growth, there can be no pos- sible reason for taking so much trouble. If I had not been fond of you, I should have given you up in despair before now." As his cool voice ceased, the girl spoke with a hur- ried uneasiness. "It's not you, it's myself that I don't trust. Whatever you say, I'm rather a fool. There's some thing in me, something I can't get rid of, which shies at once at any idea of taking anything too seriously. Even going to church, before I was grown up, used to embarrass me. It made me feel so silly to bow in the Creed, and wait with my face hidden, after the service, until I heard the rustle of people getting up, and eat bits of bread out of the palms of my hands, and all that. Of course, I know the real sil- liness is to think it silly; but I can't help it—that's how I'm made. I couldn't possibly say that I don't want your help and friendship any more, because I do. But I'm afraid I shall never be a credit to you; and honestly I think it would be better not to try to take me any further than I'm suited for; that is if you can bear me as I am." "You must please yourself," he said carelessly. “I needn't apologise for saying that I should have liked you to go further, if you had felt inclined. I'm fond of you, and your company's been a great pleasure to me. So far as 'bearing you as you now are' goes, no doubt we shall go on meeting as friends; THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 101 who still keeps his ju-ju at home for secret devotions. Many of the ideas that I have suggested to you in bare outline, you have privately rejected in your own mind, as unreasonably rebellious against the opinion of the majority. Oh, yes, yes! You don't realise what a tell-tale face you have.” "Some of them I didn't understand. So I couldn't agree with them, could I? But it was no more than that.” "Put it at that. You never will understand, un- less you are willing to learn. Long ago I told you that reason is only one of the paths to knowledge. What shocks and surprises the reason may yet in fact be perfectly acceptable and desirable. My am- bition was to give you energy as well as peace; to teach you to act, no less than to repose. I have come to the point at which the multiplication table and the rules of formal logic fail me; and there you elect to stop.” “Would you really rather-very much rather-I went on ?" she asked pleadingly. “You must please yourself," he repeated in his changeless voice. Shirley's expressive eyes sought the emptily crys talline ones of Sir Edward in anxious enquiry; and for quite half a minute neither moved or spoke. “You must please yourself,” he said, a third time, smiling gently and returning her gaze. “What am I to do?" she asked. 102 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Do ?” “Yes," she said fretfully. “There's some sort of a ceremony, isn't there?” "Oh! So you've decided against stagnation? You're certain it's your own wish? Not merely a surrender to my disappointment? I couldn't bear to urge you against your inclinations." “Yes,” she said, still looking at him intently, while a touch of colour came into her cheeks, and her lips parted slightly. “Yes. Now I've begun, it'd be stupid and cowardly to stop, wouldn't it?” "I congratulate you on your good judgment,” he replied, with as near an approach to heartiness as his rather remote tranquillity could be expected to achieve. “And, selfishly, I'm very glad; for I own that I have looked forward greatly to you becoming one of us. There is something discouraging in the sight of so interesting a nature as yours obstinately refusing life, and clinging to a faithless indif- ference.” "How do I become . . . one of you ?” Shirley again enquired, with so audible a note of nervousness that Sir Edward's expression changed to one of amusement. "I don't know what your ... your services are like, in the least ... what you do." “Are you afraid, like Verdant Green, that you will have to submit to being branded with a red-hot poker ? What a funny girl you are! Do I look like Torque mada ?” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 103 “I don't know." “A very good answer. Nor do I; and, on second thoughts, I should think it's quite possible that he was my living image. Well, it comes to this: you must make up your mind whether you can trust me or not." "Can't you give me some sort of idea of what happens ?" “Certainly. A number of us assemble in a suit- able place and perform appropriate rites. You will attend as a spectator; and afterwards you will have an opportunity of being initiated yourself.” “But I needn't?” “You needn't. I should like to suggest, however, that it would be better to stay away, unless you think there's a reasonable prospect of your wishing to join us. We are not running a variety entertainment, you understand.” “And that's all you can tell me?" “That's all I can tell an outsider; and you are an outsider at present. You will see that you are not bound in any way." After a period of downcast reflection, Shirley sighed. "All right. Of course, I do trust you; it'd be beastly not to, when I know you so well, and you've been so nice. When will it be?” “That I'll let you know in a few days. Perhaps in a fortnight or so, at my country place. I will ar- 104 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT range it for a Saturday or Sunday evening, so as not to interfere with your work; and there will be other women staying with me, to keep you company. This is a most pleasant surprise, Shirley; I began to make sure I'd lost you." “Would that have mattered ?" she asked, with a return of her dissatisfied manner. He looked at her for some seconds without answer- ing, and then laughed softly as he rose from the divan and came towards her. “Very much indeed. ... And now I see that I've exceeded my quarter of an hour, and probably made you late for your appointment. Good-bye!” “When shall I see you next ?”! “I'm not certain. Possibly not until we meet in the country; in which case I'll let you know all the arrangements by letter. You won't change your mind again? You will come ?" “Yes,” she said obediently, “I'll come.” An hour later she was seated beside Joyce at one end of a long, shining mahogany table in the Palace Green dining-room, listening to her friend's appre ciations of various common acquaintances. A little butler hovered, like a grey moth, about the bright- ness of the two girls, anxiously preventing them in all their doings; but his voiceless presence had no restraining influence on the incautious tongue of his employer's daughter. “And those are the people that Mummy enjoys," THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 105 she summed up scathingly, at the time when the ser- vant was handing the coffee. “She isn't a bit odd herself, or if she is, I don't see it. ...". "Not in the least.” “And yet she likes to surround herself with mon- sters. I don't believe we've got anybody in our ad- dress book who hasn't a rat or two in the upper storey, except you, and a few boys that I asked here, and Daddy's business friends, who talk arithmetic all the time.” "Well, you know, I think myself that moderately crazy people are better fun than entirely sane ones.” “I don't . . . And most of ours are such out- siders, too. Now yesterday, for instance, Kitty Egerton came to tea, and brought a man with her- I haven't yet discovered who he was; some sort of middle-aged celebrity, who was by way of being an old friend of hers and her husband's—you know she only married that idiotic Egerton boy last June. Mummy was delighted to see him, of course; and he began to make himself useful by handing the tea- cake; and the plate was white-hot, and burnt him to the bone. I was rather glad; he was a red-faced, swimmy-eyed, over-smiling sort of creature. By- and-by Kitty was going to pick the plate up; and he sang out: 'Don't touch it, darling! ... Every- body sat up, and Mummy looked out of the corner of her eyes at old Lady Price, who's Arthur Egerton's aunt, who is supposed to be going to leave him her THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 107 said: 'Oh, dear Mrs. Cassilis, I don't think I could, once or twice, she sang a perfectly beastly song. It wasn't a bit funny; only blasphemous and disgusting. And there was Mrs. Lampson-you know; that frumpy old crone from Carlton House Terrace, who used to be at school with Mummy- jumping up and down in her chair, wrestling with Mummy to get away, and saying quite loudly: "No, Adela; no, dear Adela, no! I cannot sit here and listen to such things. No, Adela dear, I can not,' poor Mummy all the time trying to persuade her, in whispers, that it was so quaint and so wonderfully clever, and begging her not to make a scene about it. Of course, she didn't really like it herself much bet- ter than Mrs. Lampson did; and she told Julia Crisp privately afterwards that it was rather a naughty little song, and she was afraid some of her friends were a trifle shocked. 'Oh, reaaally?? Julia Crisp said in that cold, offensive way of hers. “It never occurred to me that I'd wandered into the company of people who were waiting to be shocked; or nat- urally I should have resisted your kind invitation to me to entertain your guests.' So she got the griev- ance for herself, and Mummy was quite apologetic. Poor darling! she's always so indulgent with anyone that she thinks is a genius. A week or two ago she discovered that Terence Soulis knew Batiste, that French composer, you know; and beseeched him to bring him along one evening, when she was 'at home, 108 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT and introduce him. So Soulis brought him, in a filthy old tweed suit, and absolutely blind drunk; and he did nothing more interesting all the evening than sit on a sofa, and squint at us so horribly that I saw my own nose, for days after, just out of sym- pathy. Mrs. Simon, who's a Catholic, passed most of the time crossing herself; but Mummy was awfully flattered at him having come, though he couldn't pos- sibly have known where he was; and when Soulis was helping him out, she thanked him warmly, and said how delightful it had been. And then there's Tristan Braun, who's really and literally barmy on the crumpet—he's been locked up more than once and shouts and screams and breaks things when he begins to get excited. ... You see, it isn't as if we only knew a few freaks. They simply swarm here: that revolting old Lewis, who's always talking about the ideal proportions of womanhood, and wanting to measure all the girls he's introduced to; and Ed- ward Talbot-oh, I forgot! He's a friend of yours nowadays, isn't he ?” “Yes, I like him very much," Shirley stoutly af- firmed. "I wonder why on earth ?” Shirley laughed. "He wonders why I like you, Joyce.” “Did you tell him? Well then, now tell me why you like him." "Because he's very clever and interesting and THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 109 kind. He's helped me a lot—How? Oh, with ad- vice and so on. I don't mean that he's paid off bills for me.” “Does he make love to you ?” “Of course not! There's never been the faintest suggestion of such a thing, though we've met lots and lots of times." “Oh? What's his game, I wonder ?" Joyce specu- lated. “Don't you believe that a man and woman are ever just friends, then ?” Shirley asked, with a note of faint indignation. “Yes, often. But Edward !” “But what have you got against him? Only that he behaved rather stupidly to you when you first met him. Why, he was quite middle-aged then, and you were only fifteen. No doubt he thought of you as a small kid. Anyhow, I've probably spent far more hours alone with him than you ever have you told me that he hardly says a word to you nowadays —and he's always behaved extraordinarly nicely and politely to me. If he was the sort of man you make him out to be, why should he waste his time on me at all ?” "I don't know; but I bet you'll find out before long." “Joyce, you really are unfair. I can't think why you've got your knife into him, like this.” ! “I don't like his friends,” Joyce explained, in the 110 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT intervals of a new meal of chocolate creams, which she had begun after finishing her coffee, "and I don't like his ears." Shirley gave a distinct start, looked at her friend gravely for a few seconds, and then smiled again. “That's odd,” she said. “Do you know? I couldn't get over them altogether, for a little. I hate anything wrong physically, don't you? But after all, this is a very small thing, hardly noticeable. I never think of it now. And, in any case, I never heard that short ears had a bad effect on one's morals. Pan and his satyrs and centaurs had un- usually long ones, hadn't they? And none of them were any good. ... Father used to tell me a story once, I remember, of Pan's secret about his ears be ing given away by someone or other to the reeds beside the river which they both lived in. He had to tell someone, you see, or something; because he was the only person who knew, and couldn't keep it in. Of course he thought the reeds were quite safe; but they turned into a nymph, called Daphne, who was so frightened at what she'd heard that she ran away to Jupiter for protection, and he turned her into a bird—a swallow. I'm not quite sure what happened after that; but I think the two gods had a sort of musical competition for her- the one who played the lyre best, to get her; and one of them skinned the other alive. I don't re- member why." 112 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Why, what's he done?” Joyce's round face grew even darker in colour, and her eyes blazed blue fire, while the pupils con- tracted to mere specks of black. "I'm going to tell you. . . . He'd been getting horrid for some time; dull and bored and rude. Sometimes he was so odd that I wondered if he was all there; and now and again I've seen him half drunk. Still, we hadn't actually had a row of any sort; and after I made friends with Billy Lovat, I didn't bother much about him, or he about me. You remember what he was like at Overbourne- generally half asleep." The other girl nodded, but refrained from inter- ruption; and, with some obvious angry hesitation, Joyce continued. “Well, soon after you were there, Edward in- vited Daddy and Mummy and me to stay with him. He'd just got into his new house. Have you ever been there?" "No." “It's rather nice Georgian on the side of a hill, with trees at the back and sides; and you can see the sea from the front windows, a mile or two away. I haven't any idea what direction it's in, because we had the car shut, going down, as it was raining; but I think Rye's the nearest town, wherever Rye may be. ... Oh, I don't think I'll tell you, after all." THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 113 Apparently she had wandered off into these de scriptive particulars out of unwillingness to approach the disclosure, and her courage now definitely failed her. The cry of outraged curiosity with which Shirley greeted her last words, however, gave her the necessary stimulus to complete the story. “There were only a few people, beside ourselves : Gathorne and the Jacinth-Bumpus horror and a couple of Mrs. Somethings that I'd never seen be- fore, both rather painty, and one pretty. It was awfully dull. There didn't seem to be anybody to talk to but Gathorne, and as I knew what he was like nowadays, I made up my mind to pass most of the time reading a ripping book of Mabel Barnes- Grundy's that I'd brought with me. However, Ga- thorne bucked up tremendously, soon after we ar- rived, and was really quite amusing. I was rather angry with him, the third day we were there, when he tried to put his arm around me while we were walking in the garden alone, after dinner. Still, I thought he was only ragging, so I just shoved him off and told him not to be a fool; and we went on talking ordinarily. ... That night . . . you'll never believe this, Shirley.” “Go on,” Shirley begged, with lips and eyes of anticipatory horror. "I'd gone to bed. I'd been asleep,” Joyce con- tinued hurriedly, frowning at the finger-glass be fore her. "My room had two doors, one on to the 114 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT passage, and one into another room, I didn't know whose, but it wasn't either Mummy's or Daddy's. They were on the floor below. The key was on my side, and I tried it, the night I came, to make sure the door was locked; and it was. I'm pretty sure I tried it again the next night, too, but, I wouldn't swear. I had a nightlight, as usual, on the washing-stand. ... I don't know what time it was, when something woke me up with a start, and I sat up in bed. The door into the next room was opening.” “Joyce, how awful! I should have died.” "I was pretty terrified. It opened quite slowly, and Gathorne put his head in, and nodded at me and smiled, without saying anything. I called out: 'What is it? What's the matter? and he only screwed up his mouth as if he was saying 'Ssh!' and then smiled again and came right into the room. He looked half foxed; but, what was far worse, he seemed to expect that I should be glad to see him. That frightened me so that I skipped straight out of bed, in my pyjamas, and ran at him saying: “Get out of my room at once!' He tried to hold the door for a second, but I told him I'd yell the house down if he didn't let go; so then he did, and I slammed the door on him, and felt for the key. It was still there, and I locked the door, and shoved a lot of things up against it, and did the same to the other door, and got back into bed to think. First I THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 115 thought I'd go and sleep with Mummy. That would have meant telling her all about it, and I don't know-I wasn't up to it; not that I cared about getting that beastly devil into trouble, but I didn't feel I could ever tell anybody. . . . Filthy, hor rible swine! ... I couldn't go to sleep again all night, though I wasn't really afraid of him coming back. But just remembering what he'd looked like made me feel sick-red in the face and rather mad and awfully pleased with himself. He had on yel- low pyjamas. ... If Billy Lovat knew about it, he'd kill him.” “But what happened next day ?” "Well, I dressed as soon as it was light, and sat at my window; and, about half past eight, I saw Gathorne come into the garden alone. I was so furious at the sight of him that I ran straight out of the house, and caught him crossing the lawn. I said: 'If you don't clear out of here before break- fast, I'll tell everybody at the table about last night.' He stared at me, as if he thought it was all a joke; so I told him: 'I mean it; and don't you ever come near our house again, either, if you want it kept dark.' He still went on smiling in a maddening way, so I said that if he'd meant it as a rag, it wasn't the sort of rag I'd stand; and I thought he was a disgusting cad, and I'd never speak to him again. Then he did look a bit fustered and puzzled; and what do you suppose he said ?” 116 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT "I can't imagine.” “Why'd you left the door ajar, then, and a light burning?!” “Do you mean he actually dared to hint that . . . ? "I don't know. But I told him that he was a liar, and he'd better not turn up to breakfast. As I was going away, he tried to catch hold of me and say something else; but I hit him on the nose, and he let me go. Sure enough, we didn't see any more of him before we left. Edward said he'd been sud- denly called away to London. He hasn't been near us since.” She drew a long breath, pushed back her straight yellow fringe, as if emerging from a dive, smoothed it down again, and began to nibble at a chocolate, while the bright colour faded from her forehead and neck. “What a brute!" Shirley indignantly sympathised. “So now you see,” Joyce warned her. “What? Oh, Sir Edward! Why, how's he any more to blame for Mr. Burrell's behaviour than- well, than your father, for instance? They're both friends of his." “I'm perfectly certain it was all Edward's fault." “Joyce, dear! How could it possibly be?” “I believe Gathorne was a decent enough fellow, before he knew Edward.” “You believe!” 118 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT have quarrelled. Perhaps Sir Edward does know. They were sitting near me at a restaurant, a long time ago now; only a few weeks after I first met them; and they had an awful row, and Mr. Burrell sprang up and stamped out of the room in a rage.” "Oh?” said Joyce curiously. "Did you hear what they said at all ?" “Only a few words. I don't remember anything." "Perhaps it was about me,” Joyce ruminated. "If it was, probably Gathorne was blowing up Edward for getting him into a mess." “Oh Joyce, you really are ridiculous! You've got quite a mania on the subject." "All right!" Joyce surrendered, shrugging her shoulders with a sort of angry resignation. “All I know is that nothing would persuade me to go and stay in his house again; and if you've got any sense, you won't trust him farther than you can see him.” "I trust him entirely; and I'm going to stay with him in a week or two." “You're not? Alone?” “Alone? Of course not. He's having a party, and I'm asked.” Joyce looked genuinely uneasy. “Honestly I wish you wouldn't. I hate that man.” “I know you do; but I know him very well, and like him.” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 119 "But truly he hasn't any sort of reputation. Everybody sniffs at once, when they hear that a girl is a friend of his.” "I don't care a bit about that. I'm not going to give up a good friend just because people sniff- which is a nasty trick, anyhow.” “What's the matter with you, Shirley ?” asked the younger girl, with new curiosity. "I didn't know you could be angry. You're not in love with that old creature, are you?” "Not in the slightest degree. Only I don't care for scandal about my friends, with no sort of founda- tion." “There's foundation enough, if one chooses to dig it out. So far, I haven't bothered to look for it; but I've heard hints enough, goodness knows. Look here! If I can find out something definite against him, will you promise to chuck him?" "Why are you so keen about it? I'm not going to inflict him on you; and surely, at my age, I can choose my own friends. If he turned out a bad character, I should naturally avoid him; but I can't gee any reason for trying to manufacture a case against a man who goes everywhere and knows every- body and seems to be thought a lot of.” “Yes, but will you promise ?” "I won't promise anything,” said Shirley, with a fling of impatience; and then laughing, with her 120 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT customary pleasantness: "Do let's talk of some thing else! I'm quite sick of the subject of Sir Edward.” “Right-oh!” Joyce agreed, in cynical indifference. “Let's go upstairs and play the gramophone. I've got some topping new records.” CHAPTER VI W E T fog had submerged the town until an V hour or two after noon, when a biting little wind had stolen through the streets and open spaces, crumpling up the milky draperies and bearing them away to the south-west. In the parks, grass, paths and seats were clammily bedewed; and drops fell thickly from the shining, black boughs. With the dissipation of the protecting mists, the winter day had grown yet more bitterly cold. Foot-passengers hurried on their ways, their hands buried deeply in pockets or muffs; motor-carriages roared by with closed windows; the outside seats of omnibuses were thinly peopled, but the interiors were congested with standing passengers. Drivers of covered vans re- tired as far as possible into the depths of their caves, still singing with a dismal lustiness, as is their habit; those in charge of open carts bent their faces speech- lessly before the wind, or draped their necks and shoulders with sacks, where these were available. Dogs were in a mood at once quarrelsome and ro- mantic; there was a notable absence of playing chil- dren. The yellowish sky was hard and pitiless. In Hyde Park, as evening approached, the seats near Stanhope Gate were naturally deserted; but in 121 122 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT a foot-path, some little way from the drive at this point, a solitary man sprawled on a bench, sharply contemplating the damp, leaf-strewn earth before him. It was Gathorne Burrell and he was exceed- ingly ill equipped for such rigorous weather; for he wore neither great-coat nor gloves, and his coloured shirt collar was low enough to expose most of his throat. The tears that dripped quietly from the branches above him had darkly spotted his soft hat of pale grey felt; and his brown shoes were soaked with moisture from the grass through which, it seemed, he had recently been walking. Nor did he wear the air of one of those fortunate, and some what irritating, beings who are insensible of tempera- ture, his pale, expressionless face and thin hands being blue with the cold. Yet he had not collapsed on to the seat through illness or exhaustion, for now and then he shifted his attitude unconcernedly, or threw an upward glance at the intricate girder-work of the trees; and at such times his lips moved, now voicelessly, again in some disjointed words. One might have fancied that intense creative concentra- tion of the mind made him unconscious of the ma- terial world, or it could have been not uncharitably supposed that he was only one of those many semi- sane persons with whom a big town abounds. He shewed no signs of intoxication. Wayfarers were growing rarer and rarer along these by-roads; and Shirley Cresswell, cosily dressed THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 123 in furs, her high-heeled shoes tripping nimbly be neath her short skirt, noted the seated figure, as she approached it, with a wary eye. The dusk deep- ened; the demeanour and array of the man were dis- couragingly eccentric. She glanced at the drenched grass which shut her in on either side; halted for a moment, with a foot on the low iron railing that bordered the path; and then suddenly resumed her direct course, at increased speed, and putting as much distance as dry ground permitted between her- self and the bench that she had to pass. At the light sound of her footsteps Burrell looked up, star- ing intently at the newcomer; but he clearly did not recognise her until she was exactly opposite him, when he sprang to his feet, plucking the hat from his head. The girl, however, nodding slightly without looking at him, flashed by and was twenty yards further on her way before he was able to overtake her. "How do you do? You don't remember me," he said, offering his frozen hand, and smiling with a touch of derision into her widely startled eyes. Shirley surveyed the extended fingers doubtfully, before allowing her own gloved ones to drop limply through them. "Yes, I do. Isn't it cold? I must be getting on, though. I'm late for an appointment." She nodded, with a blush, and renewed her flight; while Burrell, with some absence of tact, fell into step beside her, his violet hands dangling empty 124 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT (for he had jettisoned his gold-topped walking stick at his recent resting place) and his strained, blood- suffused eyes fixed on the rounded cheek which was all that was visible between her high fur collar and the brim of her hat. “I'll walk with you as far as Marble Arch,” he informed her. "I ought to get out into Park Lane at once and take a cab," she explained, with a hurried cold- ness. "Well, you can't now; you walked straight past Stanhope Gate. Anyhow, you're likelier to pick up a taxi in Oxford Street; and, besides, there's something I've got to say to you." His intonation was so imperative that Shirley looked about her anxiously. In the wide drive, fifty yards or so to her right, there were still occasional pedestrians; and carriages passed with some fre- quency. At the first foot-path which led to this more populous quarter she turned aside, her escort still accompanying her. “What is it?" she asked, after some moments of silence. "I haven't much time, you know." “I've forgotten your name again, for the moment," he brusquely confessed, “but I know where we met; and I'm pretty sure that you're the girl that some one was talking about, the other day, as Edward Talbot's latest fancy. Am I right?" THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 125 The cheek which he was watching grew brighter in colour, but Shirley kept her face averted as she answered in rather a shaking voice. "I'm afraid I don't understand, quite. ... I must say good-bye here." With the words she stopped suddenly and seemed to await his departure. A pair of lovers were saun- tering by, rapt in an amorous speechlessness, their arms linked, their eyes contemplating the unseen wonder-land. “Why?” asked Burrell, with an unwinking stare. "I've got an engagement, I told you." He looked up at the hard sky, and gave a quick, loud laugh. "You're not expecting a fiery chariot, I suppose. Well then! There dosen't seem to be anybody here to keep an appointment with, beyond that housemaid and her boy. There isn't a cab in sight. You can listen to me until you find one." "A bus would take me there,” Shirley reflected uncomfortably, turning her eyes towards one that lumbered past at the moment. “All right. I can talk just as well in a bus; if you don't think it's too public.” She seemed to collect her energies, and glanced at her persistent follower for an instant with ob vious, if not very determined, annoyance. "I'd raiher be alone. Do you mind ?” 126 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “What have you been hearing about me ?” he broke out fiercely. "Has Joyce Cassilis been talk- in? Or Talbot? ... Eh? Tell me!” “Nothing ... no," Shirley assured him, shrink- ing away from his angry gesture, and beginning once more to move forward. "Please go away. I wish you wouldn't bother me.” "You're telling lies,” he declared, in a much lower voice, and walking close at her elbow, bending his head towards hers. “Someone's been talking; or why am I suddenly not fit to be treated with ordi- nary civility ?" “I hardly know you," the girl protested. "I want to be alone. I think you might go away, when you're asked.” “Was it Talbot ?" he continued, still brushing against her and speaking almost at her ear. “By God, if it was!" “It wasn't Sir Edward.” “What wasn't ?” he enquired logically enough; and Shirley, taking refuge from her slip in complete si- lence, looked straight to her front, her lips a little parted, the colour receding from her face, and her feet stepping out faster than ever. It could be seen that she was frightened, but there were traces of anger in her expression that might supply the want of bravery. "You're only a little fool,” he said contemptously, his long stride keeping easy pace with her speed. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 127 "I can see that; and it's what people are saying about you, too. I don't know why I bother. ... Do you know the sort of fellow that's got hold of you? Eh?... You won't answer? All right! . .. Do you think he's a nice man? Do you thinks he's a man at all? Do you know the police are after him? Would you like me to tell you some of his adventures ? ... Look here! Listen! Don't be idiotic and obstinate! It's to your own interest to listen. I don't really care two straws what happens to you. But someone's got to stop him; someone's got to get it back on him. He's done enough. ... He's—I don't know what he is, though I know what he says he is. But that's not possible. He's not sane; he's not human—by God, Miss Cresswell, he isn't! I'm sure of it. If I said three words to the police, I could get him stuck in prison to-morrow. Did you ever hear of the Tewkesbury Court business ? No, of course, you haven't. . . . But would he stay there? Not he! One can never be free of him, so long as he's alive. But he can die, you know; he says so himself. He's frightened of that, at times, I'm pretty certain, though he pretends not to care.” All this was poured out in the same rapid, in- coherent undertone, as they hastened over the gravel towards Marble Arch. Once a passing gentleman halted and looked after them curiously. The baste and averted eyes of the woman, the hushed gabble 128 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT and elbow-to-elbow propinquity of the man pro- duced the effect of one seeking to escape from the threatening solicitation of a sturdy beggar. In all likelihood the passer-by had thoughts of a rescue, and then was convinced of having misinterpreted the situation, after another glance at the clothes and bearing of Burrell. At least, after a few sec- onds' scrutiny of the retreating figures he turned and went about his business. "You've got to be told, if you walk me over half London," Burrell insisted. “I will tell you, whether you like it or not. I believe you're not a bad sort; and you're pretty, anyhow. ... Keep away from that devil. Don't become the subject of one of his experiments. I tell you you're not the first, by hundreds. I've been just such another damned fool myself; and you shan't be able to say I didn't warn you. What does he do it for? Curiosity, sheer devilry—I don't know. God knows! Not for the motive of any ordinary man. ... Or not often. Perhaps you may be one of the exceptional cases. Perhaps you're reserved for higher honours than most of them.” They had, by this time, reached the park gates, and Shirley, pausing on the sidewalk among the usual street crowds, lost the look of alarm which she had worn in the comparative desolation of the park. She confronted the persecutor boldly enough now. 130 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT didn't say that it was his doing that she never got to like me; or how he had the happy thought of finishing off the pair of us with one shot. Did he say that he had an old score against her that needed settling? I was to do that for him. That was what he had. specially trained me for—that, and other work that he's still got for me, blast him! Yes, he means to get me back some day, sure enough. He hasn't done with me yet. Oh, he's quite con- fident. But there's one thing he hasn't allowed for. He's put me down, but I'm not out. He may get a surprise yet. ...". A taxi-cab passing at this moment, with its flag up, Shirley raised her hand, and it swerved in to the curb. Almost before it had stopped, she had the door open and climbed hastily in, with a knee-high backward view of trim black silk stocking; but before she could shut herself into solitude, Bur- rell had caught the handle, and had his foot on the step. “I'm coming with you. I haven't finished yet,” he cried, pulling against her, but apparently loath, at first, to put out his strength to gain his point. In face of her resistance, however, he lost his tem- per, and gave a violent jerk which made her fingers relax. The girl uttered a little shriek, half of fear and half of pain; and at this the driver of the cab, a stout, dark-faced man of middle age, stiffly THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 133 car will call for you in Wigmore Street at five o'clock, 60 as to get you here in good time for dinner. Yours affectionately, Edward Talbot. Bring plenty of warm wraps with you. We are in an exposed spot. The second letter awaited her at her place of busi- ness. It was somewhat bulky, and addressed in a picturesquely straggling hand. When she found time to open the large, square envelope, she saw within several type-written sheets and a holograph letter of many pages. They seemed to have been stuffed into the cover in any sort of order, for the one that first came under her hand plunged, with- out explanation, into the midst of a subject that was totally strange to her. Beneath a line of small type came a heading in capital letters, suggesting an extract from a newspaper: THE HOLBORN SENSATION POLICE DESCRIPTION OF WANTED MEN Shirley glanced upwards at the first line on the sheet, which stated in fact that what followed had been copied from The Standard, of a date in the late summer of the year eighteen hundred and eighty- nine. "Scotland Yard,” it ran, "has issued a description of two men who are 'wanted' in connexion with the mysterious affair in Tewkesbury Court, Holborn. Enquiries at the agents from whom the house was 134 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT leased disclose that the first of these two men, Archibald Gedge, was the person who conducted the negotiations and signed the agreement. The second is clearly he who opened the door to the neighbour, Mr. Carden, on Wednesday night last. We append the descriptions in question: (1) Archibald Gedge. ... The copy broke off at this point in two lines of dots, and then resumed, this time in red letters, to stimulate the special attention of the reader, no doubt: "(2) A well-dressed man, about forty years of age. Height: medium. Build: somewhat fleshy. Complexion: fresh. Hair: light brown, cut short and smoothly brushed. Eyes: blue or grey. Clean- shaven face. Talks in a quiet, educated voice, with- out gestures. Has a misshapen right ear, presenting the appearance of the upper portion having been cut away to the depth of half an inch. ..." The last two lines had been heavily underscored in the copy with black ink. At this point Shirley put the sheet down on the mantel by which she was standing, with a tolerant smile; picked up the written letter, read the fan- tastic signature of Gathorne Burrell, and smiled again. The reason for her amusement was suffi- ciently obvious. Plainly Burrell's object in send- ing her these documents was to convince her that THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 135 the unknown malefactor was Sir Edward Talbot; and one needed no more than a moderate knowledge of arithmetic to perceive that this was grotesquely impossible. From the date of the extracts it was to be seen that the criminal, if still alive, must be somewhere in the neighbourhood of seventy years of age; and if Edward Talbot had reached his forty- fifth birthday, that must be the extreme limit of possi- bility. With his unwrinkled skin and alert bearing, it was improbable that he was actually more than forty—the age of the well-dressed man of Tewkes- bury Court in the year eighteen hundred eighty-nine. The descriptive particulars of hair, eyes, stature and complexion were as commonplace and colourless as these things generally are. Nothing in the picture presented reminded one of Talbot more than of thousands of other men seen about the streets daily, except the peculiarity of the right ear; and on such a flimsy foundation as this only a very dull kind of malice or downright madness could be excused for establishing the identity of a popular middle aged man of to-day with an obscure fugitive from justice of thirty years ago. Four foolscap sheets of typewriting remained still unread, and the girl cast her eyes over them in careless curiosity. They purported to be taken from the same newspaper, and were dated two days prev- iously to the other extract: 136 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT MYSTERIOUS OUTRAGE IN HOLBORN “The attention of the police is engaged by a strange and shocking discovery, made in the early hours of yesterday morning in Tewkesbury Court, Holborn. Tewkesbury Court is a small paved square to the north of the main street, guarded from wheeled traffic at either end by rows of iron posts. It con- tains between thirty and forty narrow, four-storeyed buildings of considerable age; most of which are used during the hours of daylight as commercial and professional offices. Three or four are unoc- cupied; and one (number seven) is the dwelling house and office combined of Mr. George Carden, a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Mr. Carden is a bachelor, and his servants sleep out; so that, as he explained in conversation with our representative, he has always imagined himself to be, after ten o'clock at night, at the latest, the only occupant of the court, except, it may be, for an occasional caretaker. Wednesday night was, it will be remembered, exceedingly close; and Mr. Carden, being unable to sleep, dressed and went out into the square for a breath of fresh air at about half past eleven. The place was as quiet and deserted as it always is at such an hour; and he had paced up and down for ten minutes or so before his attention was called to a muffled sound of music, which ap- parently proceeded from one of the houses at the THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 137 end of the court furthest from Holborn. The un- usualness of this so surprised him that he paused in his walk and made an effort to locate the sounds more exactly; finally deciding that they issued from number twenty-four, twenty-five or twenty-six. The nature of the music performed was, he says, im- possible to appreciate accurately, on account of its faintness; but he is of opinion that it may have been produced by an harmonium or a powerful ac- cordian. The affair struck him as strange, in view of the fact that no light was to be seen in any of the houses; and for some time after the music ceased he remained at that end of Tewkesbury Court, waiting for any further developments. Some little time later he was startled by a new sound, as of a human cry of distress, deadened by distance, or by a succession of intervening obstacles. It was re peated twice, and was followed by a silence; and Mr. Carden had now convinced himself that it came from number twenty-five. Although the cries had been insufficient to seriously alarm him, he ascended the steps of the house and listened at the front door; and within a few minutes he heard similar screams, but louder and shriller than before, and repeated a great number of times. His first idea, that they were uttered by a woman in travail, was negatived by two memories: firstly, that he was sure no family occupied the house in the day time, and secondly that he had 80 recently heard the 138 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT sound of music in the same quarter. Apprehen- sive, therefore, of something being wrong, he ap- plied himself vigorously to the knocker and bell; and his summons was very shortly answered by a gentleman whom he is able to describe in some detail. This person was in ordinary evening dress of good cut, and was smoking a cigar; and Mr. Carden repre sents his manner as having been totally unmoved and ceremoniously polite. On hearing the cause of the visit, he laughed and expressed his regret that Mr. Carden had been disturbed. The house, he said, had been lately taken over as a club by a society of ladies and gentlemen interested in music and the stage. Many of the members were of the dramatic profession, so that their meetings were necessarily held at late hours; and the sounds which had per- turbed his neighbour were caused by an instrumental concert, followed by the performance of scenes from a play. Mr. Carden, he said, was quite at liberty, if he felt any doubt as to the propriety of their occu- pations, to come up and join them. A considerable number of members was present, and they would be glad to receive him, he was sure. His manner entirely reassured Mr. Carden, particularly as the house, now that the door was open was perfectly quiet; and, apologising for his intrusion, he returned to his own home. During the brief conversation, the unknown man had stood sideways in the half-opened doorway, presenting only his profile to the enquirer; THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 139 but a gas light was burning in the hall, by which Mr. Carden could see him fairly clearly; and he is convinced that he would recognise him, were they to meet again. He particularly observed one distinctive peculiarity; a curious deformity of the right ear. The man gave a general impression of belonging to the rich and cultivated class. Mr. Carden returned to his rooms; but, for some reason which he cannot quite explain, he did not feel wholly comfortable about the affair, once removed from the presence of the specious stranger; and for some time he remained seated at the open window of his bedroom, overlooking the court, which was lighted by a single central lamp-post, and watching from the darkness of the apartment the door of number twenty-five. He had not been so engaged for long before he observed it to open for a few inches, slowly and cautiously, and then close again; and after a pause of some minutes it reopened, and a number of persons emerged, apparently of both sexes. Con- sidering the warmth of the night, it struck him that they were all rather heavily muffled in cloaks and coats. Some carried bundles; and none spoke loudly enough for a sound to reach his ears, a singularly unnecessary precaution for innocent folk in this practically uninhabited square. What chiefly dis- turbed him, however, was that the whole party of perhaps two dozen persons, instead of taking their way homewards through the lighted thoroughfare 140 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT of Holborn, where hansoms were still to be hired, disappeared by twos and threes into the murky and intricate byways which lie between the north of Tewkesbury Court and Clerkenwell. The whole business struck him as so bizarre that his suspicions returned ; and, having once more dressed, he went and related his experiences to the policeman at the corner of Gray's Inn Road. This officer was suf- ficiently impressed to enlist the aid of a fellow-con- stable; and the party of three proceeded to the sus- pected house. The front door had been pulled to, but not latched; and the investigators entered the hall, where the gas still flared. Here an imme diately shocking discovery was made. A disordered heap of draperies, some of rich stuffs, had been thrown on a wooden bench; and, on lifting these, there was revealed, lying on its face, the unconscious form of a young woman. Mr. Carden states that she was entirely nude, with her long, dark hair loose, and seemed to have been outrageously mishandled. He speaks of livid marks about both wrists, a great number of red weals on the back, and scorched skin peeling from the soles of the feet, both of which had been terribly burnt. The police despatched him forthwith for an ambulance; and when he returned with it, the unfortunate woman was taken as speed- ily as possibly to Saint Bartholomew's hospital, where she now lies in a precarious condition. All three had believed that she was dead when they found her; THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 141 but we understand that there is some hope that she may recover from her injuries. Of the further dis- coveries in Tewkesbury Court Mr. Carden was not able to tell our representative anything; he was not permitted to see more, himself; and the police, we are informed, consider it essential to maintain the greatest reticence in the matter, in view of certain clues to the perpetrators of the outrage. The wild- est rumours are afloat as to the nature of the noc- turnal doings which Mr. Carden interrupted; and it is freely hinted, on what evidence we are unaware, that persons well-known in society were of the secret party of malefactors. Until further data are avail- able, however, it is fruitless to speculate, and prac- tically impossible to construct a theory that will sat- isfy all the circumstances.” Beneath this odd tale, a note was added in Bur- rell's handwriting: “The girl died in hospital, without recovering consciousness; and the police have never yet made an arrest or issued any further statement.” Before she had finished reading the account of these sinister actions, the interest of Shirley was ap parently engaged, for she turned back once or twice to reread a phrase or line; and, when there was no more, she even picked up Burrell's letter in a hesi- tating manner, as if to seek in it some explanation of the puzzle. But after a brief consideration she tore the whole of the papers across, dropped them 142 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT into the fire by which she had been standing, and went about her duties as usual. At this time of the year it was completely dark by the time the shop closed; and at about a quarter of an hour before the end of her working day Shirley was passing the high windows which looked out from the first floor on to South Molton Street, when she stopped abruptly and remained for some seconds gaz- ing down at the opposite pavement. A street lamp confronted the windows of Delbruck's, and almost beneath it, and partly illuminated by its rays, a man in a bowler hat and a heavy frieze ulster was stand- ing motionless, the pallor of his face, in which no features could be made out, raised towards the win- dow at which the girl had paused. She passed back into the room; but came back again, and once again, at intervals to her post of observation; and on each occasion the watcher still stood immovably on the same spot. Finally Shirley called one of the ap prentices to her. “Miss Dallas,” she said, “I wonder if you'd mind asking Sergeant Carey to get me a taxi? I've got to put my things on, and I'm rather in a hurry.” Five minutes later the uniformed commissionaire came upstairs to tell her that the cab was waiting; and it was under his escort that she emerged into the December darkness. Gathorne Burrell was standing only a few yards away, watching the door- way; and as she passed through it he stepped hur- CHAPTER VII IR EDWARD'S car arrived before its time W in Wigmore Street on the following Saturday; so that Shirley's luggage was strapped behind it, and a start made almost as five o'clock was striking. In accordance with the advice contained in the letter of invitation, the girl was muffled up into the sem- blance of a brown bear, and had swathed her head in a thick veil; precaution wisely taken, for the still air was fiercely cold, and the car an open four- seater of very high power. The ease with which this mighty engine, with its light body, devoured the hills, the stormy speed with which it flew, scream- ing like a shell from a gun, over open common-lands, silently down glimmering high roads, or barking through narrow village streets, kept an icy gale con- stantly whistling past the passenger's ears; so that, despite the warmth of her clothing, she snuggled down among the fur rugs with which the tonneau was filled. Passing through Tonbridge, the driver, slightly reducing speed, asked over his shoulder if she would like the hood raised; and Shirley, agreeing, completed her journey more or less blindly. In these black recesses, buried in the warmth of the soft skins, she fell into a drowse, from which she did not 144 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 145 fully wake until the car stopped, and the driver dismounted from his seat to open an almost invisible white gate. Thereafter the road ran steeply up- wards, between dark bushes, which were set so closely together that the car, as it climbed, brushed against them on either side with a continuous rustle, like the sound of an incoming tide on a quiet beach. Presently they seemed to pass through a little wood; for the tyres crackled over twigs and needles, and there was a faint smell of pine. Emerging from this, they halted finally in front of a door, beside which, on a stone bracket, a large, roughly made lantern of brass sheltered a single candle. By this feeble illumination could be made out the interior of a flagged Greek portico of some height. Beyond this there was little to be seen, for the head-lamps of the car, obscured to a point which was positively a danger to those in the care of so furious a driver, cast but a pale and inconsiderable fan of gold across the terrace. The night was pitchy dark. Not a star was to be seen; nor did any sound reach the ear beyond the throb of the engine, which the chauffeur left running, while he busied himself with the lug- gage. The house itself was a mere blind-eyed, in- determinate mass of grey against the blackness. It was impossible to guess its size or form. Before the bags had all been carried into the porch, the front-door was set open, and a man-servant, ex- tricating Shirley from her burrow, shewed her into 146 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT the entrance hall, a wide and shallow room, stone floored, chill, obscure, surrounded by several doors, and containing neither furniture nor decoration be yond a big round table of oak and a splendid fire place of carved marble, on whose great iron dogs, however, no welcoming logs filamed. Plainly the place was used solely as a vestibule; and Shirley re garded it with dispirited eyes. “Miss Crassle ?” asked the servant perfunctorily. “Yes." “This way, please.” His pronunciation and the quality of his voice, in saying these few words, were both unmistakably ex- otic. The vowels were very open, the dental almost sibilant, the general intonation what is loosely de scribed as nasal; and he seemed to speak with a curi- ous relish, both idle and luxurious. Shirley shot a glance at him as he opened one of the nuinerous doors and stood aside to let her pass. He was a tall, finely built young man, dressed in a silver-buttoned, swallow-tailed suit, with a high waistcoat of black and white striped stuff, and a white tie. His com- plexion was of a rich cream colour, his nose rather flat, his lips broad and pale, his abundant hair jet black and crisply waving. There was no depth in the brown eyes, the whites of which were faintly tinged with violet; nor could any expression be read into their brightness, except, possibly, a hint of sen- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 147 suality; but his smile was both candid and agree- able. Having shut the door of the vestibule behind them, he took the lead, and conducted Shirley up a nar- row, carpeted staircase, along a short corridor, lighted by a hanging oil-lamp, into a large bedroom on the second floor of the house. After the chilly darkness of the journey, and the unfriendliness of the hall, this retreat offered, by contrast, a most in- viting picture, with its snugly cloaked windows, its wide, low bed, draped in an embroidered coverlet, its white-panelled walls, Persian carpet and grey satin- wood furniture. A fire sang gladly to itself, there were flowers on the mantel, and the big arm-chair and couch were dressed in enlivening chintz. Three mirrors, in different parts of the room, tossed its reflection backwards and forwards to each other, and multiplied the golden flames of a dozen or more candles, which burnt in ormolu sconces on the wood- en walls. Any sombre impression that might have been created by the bleakness of the entrance must have been at once put to flight by the sight of a cham- ber so warm, lively and modern. After looking about her for a few moments with a clearing face, the visitor came over to the grateful fire, slipping her fur coat from her shoulders, and stood there in thought while the footman brought in her baggage. "I think that's all, Miss," he said in the same 148 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT lazily voluptuous manner. “I'll send Mrs. Skinner to you now.” He had not been gone ten seconds before the per- son whom he had named presented herself; and Shir- ley, turning at the sound of her entry, gave a per- fectly audible gasp of alarm, which greatly enter- tained the new-comer. Mrs. Skinner was as black and shiny as the unburnt coals on the fire; a small and very shapely negress, of about Shirley's age, perhaps, dressed in a plain dress and apron of black stuff, and pleasant to look upon, with the genial hid- eousness (according to European standards) of her race. After the first shock, Shirley greeted her with apologetic cordiality. “Gustavus send me, Miss,” the negress explained. "Your dinner's in half an hour. Shall I dress you now, Miss ?" She proved herself an accomplished tirewoman, and of a most enthusiastic disposition ; laughing de lightedly as she changed Shirley's travelling dress for an extremely scanty frock (one might almost have supposed it to be a chemise) of plain black satin; and lavishing the frankest and most extravagant com- pliments on the girl's arms and shoulders, on the fair- ness and satin smoothness of her skin, on her slim hands, her narrow, arched feet, her burnished hair, the length of her dark eyelashes, the brightness of her lips and eyes, the filmy delicacy of her under- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 149 clothing, and the glossiness of her black silk stock- ings—all with a kind of barbaric adoration which seemed, after one or two laughing protests, to em- barrass and finally even to annoy Shirley. Flatter- ing as such obviously genuine admiration must al- ways be, it was expressed with a fulsomeness, and at times with a naturalistic attention to detail, that may be supposed to be more characteristic of Africa than of Great Britain. The black girl seemed to gloat over the physical charms of the white almost as might a glutton over some unusually appetising dish; even essaying a form of hackneyed imagery to mir- ror her emotions. "Snow at sun-up and snow at nooning and snow at sundown the Lord took to the making of you, Miss, honey,” she gabbled in her labial twang. "Snow hill and snow valley, grass gone golden in Fall, and lil blue streams wandering in the sunshine; pink shells off of the sea-shore; apples and peaches, rip’ning peaches and lil apples; all so soft and warm and smooth as a cat's fur.” While she thus rhapsodised, she was kneeling on the carpet at Shirley's feet; and, her task completed, she pressed her thick lips humbly to the hand which hung nearest to her. Shirley, instinctively shrink- ing from the contact, spoke with hurried politeness. “Thank you very much. I shan't want anything else.” 152 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT known works by Morales and Zurbaran. The pig- ments had cracked and the accumulations of varnish blackened with age, until it was hard, in some in- stances, to make out the subject at all. The best preserved, a full length figure hung over a writing table in a space between two bookshelves, represented a beggar, tattered and filthy, peeping out through a rent in a great black cloak with which he hid his face. But one eye was visible, the bright glance of which it was impossible to avoid or ignore. On the whole, the saloon, although a handsome and dig- nified place enough, was likely to strike a highly- strung and solitary person, accustomed to the stir and company of cities, as a little lowering to the spirits. Shirley found so much to look at behind her chair that the newspaper remained unread; while patent relief sprang to her face at the return of Je rome, bearing a basket of logs, which he proceeded, with a meticulous deliberation, to build into a pyre over the glowing coals. His movements, as he bent to his work, were so discreet that hardly a sound broke the breathless silence that filled the house; and Shirley, after contemplating his humped posture for some seconds with an irritable contraction of the eye brows, broke into speech. "I thought, from what Sir Edward said, that there was to be a house party.” The butler courteously stayed his labours, and straightened his back before replying. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 153 “That is so, Miss. Some of the guests will be down here very soon." “Ladies? How many ?” “In the party, Miss? I'm not quite certain. A goodish number.” Silence ensuing, he returned to the disposal of the wood, while the girl, her forehead smooth again, made a fresh attack on the news; but it might have been supposed that the servant's tacit ministrations worried her, for in another minute she spoke once more. “How quiet it is here! Of course, I'm accus tomed to London." “Yes, Miss,” Jerome agreed, facing her at once, a log in one hand. “The house stands very solitary." “Oh? There's no village, then ? “No village, Miss; and no other big house in the immediate neighbourhood.” "Really? But Rye's not far off-where the sta- tion is ?” “Where the station is, Miss, yes. Four miles, or perhaps a little more.” He held her with his dismal eyes for a while, as if to make sure that no more questions were forth- coming. Then, having laid the last billet in place, he gently dusted his hands together, picked up his basket, and moved towards the door. Before he reached it, Shirley stopped him with an enquiry, put with shame-faced carelessness. 164 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT "There are farms and cottages about, naturally ?" “Yes, Miss.” “Close?” she added swiftly, as he turned away. "I beg your pardon, Miss ?” "Have you any cottages close to the house?” “The grounds are a fair size, Miss. There's a farm just beyond them, to the east" He broke off abruptly, and Shirley started in her chair. The door had opened and shut softly, and Sir Edward Talbot was half way across the room. Abreast of Jerome he paused for a moment, moving his eyes from the butler to the guest and back again; then, dismissing the servant with a nod, he came up to Shirley, holding out his hand with a smile of wel- come. “So here you really are! How nice of you to come! I always had a vague fear that you might break your promise at the last moment—you're such a volatile person and we should all have been in- consolable.” He was in evening dress, with a dinner jacket and black tie; and his empty eyes seemed more brilliantly translucent than ever, as he cordially shook hands. The smile on his smooth face was, however, little more than formal. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to welcome you in person on your arrival. But I hope you've been properly looked after.” “Oh yes.” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 155 “Oh yes ?” he repeated, good-temperedly mimick- ing her unenthusiastic tone. "Quite, thanks,” she assured him; and then, laugh- ing rather fretfully, gave an explanation. “I'm glad you've come, though, Sir Edward. I was beginning to feel a little I don't know—sorry for myself.” “How's that?” “Oh, nothing! It was silly of me. . . . Every- thing seems so awfully quiet here.” “Well, well! After Wigmore Street," “I know; but I don't only mean that. The house feels empty, somehow; there doesn't even seem to be a clock. You see, I expected to walk into the middle of a lot of people.” "They're mustering by degrees. Two of them will be with us almost at once Madame Ladmirault and her daughter, Olga. You'll like them, I think. Madame, perhaps, is a little too girlish in dress; but it shews a fresh mind, after all, and she's a lively, clever woman. Olga is a recent recruit to our num- bers. ... You speak French, of course ?” “Oh no! Hardly at all.” “Really? Well, Madame Ladmirault talks Eng- lish perfectly, but Olga, I'm afraid, knows only her own language. However, I doubt if she'd say a great deal, in any case-a dreamy, shy young per- son. One would hardly take her to be a grown-up. Probably we four shall be alone at dinner, but the others arrive soon after. . . . So you began to sus- 156 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT pect me of arranging a three days tête-à-tête with you, under false pretences ?” "Of course not!” protested Shirley, the note of resentment still in her voice. “Some one has to be the first to arrive; and, thanks to the fiery zeal of my chauffeur, it happened to be you. Sit down again, do!" She obeyed, and he remained standing by the man- tel, gazing down on her. So long as she studied the carpet in pouting silence, he watched her with im- movable solemnity; but as she looked up at him, the gravity of his face softened into a restrained amuse ment. “You have a dreadfully suspicious mind,” he told her. “But a few minutes more will prove my bona fides. I'm assuming that the presence of two other ladies will reassure you. Or would you say that a larger number is necessary to keep up the propri- etics ?” "Don't tease me!" she pleaded. “You found out, long ago, how I fuss myself over little things.” “Of course I won't tease you," he promised, tak- ing one of the small stone figures from the chimney. piece, and examining it absent-mindedly. “I'm only too anxious that you should be thoroughly composed before your initiation. It's essential that you should approach that with an easily balanced mind.” "But it's not to-night?” she cried, in a sort of panic. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 157 He raised his face, and looked on her dispassion- ately. “Certainly it's to-night. I thought I'd made that perfectly clear to you. The less delay, the better. As I told you before, most of my friends are pardon- ably reticent about their beliefs and enthusiasms. I appreciate the delicacy of this feeling, if I do not my- self share it; and I imagine, although they haven't said so, that it is the cause of their absence from my dinner-table. They have no ambition to provide fod- der for the derision, or even the idle curiosity, of London, where many of them are pretty well known. As for Madame Ladmirault and her daughter, they, like myself, are indifferent to gossip; partly, no doubt, because they have no great circle of acquaint- ance in this country. But supposing, in one of the fits of perversity that come over you at times, you decided not to go on with the matter, after being introduced to the others. I refuse to believe the pos- sibility of such a thing; but you know that you have always reserved the right to do so, and I have had to let my friends know of the stipulation. In that case you would be able to return to London with a list of all the persons who had taken part in the pro- ceedings here-laden, in fact, with material for hum- ourous small-talk at the tea table." “But I'd never say a word. How can you think- ?” “I don't. But they, who do not know you, neces 168 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT see sarily don't feel the same confidence in your power of holding your tongue. For that reason, we may be lieve, they prefer to postpone their introduction to you until such time as you have given the requisite hostages, so to speak.” Still twirling the little image between his fingers, he spoke with a comfortable softness; and Shirley seemed to weigh his proposition. "But,” she argued presently, "you told me that, if I didn't like it, I could stop at any moment, even after it had begun.” "I see what you mean. Certainly we came to that arrangement, absurdly unnecessary as it was. But until the meeting is finished, you will not be aware of the personalities of those attending it. They will be veiled.” "Veiled ?” repeated Shirley, with a catch of the breath. "For heaven's sake, Shirley,” he beseeched, with mock horror, “don't let such a harmless word as that start you off again. You know, as well as I do, that the veil is a common circumstance of many religious ceremonies. After the start you gave, I hardly dare add that I shall wear certain vestments. Doubtless you fancied that I should preside in tweed clothes and a bowler hat. You seem to lack a sense of the appropriate.” His raillery, perhaps a trifle less genial than be- fore, had no visible effect on her preoccupation. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 169 “And in case and if,” she hesitated. “What should I do, if I found I didn't want to go on with it?” “You will,” he assured her. “Yes ... but if I didn't?” Sir Edward shrugged his shoulders. “Presumably, like a sulky child, you'd go to bed; and to-morrow, before you saw the people you'd dis- appointed, my car would take you back to your flat." She studied his blank face with a sort of wistful appeal, but he made no further effort at encourage ment or amplification of his remarks. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “it would be too late for me to go home to-night, if—" "Tonight?” he broke in impatiently. “Start for London, by road, at midnight, when there's a bed for you in the house? What are you thinking of ? And what in the world's come over you, since you came into the country ?” "I don't know," she faltered, attempting a poor smile, which was belied by a tremble in her voice. "It's so creepy here." The words came hurriedly, and with them an un- mistakable look of fear peeped out; an expression which her companion greeted with a curious smile, which, almost for the first time in their acquaintance, began in the luminous eyes, and very slowly crept down his face until it reached the corners of his shaven lips. In motionless silence he watched her 160 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT anxious expression and the restless movements of her bands, like one charmed and amused by the wayward foolishness of a child, and loth to reduce it to a com- monplace reasonableness either by comfort or rebuke. “Mmmm ?” he hummed at last, on a prolonged note of soft interrogation. "Creepy? What do you find creepy?” "Nothing particular; but the place itself is so lonely; and there's never a sound; and I don't like these pictures. And then there was a black girl who gave me rather a fright.” “What! Poor Kate? She's a most faithful, lively creature.” "I dare say. But I wasn't expecting blacks. And I didn't much like the way she talked, either. ... And the butler and the footman, too; they're queer, somehow. I can't quite explain why.” “My dear Shirley, you're rather insular. These people have been long in my service. I brought them to this country with me, and you could hardly ex- pect them to be exactly modelled on the pattern of the ordinary English servant. Jerome is invaluable. He comes from Baton Rouge, and is of unmixed French descent. I don't know what I should do with- out Jerome. The knowledge that he is mortal chills me at times. Kate and Gustavus I picked up in Charleston, ten years ago. He's a quadron, I fancy; a very handy fellow; while Kate, as you saw, is pure negro. I wonder at a girl of your brains and THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 161 tolerance being disturbed at encountering a few harmless people, merely because they are not of your race.” "It's not only that,” she maintained. “Every- thing strikes me somehow as ghostly; and that black girl petting me up as if I was going to. ... I don't know. Jerome told me, too, that no one else lives near here." “That's true. We're not within gunshot of the nearest cottage. But why do you want other houses ? Aren't you satisfied with your entertainment in this one?" His voice was again perfectly good-humoured and pleasant, and Shirley smiled constrainedly. “You must think me rather an idiot,” she apolo- gised, “but strange places and people often make me uncomfortable. I suppose I'm tired, too.” She paused, and then added appealingly: “And then the thought of this—my initiation. You won't-I know you can't—tell me much about it beforehand. Naturally I'm a little frightened.” "Frightened? But why? I decline to believe that a motor drive, or meeting a nigger, can shat- ter your nervous system; and when you were in Lon- don, the prospect of it didn't alarm you in the least." “Yes, it did; it always did rather. You know I took a long time to make up my mind about it. Be- sides, it seemed so different there ... just talking about it in my room, with the electric light on, and 162 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT things passing in the street outside. . . . And then perhaps Mr. Burrell gave me a shock.” "Eh ?” he interrupted, his voice becoming keener, though his face remained unchanged. “How has he been giving you shocks? I didn't know you'd spoken to him since we were all at the Cassilis' together.” "It was only a few days ago. We met in the park; and he behaved in such an odd way, and looked so dreadfully ill and mad.” "But you knew of the existence of invalids and lunatics before that, I imagine. What has that to do with your present position ?” "Only that as he's one of you. ..." “He told you that ?” "I understood him to say so.” Sir Edward reflected. "It is true. He has been admitted, but he never got far. As you saw, he's a very unbalanced fellow, and has given me some trouble. You were witness, a long time ago, of his ill-temper towards myself, you remember. Since then I've made several efforts at reconciliation. Indeed, he was invited here to- night; but, as he has ignored the invitation, it looks as if he had not yet recovered his senses. . . . So this malicious boy, whom you recognise as being only partly sane, has been poisoning your mind about me, has he ?” "I wouldn't let him; I wouldn't listen." “Then what did he say?" THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 163 "Nothing that I remember; but he terrified me at the time; and for some reason I can't get him out of my head to-night.” "You seem to be one of those people who take actual pleasure in scaring themselves; and of course it's always possible to find material for terror, if one's determined to have it. A solitary place, unknown companions, an unexplained ceremony, against which sinister hints have doubtless been thrown out by a crazy fellow-oh yes ! here we have bricks enough for building a haunted house, certainly. The whole point is this: you are here under my guarantee, be- cause you trusted in me, as a friend. May I ask if you trust me still ?” “You know I do." "I'm glad to hear it. It would be an exceedingly unpleasant position for you, if you did not." As he uttered the last words with measured delib- eration, he turned on her a long look, cold, glittering and utterly vacant; and the girl, in an instant, became as white as paper. Once or twice her lips moved, but no sound came from them; and meanwhile the vacuity of Sir Edward's expression was slowly trans- formed into the aspect, half amused, half breathlessly admiring, which he had once before presented dur- ing their talk. As soon as the amusement was clearly recognisable, Shirley found her voice, though it was a fluttered and gasping one. “What do you mean?" 164 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT "I mean no more than I said; that it would be a very uncomfortable thing for a girl to have no con- fidence in the man in whose house she was staying, under no other protection. But you have that con- fidence; so there's no sense in letting your nerves get out of hand. We've been friends for a considerable time, so that you probably know all that there is to be known about me. Women so rapidly turn a man inside out, I've been told. . . . Among other things," he added, after staring into vacancy for a while, "you must have discovered that I am much interested in you. Yet I doubt if you realise how much. ...I swear that there is no woman alive who means so much to me; and there has been only one in the past of equal importance." The sudden intensity that he put into his voice as he spoke the last sentence made his companion start. It was not the tone of a man making a declaration of love to a woman; it was filled with a kind of mystic exultation, sombre yet eager. The next instant he had laid it aside, and was saying tranquilly: "For that reason I have stepped out of my ordinary paths to take you in hand, to try and make the world rather more enlivening to you than you found it be fore we met. You tell me I have succeeded.” "Rather!" she hastened to reply, as if ashamed of an ingratitude. “I've been quite a different crea- ture, since you began to teach me." “Can you tell me why?" THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 165 “Why? Because well, because you've shewn me a new way of looking at things.” “Shirley, countless men and women could have done as much, and left you no better than they found you. How many philosophers, do you think, have a panacea for human ills ?”. “But yours is the right philosophy.” "I must agree with you, since I profess it. But theory has little influence on personal happiness. You have your wretched optimists, and your inde- cently hilarious pessimists. The wisdom that I hope to teach you rises high above dialectics. All I set out to do, to begin with, was to engage your interest sufficiently to make to-night, and what follows to- night, possible. But you held back; you kept put- ting off the day; and meanwhile your whole despair- ing point of view altered, as a result, so you supposed, of this merely elementary instruction. I tell you that, by itself, it would have consoled you about as much as a handbook on algebra.” “Then what was it?" asked Shirley, with wide eyes. "It was what you rely on at this moment, what will take you through all the succeeding stages—your trust in me, as you describe it; that is to say, the sub- mission of your intellect to mine—the force which you drew, unconsciously, out of my mere person- ality. . . . But we don't want to enmesh ourselves in such discussions at present. The day which I have 166 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT longed hoped for is not to be wasted in words. Now that the strangeness has passed, I hope my house will seem a friendlier place than it did at first. You criticised my pictures,” he said, with a casual glance round the walls, “and I don't defend them as works of art, though that is a good portrait of Tristan's on your left. But they seemed to me to be in key with the room, darkly rich, archaic, a trifle pompous. So I let them stay. You see I bought the house as it stands; books, furniture, everything." "So none of these things are yours-chosen by you, that is ?” "Not many. A few hundred books in my study, and such other belongings as I can carry about on my journeyings. I am an incorrigible wanderer. These,” he added, indicating the row of little figures on the mantel, “I brought here with me, to be my household gods. Have you looked at them ?” “No. Where did you get them ?” "From various dealers, at one time and another; I have a fancy for such things." “They're old aren't they?” “Some of them are very old indeed; older than our friend Silvanus at Overbourne. They were found in all sorts of places—Greece, Rhodes, Smyrna, Egypt. This,” he continued, stretching out towards her the one which he held, “I take to be the doyen of the assembly. He comes from Cyprus, JOU looke with me the figurin did THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 167 and was made the best part of three thousand years ago. But his cult goes back farther than that, Shir- ley; farther than we can think.” She had stooped her fair head to look at the figure, a roughly fashioned object of pale green stone, goat- headed and human-bodied, with disproportionately large horns curling backwards over its head and down its spine; but, as Sir Edward ceased to speak, she looked quickly up at him, with an expression that was half puzzled and half, one might have thought, an- noyed. Apparently unconscious of this mute and protesting enquiry, he turned away, and replaced the statuette on its former position. “Who is he? What's he called ?” the girl asked perfunctorily, after an interval during which her faint look of disturbance passed away. “I christened him Eligor, in the absence of any proof of his actual identity," Sir Edward answered. “Here's another,” he went on, touching with his finger the effigy of a pot-bellied, bearded, crouching creature, much less battered and formless than the first. "His name is Sytry, though we may suspect that he started life as Silenus. He is seven or eight hundred years younger than the other, and was dug up in Barca, while I was in the country. Poor old Sytry! This fellow," he pointed to a larger head of terra cotta, still bearing the traces of colouring, and representing a man's face, fierce and progna- and represeni; still bearing Pointed to THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 169 “Oh no! They are queer old Gothic words that appeared to fit their owners. The rest have been similarly baptized. Here,” he told her, lifting a seated figure that held in one hand a sceptre and in the other an implement that seemed meant to represent a small flail, "here is. ... Here is Madame Ladmirault!” “Madame Ladmirault!” repeated Shirley, in some surprise; but a second later the door opened, and the two other guests of whom Sir Edward had spoken entered the room. 172 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT obeyed Madame Ladmirault's orders, she drew off again a couple of paces, and continued to devour Shirley with a regard of tragic earnestness. A mo ment later, Jerome announced dinner, setting open a pair of folding doors at the end of the library which displayed a candle-lit and flower-decked table await- ing them. The meal was sufficiently gay, for although Shir- ley was not able entirely to recapture her ordinary spirits, and Olga was almost dumb from the soup to the coffee, Madame Ladmirault was an agile con- versationalist, while Sir Edward himself had never, during Shirley's friendship with him, shewn himself more companionable and amusing. With the inten- tion, no doubt, of erasing the memory of any dis- piriting first impressions of New Place which might linger in the mind of the novice, he entirely discarded the aloofness of manner to which, even in his best moods, he was prone, and took pains to win laughter and interest from his company. To Shirley he was flatteringly polite and provident, treating her in a marked way as the guest of the evening, breaking off in the middle of a remark to the older woman at the least sign of speech from the younger, and al- most wholly ignoring the French girl. The mother accepted this as the freedom of an old friend, while Olga was plainly only too happy to be forgotten. She appeared exceedingly nervous, as if it were her first experience of a grown-up dinner party; com- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 173 mitting various minor solecisms in table manners, and, in the intervals of hollow-eyed staring at the English girl who sat opposite to her, shooting anxious glances towards her stalwart mother. Her fleshless little hands, too, trembled most of the time, whether with embarrassment or some actual affection of the health it was difficult to guess. During the whole of the dinner she made no remark, except an occa- sional “oui, maman," "non, monsieur," when directly addressed. The few complimentary frivolities which Sir Edward tossed to her, she accepted without even the acknowledgment of a smile. There were times when the expression in her eyes, as Shirley acciden- tally met them, seemed to hold some message or en- quiry; but apart from the fact that Shirley was ig- norant of her language, the cheerfulness of her other companions, and the consolingly lively aspect of the round table, glittering with silver and crystal and gaudy with flowers, would have been likely to turn her thoughts into more entertaining channels than the unexpressed discomforts of a shy débutante. Of the coming ceremony scarcely anything was said after the first few minutes, during which Sir Edward casually informed Madame Ladmirault, in English, that an introductory ritual, for initiates of the order only, would take place at ten o'clock, and that Shir- ley's presentation would follow it. The lady nodded, and expressed her approval of these arrangements, which she did not take the trouble to communicate 174 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT to Olga; and she added a few rallying words on the subject to Shirley. "You are getting nervous, my dear, aren't you? I understand so well. You are young-twenty-five ? Impossible !--and you are of the neurotic tempera- ment-yes. So is my Olga; she was also a little stupid about it at first; she laughs now when she thinks of it. Ah, you may trust in Sir Edward; he is so fond of you, I don't wonder. He will look after you." A shower of significant nods and a gurgle of pro- vocative laughter accompanied her words, as she screwed up her puffy eyelids in a new look of admira- tion. “Miss Cresswell has quite recovered her balance by now," Sir Edward proclaimed, in a tone of grave af- fection, "but we mustn't chaff her on the subject, or she may fly off at a new tangent. I've had great difficulty in bringing her to the scratch, Louise; it took time and trouble to win her confidence. She has but a poor opinion of the human race. You've no idea how musée she is." "I could not have guessed it,” Madame Ladmirault confessed. "She looks so delightfully simple." Sir Edward shook his head smilingly. "Nobody could take her in," he said slowly in French. "I pity anyone who tries. They would be wasting their labour. You needn't tell her the THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 176 character I'm giving her; but she's a sly little thing." Dinner had been late, and the party lingered over their coffee and cigarettes; but shortly before half past nine, the host rose in his place. "Well,” he said, “we ought to be preparing, I sup- pose. I take it for granted that more of our friends have arrived by this time; and those that haven't we must do without. Louise, will you and Olga get ready, and join us downstairs in half an hour or so ?” The big woman was also on her feet. The food and wine, which she had fully appreciated, had left some marks of their consumption in her laboured breathing and suffused eyes; but the whiteness of her complexion was unchangeable by internal means. She still held a cigarette between her twisted, scarlet lips, puffing at it with lightning rapidity, as she ad- dressed her daughter in her native language. “Come, darling; we are to go back to our rooms." “Oui, maman,” answered the girl obediently, over- setting her chair as she sprang up. “As for you, Shirley,” Sir Edward continued, "perhaps you'd like to have a look at our chapel, would you ? After that, I shall be obliged to leave you to yourself for some time; partly because I shall be otherwise engaged, and partly because it's most desirable that you should have time to get your- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 177 ceased, she passed her arm lovingly round her daugh- ter's waist and drew her out of the room, looking back to nod in the same intimate manner to Sir Ed- ward before she disappeared. He gave no answer- ing sign, but, having pulled a bell-rope, turned to Shirley. "I've rung for Jerome to show you back to your room, because I want you to wrap yourself up well- I suggest a fur coat, if you brought one with you. The chapel is cold. I also have to make some change of dress; and I will fetch you in a few min- utes. ... I trust that you're feeling quite yourself again, by now?" "Yes," she replied slowly. “Oh yes! I think I'na all right.” “Think as little as may be,” he recommended, pat- ting her shoulder as he had patted Olga's, a thing he had never done to her before, for he was notice ably chary of touching his friends. “Keep your mind quite at rest. Anticipate nothing. Conjure up no pictures. Remember, if you like, something of what I've taught you, if you don't find it disturbing. Float . . . let yourself go. What we call reality, you know, is no more than a transparent disguise, a rather ugly and obvious mask. You're on the brink of truer and bigger things. . . . Jerome, take Miss Cresswell back to her room.” The departure of the other guests, the cessation of the chatter of the table, and the retum to less 178 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT normal subjects had their effect on Shirley. Her face once more grew anxious and she seemed on the point of making some appeal or addressing some enquiry to her friend, but he bowed her out with a formal finality, and she was obliged to follow the discreet figure of the butler into the upper regions of the still utterly noiseless house. It was nearly a quarter of an hour later before there came a knock upon her bedroom door; and when, muffled in her long fur coat, she opened it, she fell back a little, despite the notice that her host had given of a change in his attire. The ex-specu- lator was dressed, in a manner startlingly unlike his usual careful conventionality, in a black cassock but- toned from throat to knee, and thence hanging in loose folds onto his feet, which were covered only with sandals. In this monastic array, he looked greatly taller and even more imposing than ever, and his manner had changed with his costume. His pale face was rigidly set, the heavy white lids drooped over his eyes, and he gave no smile, as might have been expected, at Shirley's innocently expressed as- tonishment, although he referred to it verbally. "You're ready ? Come along, then! I'm sorry I startled you, but I gave you warning, didn't I ? The vestments that I wear at our assemblies could not possibly be put over modern dress. You your- self will be veiled; and, as it happens, the frock THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 181 hung banners of a dark blue, embroidered in various, presumably symbolic, devices; primitively simple representations of an heraldic rose, set against a gold cross, of a fleur-de-lis, of a snake curled about a stick, of a large capital T, and of the Greek letter Phi. On the right-hand wall, where the third niche should have been to balance the number of those op- posite, a door of dark wood, silver hinged and handled, marked the position of an ambry. At Shir- ley's elbow, in the middle of the dais, a great cano- pied chair, or throne, stood with its back to the curtain that shielded the entrance; and these heavy draperies, as well as a similar one that hung at the further end of the vault, were of the same blue as the banners, and gorgeously stitched with silver thread. On the further side of the chair, a big, tongueless bell of bronze was supported in a rough wooden frame; and there seemed to be nothing else in the room, except three long benches, set back a few yards from the lowest step of the dais. But the most conspicuous quality of the cellar was the cruel, the glacial cold. It seemed as if the savagery of the December night must have been in some way artificially intensified; or as if the rigours of a hun- dred winters had been hoarded in this subterranean chamber. It was a cold that stung the skin, hurt the lungs to inhale, and laid a stifling hand on the heart. Shirley caught her breath, and shook from head to foot. 182 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT “Yes," agreed Sir Edward, looking at her quietly through the blue obscurity. “It is a condition that is desirable for our initiates in the earlier part of our rites. You will not find it like this, by the time you are called to take your share in them. We mustn't stay here now; time is getting on. Follow me!" Without further remark from the man, or any question or comment from his disciple, they tra- versed the length of the dim room, and passed out behind the deep folds of the glimmering curtain. Here, in a little bracket on the wall, a hand-lamp was burning; and Sir Edward, taking it in his hand, led Shirley through an open doorway and up a second flight of stairs, which wound steeply into the upper storeys. These steps circled round a thick pillar, giving the impression of having been built in a tower contrived against the outer wall of the house; for there was no landing or break in them of any kind, although their number shewed that they must reach into the highest floor. The walls were damply crumbling, and glittered here and there with a crys- talline efflorescence; nor was there any window or loophole to admit the light by day. The pallid flame of the hand-lamp, going on before, finally dis- played a pointed archway, filled with a heavy oaken door, studded with flat nail-heads; and, when it had been pushed open, the pair emerged into a circular room, the warmth and clarity of which made a grate THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 183 ful contrast to the icy gloom below. It was, however, very sparely furnished with a table, on which a few books lay, and two elbow-chairs; nor was there either blind or curtain to hide the tall sash-window. But the carpet on the floor, the fire on the hearth, and the silver lamp on the table, made amends for other deficiencies. To the right of the archway by which they had entered, a second door of the same pattern as the first led, it might be assumed, into the main building. Sir Edward, blowing out his hand-lamp and setting it on the chimney-piece, waved Shirley to a chair, and stood, erect and solemn in his flowing cassock, before her. The girl, slipping her fur coat from her shoulders, looked anxiously up into his face; but there was nothing to be read in its mask- like immobility. “Here,” he told her, "I'm obliged to leave you alone for a time. I'm afraid it can't be less than an hour, but I hope you won't find it too tedious. If you are bored, there is something for you to read; but, above all, you should do your best to empty your mind of the ordinary affairs and interests of life. I don't want to agitate you by overrating the impor- tance of to-night's events; but they represent, as you know, a long step-a far longer one than you have yet taken. Shirley, I have every confidence in your powers of reception and resolution, and yet I own that I await the result with profound anxiety." It was true. For all his determined impassivity 184 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT of aspect, his voice was not absolutely under con- trol, and it was manifest that he was imposing great restraint on himself. Once or twice, as he was speak- ing, he raised his downcast eyes and permitted their illegible lambency to play over the slim, black figure before him, with a haste that was almost furtive. If looks did not belie him, he was, for the first time in the months of their friendship, nervous. "One more thing,” he continued, folding his hands in a priestly manner. "I particularly ask you not to leave this room until I come back. Your presence amongst us might be wanted at any moment, and it would be exceedingly troublesome to find you gone. This door,” he added, opening it a few inches and shutting it again, "leads into the third-floor corridor; and, in case of need, a call would bring one of the servants, who will be within hearing. They sleep on this floor. ...I suppose I need not warn you against coming down the chapel stairs until you are summoned. You will understand that any interrup- tion of our service would be greatly resented.” He was silent for over a minute, staring at the carpet, and presently added : “It would be unpardonable. You understand ?” With the last words, he raised his face and looked at her seriously. “Yes," she answered in a nervous undertone. He nodded and turned away towards the stone THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 185 stairs, darting a last doubtful look back at her as he disappeared into the gloom. Then the door shut behind him, and she was alone. For some time she sat motionless, now with empty eyes, now gazing unthinkingly at the leaping fire, the pattern of the carpet, the books on the table. One of these she presently drew towards her, and, open- ing it at random, turned over a page or two. A small subsidence of the coals in the fireplace brought her mind from her reading with a start, and she turned her attention to the window. The glossy black oblong threw back her own seated image and that of the placid lamp, as if it were a mirror; but of outside objects nothing whatever was to be seen. After studying the reflected picture for a little, she rose from her chair, and, crossing the room, put her face close to the glass. From this position it was possible to make out, at the distance of a few inches only, the sturdy, naked branch of a tree; but, be- yond this, the darkness was utterly empty, breath- lessly still. There was not even that faint crackle of frost that may often be heard on a windless night in midwinter. Shirley peered long into the vacancy before returning to her place, pausing on her way be- fore the second chair, upon the seat of which lay a folded bundle of deep blue stuff. Picking this up and shaking it out of its creases, she discovered it to consist of two long, filmy veils—the robes of her 186 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT novitiate, no doubt. She dropped them where she had found them, and applied herself again, with a small frown of determination, to her book. At first she seemed to be successful in pinning her mind to this old and heavily bound quarto; but pres- ently uneasiness made itself once more apparent. She closed the covers hastily, and sat drumming her fingers on the edge of the table, occasionally twist- ing her head rapidly to look over her shoulder. Twice she reopened the book, twice she shut it; and then, rising to her feet, took a few indecisive steps up and down the room, before coming to a stand- still by the corridor door, her face turned sideways towards it, as if listening. So she remained, holding her breath, for some time, before putting her fingers on the looped handle, and, with every precaution against noise, slowly turn- ing it. For all her care, a faint click resulted, and she paused again, with raised eyebrows and an intent face, before drawing the door gently towards her, and putting her head round the edge of it. Before her lay a long, straight corridor, flanked on either side by doors, brightly lighted with oil lamps, the floor covered with coarse matting. All of these doors, except one, were shut; the one which had been left open shewing only the pitch darkness of a presumably empty room. Shirley took a step across the thres hold, hesitated, and then walked gingerly a yard or two down the passage, turning anxious eyes on the 188 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT she never got beyond the point of raising the latch; and finally, crossing the floor with a heavy sigh, she stared for long minutes gloomily out through the uncurtained window. When she turned away from it, it was with a certain air of resolution and haste; the manner of one who has taken a rash decision and is too well aware that the cour- age necessary for its fulfilment is likely to be short- lived. Quietly opening the door of the cellar-steps, she descended to the first turn of the stairway, and peeped down into the gloom beneath. No bound ascended from below, and, touching the wall with her fingers, as a guide to her feet, she crept a little further. Still the silence was profound; and, with a disappointed face, she came back into the light and warmth, and fell into a further medita- tion. But anxiety evidently won; for picking up her fur coat, she slipped her arms into the sleeves, and, still with the same affrighted speed, groped her way downwards towards the chapel, this time without stopping for an instant on the way. The first ten steps plunged her into utter blackness, but the construction of the staircase made it possible to accomplish the descent without any great danger of a slip. The heavy stillness of the air gave the impression of entering a catacomb; and even when her feet told her that she had reached level ground, there was not a whisper to betray the neighbour- hood of the assembly which should, by now, be 190 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT and apparently chosen quite arbitrarily. They stood in no relation to each other, and were possibly in- tended only to accustom the ear gradually to the dis- turbance of the silence; for presently the unseen player passed into combinations of notes that grew ever more complex and various. An uninstructed mind was incapable of forming them into a melody, or even a disconnected sequence of melodic phrases ; yet it was abundantly clear that they were not the product of a wanton or ignorant wandering over the manuals and pedals. Behind them lay a defin- ite intention, an individual and even imperious per- sonality. Long as the time of waiting had seemed, this odd and disturbing performance appeared greatly longer. Although the air overflowed and trembled with sound, it never rose above a murmur, nor paused for an instant. There were times when it had suggestions of a primeval simplicity; others when it was distractingly involute, full of gross harmon- ies, and dissonances that were a pain. Progessions broke off, as the grateful ear began to recognise them, in unmodulated flights to remote keys; and no alteration in volume of tone ever marked these start- ling aberrations. Yet through it all ran an over- whelming affirmation that something was being ex- pressed, some secret that struggled to make itself comprehensible; infinitely elusive; now manifestly and triumphantly cruel, now inexplicably unclean, again merely unintelligible. It was like listening THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 193 hushed vibration and the ceremonial intoning that had preceded it, was startling and ugly; and Shirley, rigidly crouching against the door-post gave a sob- bing gasp in sympathy. At about this time the air of the passage began to be faintly charged with a scent, sharply different from its own odour of mouldering dampness; a perfume both sweet and sickly, the smell of lilies dying in a warm room. It grew ever stronger, until it was inexpressibly cloying, and even disgusting. Yet in some way it stirred the imagina- tion, sending it journeying on strange byways. In the dark, Shirley's figure swayed slightly against the door-post. Of a sudden, the great chanting voice was uplifted again, this time in but a few words, thrown out with a swifter and intenser exaltation; and, as they ceased, a curious crooning was distinctly audible above the murmuring undercurrent. Whether it was expres- sive of pleasure or sorrow it was hard to deter- mine. It had a stifled effect, as though produced behind closed lips. So might some brave sufferer have sought to repress the moans of pain; yet again it might as well have resulted from an inarticulate joy, a savage satisfaction, like that of a cat purring over its still living prey. The very uncertainty of its nature gave it a disturbing weirdness. For some time it rose and fell persistently, and then died, and, with it, the hissing whisper that had accom- panied it. While one could have counted twenty the 194 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT whole vault, like the bending figure of the eaves- dropper, seemed to hold its breath; and then, with- out warning, the incense-laden blackness was torn by a scream so deafening and piercing that Shirley sprang erect with a loud answering cry of uncon- trollable horror. At the same instant, from the hid- den chapel burst out a sound of which none could mis- take the meaning, though its cause was unseen and it had never been met before; one seldom heard publicly in the modern world; the hideous, guttural “Aaaah !” that sickens the foreign spectator at the side of the Spanish bull-ring; the gasp of many voices let loose by a common ghastly joy. And on the heels of this dreadful clamour, a perfect babel of Bedlamite uproar broke forth, hoarse cries, broken words, choking shrieks and shouts, and, high above all, the same shrill laugh that had been once before heard, renewed again and again in ever madder and fiercer frenzy, and pursuing Shirley as she fled in horror up the narrow stairway. Breathless with its steepness and her frantic haste, she burst at last through the arched door at the top into the lamp-lit room, crossed it at a run, and laid hold of the handle of the corridor door. It turned in her hand, but the door itself remained immovable. Clearly, during her absence from the room, someone had locked or bolted it from without. She tore at it madly; she flung her weight against it; the solid wooden barrier did not even shake in its frame. CHAPTER IX THE man was mad with excitement. Even his iron will was unable to conceal the fact. Al- though his teeth were tightly set, there was a per- ceptible tremor of the muscles of the face, a constant flutter of the eyelids. Pale as ever, his skin was shiny with half-dried sweat, and his eyes, illegible no longer, blazed with a horrible ecstasy. One hand gripped the other wrist, but the shaking of it was not to be so overcome. He confronted Shirley speechlessly for many seconds, before he found his voice. “We're ready for you now,” he said at last breath- lessly, essaying an encouraging smile, but achieving no more than a mechanical rictus, fearfuly contra- dicted by his flaming stare. Shirley made no answer. She had fallen back, with disordered hair and a desperate, tear-stained face, to the table, against which she leaned heavily, no less white and shaking than her companion. "You've been crying,” he murmured, with a sort of greedy delight. "Silly child! You've been frightening yourself. ... Pull yourself together! Remember I expect you to do me credit at your in- itiation." 197 198 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT we The word brought the girl back from her bemuse- ment. "I won't !” she said hurriedly, and almost inaudi- bly. He made a quick step towards her, stopped, took a deep breath, and dropped his head, so that his eyes were hidden. The fingers of his right hand tight- ened visibly on his left wrist, and the struggle to re press the fury aroused by her words was abundantly plain. By the time he replied, however, he had suc- ceeded in recapturing a little of the usual colour- less courtesy of his everyday tones; but the surface of his face still worked and shivered like water about to boil, and he was careful to refrain from looking at her. “I don't understand you. You won't what?”. She uttered no word, but her eyes were filled with a despairing defiance. "You're overwrought," he said slowly. “Well, I'm not surprised, I foresaw it, to some extent. The whole affair is outside your ordinary experience. ... But there's no great hurry, after all. Take your time.” "I won't!" she tremulously maintained. "I'm not going to do it. I won't come back to that cellar. Let me out! Sir Edward, let me out of this room!” “Now, Shirley! Don't lose your head,” he begged, without a movement. “Be quiet for a moment, and listen to me. Be quiet, I tell you! What's thrown THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 199 you into this silly state of fuss? ... You haven't been out of this room ?” With the last words, which seemed to have occurred to him unexpectedly, he looked quickly up. The great translucent eyes still burnt and glared, but the frenzy that had lighted them was little by little giv- ing way to a kind of distracted craftiness, and he kept them fixed on Shirley menacingly. “No!” she assured him, with a terrified gasp. “Then what in the world . .. ?” He broke off, and seemed to rearrange the form of his question. “I thought possibly you'd been scaring yourself by prowling about dark passages; perhaps meeting that nigger girl that you found alarming, for some absurd reason. But if you've been sitting quietly here by yourself, all the time--you swear you have ?” He shot the question at her suspiciously, and she gave a dumb nod, while the arm which supported her against the table bent as if she would have fallen. “Then what's happened to change your state of mind? I left you here, not half an hour ..." Before he could say more, she burst into a torrent of half whispered words. “Let me out! I won't go back. I'm terrified. Sir Edward, do let me out! You swore you would, if I asked you. You know you did. Oh, do let me go! I feel so ill. I can't stand any more. Oh, please let me out!" “Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, you stupid creature !" 200 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT be cried, smothering her prayers in a loud sternness. “Whether you go or stay, you certainly can't go in this baby state. Sit down and collect your senses. Then we'll talk it over rationally." "I will get out-I will!” she sobbed, and was again at the door, shaking it with all her strength. He watched her coldly. "It's locked,” he told her presently. "You see that. What's the use of battering at a locked door? One would scarcely believe that you're a grown woman. Come here and sit down, as I told you.” She turned her back to the door, gazing on him vacantly, and slightly shook her head; but there was no courage in her face. "Come here and sit down !” he roared suddenly, throwing up his chin, and permitting a look of malig. nant fury to peep for an instant out of its ambush. Shirley took a step to one of the chairs, swayed sideways, and collapsed into it and against the table, with closed eyes. After contemplating her thought- fully for a little while, Sir Edward picked up one of her wrists, held it for a second or so, and then carelessly dropped it. Still she did not stir; and taking a key from under his cassock, he went out through the door leading into the corridor, locking it again behind him. It was some minutes before he returned, his features now almost wholly composed to the semblance of grave concern, bearing a bed- room carafe and tumbler in his hands. Shirley's THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 201 eyes were open again, and her cheek rested on her hand, but she was as white as snow, and seemed hardly to understand her surroundings. He half filled the tumbler and, coming close beside her, put his left hand on her shoulder, and with the other held the glass to her lips. "Drink some of this,” he said encouragingly. She sipped it slowly, without looking at him; and when she at last turned her head away from the glass, he put it aside with the bottle, and took the chair opposite to hers, resting his elbows on the table, and leaning across it towards her, until their faces were not more than three feet apart. "Now you'll feel better,” he assured her. "I had to be rather rough with you, for you were losing all self-control. Don't try to speak for a minute of two. I want you to understand the position. You are here with me; there is no one else within call, except those who take their orders from me; it entirely de pends upon me whether you go or stay. There are things you must, in any case, be told; and I haven't time for argument or childish temper. When I have finished-I shan't take long--you can say anything you have to say. Till then,” he rapped the table lightly with his knuckles, "you will kindly be quiet.” There were tears on the girl's frightened face, but she only looked back at him in a spell-bound apathy. Once or twice, during what followed, her lips moved dumbly; once she even stretched a hand half-heartedly 202 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT towards him, as if in petition; but she made no sound, nor altered her attitude of exhausted semi- consciousness, for some minutes. "You have,” he reminded her, "definitely refused, more than once, to come back to the chapel with me. That is to say, of course, that you refuse to come of your own free will. I needn't point out to you that it would be perfectly easy to compel your attendance. But that is not to be thought of; you must go through your initiation willingly, or of what value would it be, either to yourself or to us? I say you must, Shirley; you shall; yes, and you will when you know the reason why I take all this trouble about you. Perhaps I should have spoken before. It must have made things easier. But I did not realise that it was necessary. I thought that you were quite pre- pared to join us, and that the extraordinary distinc- tion for which I had reserved you had better not be disclosed until you were more advanced. But, in the face of your present incomprehensible obstinacy, I have altered my view. I must tell you now, and it seems strange that words should be necessary. Haven't you guessed yet? Haven't you seen that I want you, that you are to be my woman, my equal in knowledge and power mine for ever?” He sat erect in his chair, his face afire, with an air of incredible and arrogant majesty. So might some great king look, some Roman emperor whose brain had sickened in the consideration of his ab THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 203 solute power over millions; who had already declared his own apotheosis. “You know who I am ? You would say that you did. You would describe me as Sir Edward Talbot, a rich man; one who has made a fortune, probably in commerce, and bought himself a knighthood; a fairly well-known person in London society, and the owner of a country house; sufficiently popular, suf- ficiently amusing, with more ideas than are to be expected from a successful financier. Is that it ?" Leaning regally back in his chair, he laughed aloud. "What right, you ask then, have I to suppose that the possession of a fortune and a few occult fads gives me any chance, in middle life and with no great claim to physical distinction, of attracting a young and beautiful woman, who is herself quite reasonably well off ? Well, I'll tell you; and you shall see if my presumption is as intolerable as you imagine." Breaking off, he seemed to look for a suitable open- ing to his explanation; the girl, meanwhile, offering him no help, but contemplating him with the same dazed air. “At one of our early meetings, Shirley," he said at last, "possibly at the first, you asked me which had been my college at Oxford; and, when I hesitated in answering, you put me down in your mind as a vul- gar liar. That was natural on your part, but a mis- take. I had truly been to Worcester; but in my day 204 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT it was known as Gloucester Hall, and it has since been not only renamed but rebuilt, from which you will gather that I matriculated some time ago. You were right. It was, to be exact, in the year fifteen hundred and seventy one, and I was sixteen at the time. Fellows went up earlier then than now." Once more he stopped speaking, and looked at Shirley with a smiling sternness. Momentarily she remained unmoved, as if the words had hardly reached her. Then, in an instant, her eyes grew great and dark, and she shrank away from the table, her hands gripping the edge of it, and her body pressed against the back of her chair. "You see ?” he said. “I'm not altogether so com- monplace a creature as you supposed. Perhaps you may think me worthy of a little more respect than you have so far given me. My fame is not small; it may even have reached your ears—and yet I don't know; you seem, for a girl of intelligence, to be profoundly ignorant. . . . Well, I did not call my- self Talbot at Oxford. That was my mother's maiden name which I have assumed from time to time for adequate reasons. But at the university, and in the history of human wisdom, I am known as Edward Kelley." The name, flung out with indescribable pride, ef- fected no change in the expression and attitude of his hearer. Terror was the only emotion to be traced THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 205 on her features, and the clenched hands on the table shook. "Even at sixteen my feet were set on the right path. I saw-vaguely enough then, it is true—but I saw a glimmer of light; and the passion for full illumination tore me. In my boyhood I had been trained as an apothecary; and, paltry as my instruc- tion had been, it had been sufficient to give me a taste for that chemical research which was the basis of all my subsequent discoveries. In such things I shewed an extraordinary precocity which might have been expected to gain me general admiration and respect; but the truly wise have the world against them. You will find that yourself, and you will laugh at it, as I did and do. The ignoramuses who were by way of being my teachers were sharp enough to de tect the trend of my studies; and they made an ex- cuse of certain boyish dissipations to get rid of one whom they feared as their master. I was sent away from a college that detested me to my home in the town of Worcester, where I was little better liked. My mother was dead; my brother and sister-a couple of fools-despised me, as they despised all students. My father's one idea had always been to make me self-supporting and see the last of me. In- formed by my tutors that I was useless for the career for which he had designed me, he insisted on my tak- ing up his own profession—that of the law-and 206 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT earning a shady living as a country attorney. I did not care. The pretence of this mean trade was a good enough cloak to hide my true and secret activ- ities. But in my youth I was a poor hand at dis- simulation. What had happened at Oxford, hap- pened again, nine years later, at Lancaster, whither I had removed from Worcester with a newly married wife. The hatred of the stupid was inflamed; and, as they could bring no real charge against me, they were obliged to invent a ridiculous story of forgery. The dull and cruel justice, before whom they hauled me, was filled with the same instinctive, unreasoning loathing of a personality immeasurably superior to his own. I am sure he weighed in his mind the pos- sibility of sending me to the gallows; but hardly dar- ing to go so far, he wreaked as brutal a vengeance on me as he thought he safely might. My ears were cropped, and I was whipped out of the town, a beg- gar and a felon.” The hatred of the mob was evidently not even yet as ridiculous to Sir Edward as he had asserted; for at this point he rose and began to pace the room, his brow bent and his eyes glittering. “The devils nearly succeeded in their object. It was touch and go whether I starved or not. I had no books, money or instruments; the mutilation which they'd inflicted on me (you can see the marks of it still) prevented me getting any but the meanest work. Despair had nearly conquered me; but I resolved to THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 207 risk one more throw against fate. London, or rather, Mortlake, was my goal—the home of the only man whom I knew to be likely to appreciate my genius and I started off on foot. I had to steal, more than once, to keep life in me on the road-turnips and car- rots and eggs, which I ate raw under the hedge-rows where I slept. My feet were in rags, my hair and beard long and matted, and my torn clothes encrusted with mud, but I reached the place at last, and walked straight into Dee's house. This is what I have learnt and discovered and guessed at. Such and such natural gifts I have,' I told him. “Will you take me as an assistant ? Scarecrow as I was, he never hesitated; and for six years we were insep- arable.” Sir Edward sank once more into his chair; and, tilting his head upwards against its high back, medi- tated. Shirley was watching him with undiminished fear, but with a livelier attention. Her face was less pale, her attitude more rigid. "Dee was a man of immense learning, tireless in- dustry but only moderate intuition; while in worldly affairs he was one of the stupidest of people-sus- picious, futile, credulous and weakly ill-tempered. If you have never heard my name before, Shirley, I am sure that of Doctor Dee must be familiar to you. I understand that he appears in illustrated books for the young, which probably figure largely in your li- brary. Some day I must amuse myself by seeing 208 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT what they have made of him. ... He really seemed to be a treasury of all human knowledge, but he him- self had added nothing of much importance to the store. That was his dream, the realisation of which he saw to be possible through my vastly greater powers. He was rich enough to indulge his fancies and, for a time, to keep me in a secondary position; moreover, I believe he had a personal liking for me, at first. Joan, my wife, was summoned from the cottage near the Coniston Old Man, where she had taken refuge, to set up house with myself, Dee and the girl whom he had lately married. I say nothing against Joan Kelley, who was a good and personable creature enough; but Jane Dee was the first, and al- most the last, woman I ever met who seemed to me to be worthy of being the mate of a philosopher. What her origin was I don't know; she was not more than half his age, if as much; but she over-topped his dusty bookishness as loftily, almost, as I myself did. She had all the gifts, corporeal and incorporeal; if I had had time, I could have taught her everything; everything that I shall teach you, Shirley. We be- came lovers, of course. That was inevitable; for I was only twenty-seven then, and hardly less a poet than a scientist and mystic. Dee knew of it, and ex- pressed no sort of protest, beyond, I fancy, making retaliatory advances to my wife, whether with suc- cess or otherwise I was not sufficiently interested to enquire. The fact is that we two men were far too THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 209 deeply occupied with our joint researches to quarrel about the ownership of a woman or so. I had be- come his skryer-or speculator, as he preferred to call it; that is to say that it was I who peered into the immaterial world, and brought my glimpses and experiences back to him, to be examined and classi- fied in the light of his prodigious erudition. I know that, after we had quarrelled and parted, he accused me of robbing him of his wife's love by a pretended spirit revelation, seen in the crystal ball, that we were to hold our women in common-a perfectly false and ludicrous statement, invented in sheer senile jealousy and spite. As if the unseen forces of the universe would be likely to be brought into action over such trivialities! Nevertheless his as- sumed disapproval of my profligacies gave him a means of parting me from Jane. She who might have been by my side at this moment, as young and no less beautiful than yourself, has long ago rotted away in the grave. That shall not be your fate." Momentarily the pride had gone out of his voice and posture; and, resting his cheek on his hand, he had fallen into a tone of quiet reminiscence; but when he once more took up his tale, the old vain- gloriousness returned rapidly. "Yet God knows he ought to have been forbearing with me! All his claims to immortality rest on my labours; indeed, the instructed, nowadays, have trans- ferred the unmerited adulation of the old man to my- 212 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT which he had given me were in my scrip. But It was hidden in my clothing, and I had put seven hun- dred miles, or so, of land and sea between us, before he discovered his loss. It was mine I had found it; I had paid a guinea for it, no less! But I was aware that he regarded it as his, in return for his interested hospitality, and a few gifts of money which had cost him nothing. He would never have parted from it without a struggle to the death; and he knew enough about my past persecution, and had himself sufficient influence with the great, to have me thrown into prison. It seemed to me advisable, therefore, to recover my property by stealth, leaving Dee my wife in consolatory exchange. Will you be lieve that he afterwards put it about the town that he had made me a present of it? By this account, he had condemned himself to the common lot of mor- tals, and parted with incalculable powers, by giving up the key of all knowledge, before he had learnt to employ it, as a parting present to an unfaithful ap- prentice who had seduced his wife. It shews the unfathomable idiocy of mankind that this feeble lie was actually accepted as a fact. . . . You're listen- ing?" The sudden, fierce suspicion with which he shot the question at Shirley made her start and gasp; but she nodded submissively. The tensity of her atti- tude suggested that she was ready to spring up at any moment and fly from some instant peril. Sir Ed- US! 214 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT end ? A negligibly small one, made up almos: wholly of those who are driven by folly or poverty into dangerous trades. Disease and old age account for nearly all of us; two enemies whom you and I shall never meet. We are our own law, our own moral code. Want cannot touch us; whatever money can give us is ours. . . . In this last respect Dee was my equal; but the final, the grand secret he never knew. It was not until I had been parted from him for over three years that my labours were rewarded with complete success. Look at me, Shirley! I was thirty-six years old then. Three hundred and thirty-eight years—is it ?-have passed, races, coun- tries and dynasties have vanished, the very face of the heavens has changed, and you may say that I am thirty-six still. I look more, I know. We matured sooner, in those days; and think, too, of my exer- tions and privations! But I swear to you that I have not lost a hair, or added a wrinkle, since that night when, in my great dusky room in Prague, I put the cup to my lips.” A strange glaze had been creeping over the girl's eyes during the latter part of his speech. Now and again she put back her shoulders resolutely, raised a hand to her forehead, or drew a long breath, as people will when faintness comes over them in some public place. In spite of the growing chill of the room as the fire died, her cheeks were brightly flushed; and this, combined with her clouded and THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 215 confused gaze, gave her something of the air of one in an early stage of drunkenness. Her hands had grown restless, but her lips were still silent. “As I had flown from my tormentors in Lancaster to Dee,” Sir Edward went on, “so I fled from the in- tolerable pettiness of Dee to the Emperor. Ample means, undisturbed privacy, the use of great libraries and laboratories, and complete freedom from care and responsibility were essential, if my work was to succeed. As a philosopher, I naturally knew Ru- dolf by reputation. With all his faults, he was one of the few great monarchs of history. He had an in- satiable lust for knowledge; and he received me with the welcome that befitted me. Little as his despic- able court sycophants relished the favour that he bestowed on me, they were compelled to conceal their jealousy and to provide me with the surroundings that I asked—such gifts as none but a very great noble or king could have bestowed. In the history of wisdom, Rudolf deserves a high place for this alone. But he was a difficult creature; violent in temper (a fault of which he never tired of accusing me) overbearing, easily swayed at the same time, and furiously impatient. Because I was a great phil- osopher, the greatest then or since, therefore I must be able to explain every secret of nature to him. A contemporary of mine (of whom I know you have heard) a little, ribald actor who was oddly enough a matchless poet and had met and, in his purely in- 216 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT stinctive way, sounded the depths of most of the great thinkers of that incomparably wise age, had said, truly and tritely enough, in one of his plays that there were more things in earth and heaven than were dreamt of in Philosophy. The sneer at philoso- phy is negligible. It is so; it must always be so; and Rudolf resented this. Moreover, the astounding, un- rivalled powers which I had acquired were little in- teresting to him unless employed for his glory and satisfaction. He guessed, accurately, that I was keep- ing much from him; he condescended to the slander of the back-stairs; and I, whom he had not only enriched but ennobled, was thrown, without explanation, into jail. You may believe that I did not endure this humiliation for long. One morning the doors were found open, the warder dead; and I presented my- self unexpectedly before the throne. Rudolf saw that he had misjudged my courage no less than my power; and for a while I was higher in favour than ever. Then his madness returned. Flattery had made him rank himself among the gods; past doubt, his mind was actually unhinged. In an unguarded moment I reminded him of my superiority to a royal amateur; and in a fury of outraged pride he loaded me again with chains. This time I felt that I had indulged the megalomaniac too long. He had served my purpose well; I needed him no more. Towards the end of fifteen ninety-five, after a short pretence of accepting my fate, I broke prison again, and left 218 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT able to them. Shirley, in half an hour, or less, your initiatory rites will be over. ..." "What was that you gave me to drink ?" said the girl unexpectedly, in a loud, unsteady voice. Her face was scarlet, and her eyelids constantly closed and reopened heavily. "I thought it was water ... What was it? I feel so ill.” "That will soon pass off," he said calmly, smiling on her with open significance. “You may endure it gladly. It is the last illness or discomfort that you will ever have to suffer." Before he had said the words, she had sprung to her feet, swayed for a moment, with closed eyes, and then, pulling herself together, reached the window and thrown up the bottom sash. "I'm going to faint,” she said feebly. “Then there was something ...? I'm going to faint.” Leaning both hands on the ledge, she drew deep breaths of the icy air, looking, in fact, as if she might at any instant fall to the ground. Sir Edward pushed up one of the chairs from the table to her side, and she sank into it, with her forehead in her two hands. "I think not,” he quietly assured her, as he stood over her, regarding her with the same expression of triumphant expectancy. “There! Rest here a lit- tle, and think over what I've said. The cold doesn't matter. Nothing can hurt you now. In five min- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 221 any more time. When I have seen that everything is in order, I will fetch you." He turned towards the archway, paused, and added over his shoulder, in a passionless tone of warning: "For your own sake, Shirley, I strongly advise you to be obedient and reasonable." She had dropped her head against the window frame, her eyes half shut, her breath coming and go- ing with difficulty; and she appeared, although still conscious, incapable of further struggle or protest. As he turned his parting glance on the helpless form, Sir Edward drew himself up, and, as once or twice before during the story, seemed actually to swell in stature in a gloomy transfiguration of mastery. Then silently he passed through the low arch and was gone. It was some minutes before Shirley, wearily roll- ing her head sideways against the window frame, turned a heavy gaze on the spot where she had last seen him stand. Terror sprang into her dull eyes momentarily, as she found herself alone; and clutch- ing and pawing at the walls, she contrived to regain her feet and get as far as the corridor door, which for the last time she shook feebly. In the same mechanical way she staggered to the table, and con- templated it blankly for some seconds. The glass from which she had drunk still contained a little liquid, and with a sudden movement she put it to CHAPTER X M ELEPHONICALLY summoned with a mys- terious instancy, Joyce Cassilis rang at the door of the Wigmore Street flat at half-past five o'clock on the Sunday afternoon, and was at once admitted into the glowing little drawing-room, where its owner awaited her. Shirley, although dressed in a most covetable gar- ment of the palest pink satin, trimmed with dull gold lace, her bare arms veiled with a cloud of rosy net, was yet a lamentable spectacle. She could scarcely limp across the room to greet her visitor; there was a dark bruise on her temple, a long angry scratch from eye to chin on one side of her face, her under lip was cut, and her left hand was covered with bandages. In her pretty tea-gown, with her cunningly dressed hair, she presented something of the appearance of one of those seasoned wax figures which may be seen in the windows of the lesser dress- makers, displaying the latest “Paris models” and languidly admiring the maimed hands which they stretched out before them in unintelligible gestures. "Good Lord !" cried Joyce, visibly recoiling from this war-stained apparition. “What have you been up to ?” 223 224 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT Shirley smiled feebly, shook her head, sank on the divan, cried a little, dried her eyes with three square inches of gaudy cobweb, and smiled again. “I'm all right," she said. "Well, so long as you're satisfied,” answered Joyce, in a resigned ellipsis, as she turned away, blushing, to lay aside her long coat of grey squirrel's fur. As she openly confessed, she despised tears, and people in trouble only embarrassed her. "I'm sorry I look such a sight," the culprit apolo- gized. "Have you had tea ?” “Two, thanks; but one of your heavy, opium- tainted cigarettes might steady my nerves. What are these? The old "Three Castles'? Oh, 'Harlequins ! I love them; they've got such a topping scent, haven't they? And the picture on the box is nice, too. ... Tell me about the dog-fight-or were you chucked out of a taxi ?" Her friend hesitated, and delicately sniffed; but it proved a false alarm, for no tears followed. Pres- ently she spoke rather shamefacedly. "It's such an extraordinary story. I don't sup- pose you'll believe a word of it; and yet you did warn me against that man, several times, didn't you ?” “What? Who?” cried Joyce loudly, her blue eyes leaping into indignant flame. “Do you mean Ed- ward Talbot ? Shirley! He hasn't dared to knock you about like ..." "No, oh no!” the other hurriedly interrupted, to THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 225 arrest her friend's gathering fury. "I've been down at his place where you went, you know. I don't know how I ever got back alive. But he didn't give me these bruises. I got those ... well, I'll tell you." And amid the pestilential effluvium that arose from Joyce's cigarette she began, falteringly and with many corrections and redundancies, to tell her tale. Before long, however, she warmed to her work, and words flowed more easily; while Joyce, for once hushed into mute amazement, sat staring on her from the other end of the divan. "I didn't realise for some time after I'd drunk the water that he'd put anything in it. It left rather a funny taste in my mouth, but I thought that was only fancy. And then I began to have the most peculiar feeling. I don't know how to describe it. I wasn't exactly sleepy or stupid; because I heard every word he said, and understood him perfectly. But all my strength seemed to be going--my will, I mean. I knew I mustn't give way to it, and I did try and pull myself together. But I found myself wondering, every few minutes, whether it was worth making a fuss; whether it wouldn't save trouble to do what I was told.” "Shirley!” "I know. . . . And, of course, the next second I was horrified at having even thought of such a thing, and more determined than ever to kill myself rather THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 227 give it me sometime after I'd been initiated, I ima- gined.” "It doesn't matter much what he thought it was ; though I'm quite sure he never thought anything of the kind,” argued the younger girl. “Get on! I want to hear how you escaped from the loathsome old devil.” “Well, I knew I shouldn't have any chance in a struggle with him; and besides he had such a lot of people waiting to help—that dreadful black, and the footman, and probably those friends of his downstairs —these horrible creatures whose voices I heard. So I said I felt faint, and went and sat by the open win- dow; and I thought: 'If he lays a hand on me, or the time comes when I can't bear it any more, I'll throw myself out, and then I shall either be killed, or get away.'” “You might only have broken your legs, or some thing." “I thought of that; but then they couldn't have gone on with the initiation, or whatever it was, if I had broken legs, could they ?" "Goodness knows! 'Initiation' may be only a way of saying that they meant to make you into a pie. Never mind that, though; get on!" "I wonder he didn't guess; but I did my best not to seem too frightened, so he probably didn't dream how absolutely desperate I was, or he wouldn't have THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 229 seemed, bouncing off things, and breaking through great tangles of stuff, till I came up against a bough that was thick enough to stop me for a second. It bruised me like anything, but I didn't feel it till to-day; and then it broke too, and I fell into a lot of leaves and mould at the foot of the tree. If it hadn't luckily been soft, or if I'd had a clear drop, instead of cannoning off branches all the way down, I should have been killed, or crippled at least. Even as it was, I believe my coat saved me from being badly hurt. It's very thick-double lined-and long, and I'd wrapped it round me tightly before I jumped. And it was simply in rags. However I wasn't very much the worse, although the breath was all knocked out of me, naturally; and there I lay for a bit, staring up through the boughs at the sky, or where the sky ought to have been-I could only see a foot or two above my face. Very likely I should have stayed there in a stupid sort of dream, and been caught and taken back, if he hadn't looked out of the window, to see if he could spot me, I suppose. He was hold- ing that little lamp high above his head, and I could just make out his face, and one look at that was quite enough. I scrambled onto my hands and knees, as soon as he pulled in his head, and crawled off through the bushes, as quickly and quietly as I could. You see, he must have known I'd gone out of the window; there wasn't any other way; and he'd be perfectly certain to have the place searched, if only to find out 230 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT whether I was dead or alive; so all I could hope to do was to get onto the road, where I might meet some body—even a tramp would have been lovely to see then, though I hate them as a rule, don't you? Or, if I didn't find anyone, I'd walk till I couldn't go any further, and then sleep in a barn, or under a hedge, or somewhere. But I never made any real plan; just to get away from that man was all I cared about, particularly as I knew the effect of the stuff I'd drunk was wearing off again already, and leav- ing me sicker and drowsier than ever. I began to be afraid that I should only be able to move at all for a few more minutes; so I must make the most of them, and get as far as possible from this awful house in the time. So after crawling about twenty yards, I got up and ran. The first thing I did was to plunge bang into a hollybush-at least, it felt like holly, but you couldn't see an inch among all those shrubs and things—and it knocked me down, and tore my face and hands. I felt just as I used to feel when I was small and fell down on the gravel in our garden at home. I cried when I'd picked myself up, I couldn't help it; but I managed to skirt round the bush, and found myself on a widish path, which looked just a little paler than the blackness every- where else. It seemed to run down hill, and I hoped it would lead to the lodgegate and the high-road. I felt such an idiot, tearing along in stocking-feet- THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 231 both my shoes had gone as I fell down the tree and crying as I went." Her eyes were overflowing again with the remem- brance of her Odyssey; but Joyce kept her gaze fixed on the glowing end of her mephitic cigarette, appar- ently unconscious of her friend's weakness. “Once or twice,” Shirley continued, "I pulled up and listened, while I got my breath. There wasn't a sound. The night was as still as still. That, and the sickening sleepy dizziness that was coming over me worse and worse every moment made me slacken up a little. I was sure I'd got far enough away by this time to have given him quite a large part of the grounds to hunt for me in; and in the pitch darkness it wouldn't be an easy job. If I didn't rest before long, I felt I should fall down and die. I wanted so badly to sleep, Joyce. Wasn't it funny? I began to long for sleep even more than to be safe; and I kept saying aloud to myself as I walked on: 'Just thirty yards more,' and so on. "Just to the bottom of the hill. It must be close, now.' And then I stumbled and fell on my knees, and could hardly get up again. I was quite done; I should have to stay where I was, and trust to luck. There was a big clump of bushes touching my elbow, and I pushed my way through them into a little clearing, and there was Mr. Burrell sitting on the ground and staring up at me.” THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 233 much, because he turned off the light again at once." “Without saying anything ?” “Not a word. Then I heard him getting up, and I turned round and ran for my life.” “Did he come after you ?” “No. That rather looked as if he was as anxious to avoid me as I him, don't you think? Every moment I expected to feel him catch hold of me. If he had, I should just have died on the spot. But I got onto the path again and some way down it without anything happening, and then I listened again, and the night was as quiet as ever." “I'm quite sure you imagined all that part." "Truly I didn't. If you knew what a shock it gave me, you couldn't suggest that it was my fancy. ... So, when I was sure he wasn't follow- ing me, I ran on a little further, and then the path turned to the left, and there was the drive and the lodge-gate, sure enough. Next minute, I scrambled over the gate-somebody had locked it -and was on the high-road. You can't imagine how safe and homely and comfy it looked; though I was miles from anywhere, I knew, and probably the ditches were full of burglars and people. But I never thought of them; and it didn't even occur to me that he would follow me there, and take me back, although I can't now see why he shouldn't have. Oh, and I was so tired and sore and lame and sleepy and sick and out of breath, and my heart 236 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT a glimpselen of humang in the sit some Pata woman came out of the door to throw some water out-it steamed like anything in the sunshine. That was the only sign of human beings in sight, except just a glimpse, now and then, of his house, very white and glittery on the hillside on my left. Every- where else, when I looked through gaps in the hedges, I saw only empty fields. Well, I was just going to climb over the ditch and make for this cottage, when I heard a car coming on the road, a pretty long way off, and I thought I'd wait for that. It could hardly be one of his, because it was coming fast from the direction in which I was walking. Of course, he might have been out in it to look for me; but it struck me that, if he was on a search, he'd hardly be scorching along at that rate. Anyhow, if I kept close to a gap in the hedge, and it did turn out to be him, I should have time to get half way across the meadow before he was out of his car. He'd hardly follow me, because the woman of the cot- tage kept coming to the door, and calling out to someone in the yard, whom I couldn't see; and I should scream at the top of my lungs as I ran. So as soon as the car came in sight, I got into the middle of the road, and waved my scarf, and it slowed down. Then I got back to the gap, and waited for it to come up; and it wasn't one of his, but a great big limousine, painted dark blue, with a man in it, all cosily wrapped up.” “Now I understand,” Joyce commented. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 237 “You wouldn't say that if you'd seen his face, staring at me through the glass; and the chauffeur looked almost more alarmed. They nearly made me laugh, although I was very cold and hungry and unhappy; but I could guess what I looked like or partly; I didn't realise the full horror of my ap- pearance until I got back here. I think Mr. Hib- berd was a darling to have anything to do with me; I wouldn't have let such a disgusting object into my beautiful new car. When I saw myself in the glass, two or three hours later, I blushed all over to think of myself sitting beside him and talking, as if I was a decent human being. My hair was half down, and full of twigs and mould and dead leaves; my fur coat was in tatters, and so were my stockings, and lots of my toes were sticking through them. For- tunately I could hide my feet under the rugs, or I should think the poor man would have been sick. And my face was absolutely filthy, and covered with scratches, and bruised, as you see; and my cut lip had bled all over my chin. You'd have said I'd been drunk and fighting in the gutter, all night; but Mr. Hibberd was just as polite and friendly and talkative as if he'd been driving a smart woman down to Ranelagh." "Hod fallen in love with you . . . beauty in distress, and all that sort of thing," pronounced Joyce. "Joyce, dear! ... I don't think I could ever 240 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT rest in. Perhaps he thought they were meant to be there a sort of woodland wreath-and that I should be cross if he mentioned them as if they were accidental.” "Once, at a dance," Joyce put in reflectively, "I had a large smut in the middle of my forehead; and when I discovered it, and asked my partner why he hadn't told me, the fool said he thought it was a beauty-spot. ... Did your old man bring you right up to your door ?” “Yes. Wasn't it sweet of him? It was miles out of his way. Oh, he stopped at the first inn we came to, after he'd found me, and got out and bought me things to eat and drink; slices of bread and but- ter and ham and beef, and some brandy and water in a flat bottle. They did taste good; I don't know when I've eaten such a lot; and I think I must have drunk a little too much brandy, because I fell asleep, while I was smoking a cigarette that he gave me, and didn't wake up till we got here, about one o'clock. I was afraid he'd think that rather rude, but he was awfully nice, and asked me to go and have dinner with him the week after next, when he's coming up, with two of his daughters, to his flat in Cavendish Square. He's a widower.” "Well, you might do worse, my girl. We none of us get any younger,” her friend philosophized. "So that's the end of the story. You were a fool.” . “Why?" asked Shirley penitently. THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 243 than a madman, any day, wouldn't you? You can reason with a wizard, I suppose.” "I talked to David Devant once, when I went on the stage to help him with a trick," answered Joyce, "and he seemed most reasonable. Yes, I dare say Edward's a bit touched; but I'm sure he isn't as mad as all that. Very likely he believes in some of this spiritualistic bosh, but he doesn't fancy he's Doctor Dee, any more than I do. Only he finds that he can get a certain number of people to swallow anything he tells them-you, for instance, and dear Basil Jacinth (ugh!) and Rita and Ga- thorne, who really is mad, I'm afraid, or rather hope, considering the way he goes on; and some of those people you heard, up to some revolting beastliness in the chapel, no doubt; and it gives him a position, and makes them obedient. Of course, a good many of the gang must know it's all rot; Magdalen-" “You don't think she's in it ?” “I'm sure she is. And old Lewis, who doesn't believe anything, even when it's true. But they like all the nasty part of the business, so they back him up in his lies.” "Well, he must be an extraordinary actor," mur- mured Shirley, clearly not yet convinced. "If you could have heard him tell his history—and see him! Sometimes he really seemed to forget I was there, and be talking for his own pleasure; absolutely THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 245 "It does, doesn't it?” Shirley said eagerly. "So it was all just a ghastly performance, to frighten me. What do you think they were up to, when I ...? What do you think he meant to do to me?”. Joyce pouted her lips, raised her eyebrows, and shook her head slowly. "I can't imagine. But I'm sure of one thing: it was worth all you went through, to get out of that room before he came back.” For once in a way she spoke quite seriously, and Shirley, turning a shade paler, looked into the fire in alarmed silence. “What are you going to do about it?" asked Joyce, of a sudden. “Oh, nothing." "Nothing ?” cried her friend, startled into indig- nation. "Nothing? You mean to say you're just going to sit tight and let that devil go on with his games, just because you yourself managed to escape by the skin of your teeth ?” This was undoubtedly what Shirley had meant, for she moved uneasily in her chair, and her colour returned and deepened. “I don't see what I can do. I can't do anything." “Rot! You know you can; and you must, too. Think of that scream you heard ” "But I heard a lot after. It might only have been someone in hysterics." “Yes; or it might have been that wretched girl THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 247 Above all, Lewis; 'scurvy, filthy, scurvy old' Lewis. But Edward and Gathorne, anyhow; and that'll pay off my score as well as yours.” "We don't know that Mr. Burrell had anything to do with it." "No; he may have been doing a fresh air cure; otherwise it looks as if he was taking part in the game. Or can you think of any other reason for him being there ?” Shirley shook her head. “Evidently he wasn't sent after me, anyhow; and I'm pretty sure Sir Edward didn't know where he was. A man can't be sent to prison for sitting in a bush; and I shouldn't imagine it's a crime, as far as that goes, to say you're a wizard and can't die, unless you make it an excuse for getting money out of people. You see, he didn't do anything to me; or, as far as I actually know, to anyone else.” "He did. He shut you in a room, and wouldn't let you out. They call that false imprisonment, and he can be had up for it; and then all the other things are sure to come out about him. Oh, you must!" “It would be horrid,” Shirley complained re sentfully. “What do you expect me to do? Go and tell a policeman about it? I'm sure he wouldn't have the patience to listen to such nonsense.” “Policeman! Of course not. You go to a so licitor, and he brings an action, or files a petition, THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 249 pleasant for him, without bringing you into it, either.” “Oh, I don't mind being brought into it, so long as I don't have to start it. I'm not really a funk; only I should so hate to be the joke for the day in the Evening News and the Star. ... I say, you will stay to supper, won't you? I told Margaret you would; and you can ring up your mother from here. Do! I don't feel like spending all the eve- ning alone, after what happened last night.” "I should love to,” Joyce replied, rising with alac- rity and passing out into the hall. "I'll get through now, before Mummy goes up to dress. . . . Western, double three, four, three, double two ... no, double thrrrree. ..." THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 251 dread. Nor did she meet any of the more inti- mate friends of the pretended speculator, some of whom were likely to have formed a part of the congregation in the underground chapel in Kent. Magdalen Herbert, for instance, who had at one time almost pestered her with affectionate attentions, gave no sign and uttered no word; not that she was out of London, for she had been reported pres- ent at a recent dinner party at her parents' house in Phillimore Gardens. Possibly the supposed initi- ate was afraid to meet her former friend, possibly she was disgusted at the poor spirit that the novice had shown. Whatever the cause of the estrange- ment, Shirley was heard to make no complaint on the subject. Early in February a card arrived by post from Palace Green indicating that Mrs. Cassilis had re- sumed her bi-weekly “afternoons"; and on the fol- lowing Sunday Shirley found herself seated in the room in which she had made the acquaintance of Sir Edward Talbot, adding her unobtrusive con- tribution to the general clatter of feminine tongues. There were ten or twelve women present, but Cap- tain William Lovat was the only man to be seen; and his heroism was soon accounted for by a whis- pered communication from Joyce, made as she handed Shirley a plate of cakes. "Freeze out all these bores; I want to talk to you afterwards. Billy and I are engaged,” mur- 252 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT mured the nymph quickly; and retreated, scarlet- cheeked, to the corner seat where her sunburnt shep herd awaited her. Of the rest of the company Shirley had met only a few before: Mrs. Lampson, in- calculably rich, but so modestly arrayed that strangers, seeing her pass into her palace in Carl- ton House Terrace, were prone rashly to assume that the family was out of London, and that the house was in charge of a caretaker; Mrs. Egerton, the pretty young wife whom Joyce had suspected of too lax an interpretation of the clauses of the marriage contract; and, of course, Mrs. Cassilis herself, effusive, handsome and elephantine. Be sides these there were present half a dozen women of an approved London type, gracefully dressed, accipitral of nose and eye, saurian of mouth, thin, noisy, and more or less convincingly "made-up.” Side by side with Mrs. Egerton on a sofa, Shir- ley had been laughing at the propositions of her neighbour, who, whatever her secret history, was a lively and engaging person, when her attention was distracted by the entrance of Magdalen Herbert, in her accustomed condition of mysteriously smiling langour. The new-comer was obliged to pass Shir- ley on her way to her hostess, and she greeted her carelessly, with a good-humoured and sidelong nod; seating herself however, after the greetings were THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 256 heard about poor, dear Gathorne Burrell, Magdalen, naturally?" "Oh yes! He's off his head, isn't he?" Magdalen asked, eating a sandwich with an air of detach- ment. "He's dead,” announced Mrs. Cassilis in a shocked voice. "Is he? Poor Gathorne!” murmured the girl perfunctorily. “When did that happen ?” “Only yesterday. I dare say it was a blessing, for they tell me he was very bad—not likely to re- cover for years, even if he ever did. It doesn't really seem true; it doesn't seem possible. The number of times I've seen him coming in at this very door!” she reflected in an astonished tone, as if she had always regarded such an action as a cer- tain prophylactic against insanity. "Such a nice such a handsome fellow! We'd noticed that he was getting a little farouche lately; he'd neglected us a good deal; but we never guessed! How dreadful life is sometimes, isn't it?” The ladies murmured their assent to this appre ciation of human affairs; and Mrs. Egerton sought further particulars. "Too horrible! He was quite young, wasn't he? What did he die of?” Mrs. Cassilis shut her eyes. “Oh, my dear, don't let's think of that! Of course, he didn't know what he was doing; and it 258 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT view of news, was now closed, and to be considered hereafter as a commonplace and accepted fact, un- worthy of special comment. "Mummy knows all about it,” she murmured, with a watchful eye on her unconscious mother, "and says she refuses her consent now, but that we may ask her again in a year's time. Of course, that's just nonsense, but there's no object in arguing about it. Billy and I thought about the first week in July. ... You'll see me off, won't you? I think I'll get Noel for another; two's quite enough. No kids. They always cry and fight, and have to be taken out in tears. Besides, what have kids got to do with it, anyhow?... Now let's drop it." The party had been by this time reduced to the conspiratorial three, and Mrs. Lampson and her hostess. Magdalen had left without a word either to Joyce or Shirley, to both of whom she had merely smiled her farewell from a distance. The two elderly ladies were deep in a conversation that soon grew so confidential as to call for a greater privacy; when Mrs. Cassilis, after excusing herself to Shirley, and smiling with a significant indulgence on her daughter and Billy, removed her friend to a neighbouring writing-room. Left alone with the forbidden lovers, Shirley displayed some disposition to return to the subject of their espousals but was checked at the outset. “We particularly wanted you to wait till the 260 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT met anyone; jumping hedges, scrambling through ponds—any old way. But his appearance put them off, and, poor chap, he must have looked pretty aw- ful, from all accounts; clothes hanging in rags and simply plastered with mud, hair on end, all torn and covered with blood, white face, glaring eyes- not at all the sort of thing to meet in the dusk, if you were alone. Once a farm-girl went into an outhouse in the early morning to get a pail or some thing. It was pretty dark, and there was a great heap of straw or hay in the corner, and as she looked at this, she saw a pair of eyes watching her. She got back to the door in a bit of a hurry-she knew they were a man's eyes, she said-and let out one yell; and the next moment he'd burst out on her in a flash, squirmed under her arm and round her, and was away, running like blazes across the fields. Another time, a party of kids were coming home from school in the late afternoon, when he stalked out of a coppice, crossed the road, with his face turned towards them and staring down at them, slithered on his stomach under the hedge, made a funny noise-like a hare, one of them told the police and took to his heels. They could see him going for some time, flying over everything that came in his way, his arms flapping like wings, and looking back every two or three seconds over his shoulder. Then a parson walked right into him at the corner of a lane one night. The padre THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 263 ber all of it, or exactly how Burrell put it. Tal- bot, so he said, had spoilt his life for him, since they became friends, a year or two ago—how, Lilly didn't know; but he rambled on about disgracing him, and ruining his health, and parting him from some girl he was in love with. Apparently there was no doubt he had the drug habit very badly, and he looked as if he drank too, and his nerves were all to rags. In some ways, Lilly said, he was like an old, worn-out man. It wasn't the result of his going mad; there was what Lilly called 'physical degeneration, as one finds in senile decay.' Those were his actual words; I remember them quite well. And yet, you know, he didn't look any older than he was, did he? Burrell said that he'd been per- fectly well and happy before he met Talbot, and that he'd had lots of friends; but that he'd lost everything since by allowing himself to be badly influenced. Very likely he was speaking the truth there. We know now, after what you've been through, Miss Cresswell, that Talbot was—or is—a poisonous sort of fellow; and he and Burrell were very thick for some time. Finally, it seems, they had a regular bust-up, and separated; and from that moment Bur- rel was determined to get his own back somehow. I think he gave Lilly to understand that the loss of this girl of his, whoever she was, was the last touch, and that soon after that he began to make plans for his revenge. He tried to do Talbot harm, first THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 265 girl-a girl he knew to be decent-running away from the house at midnight evidently terrified out of her life, and apparently just fresh from a struggle with somebody. He was pretty sure that Talbot would never let her get away and tell her story, without trying all he knew to catch her and stop her mouth somehow-he wouldn't have thought twice about killing you, Burrell declared, if he'd thought it necessary; so the moment he heard you get back through the bush and begin to run down hill to wards the gate, he went straight up to the house, turned on an electric torch that he'd brought with him, and rang at the front door. It was opened to him at once by 'the black devil who helped him in his work,' he said. Lilly took this to be mere rav- ing, but I suppose he meant that nigger woman who waited on you. And the next moment Talbot him- self appeared white and raging. He forgot all about his quarrel with Burrell, which I dare say he'd never taken very seriously," "I'm sure he hadn't, from what he said to me,” put in Shirley. “And he didn't trouble to keep up his usual behaviour—that god-like calm you know. All he was concerned about was to get you back in the house before you gave the show away; and Burrell played up to him like anything. He pretended that he'd tried to get down earlier in the evening—for the service or ceremony, or whatever it's called, I THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 269 his servants, would have made enquiries about him long before this. I ought to have told you that it wasn't until he had been three weeks with Mr. Lilly that Burrell told this yarn. However, as a matter of form, they sent a man up to New Place, who found it locked-up and apparently empty. Then they really got to work to trace Talbot; and they found he'd left no address for letters at the post office, nor had he paid the tradesmen's books. His London flat was shut up, and his club knew nothing about him, and one or two of his friends, whom they got onto, had nothing to suggest. All they found out was that some of the villagers had seen three cars, which they recognised as Sir Edward's, dashing about the country, at high speed, on that Sunday afternoon and evening; but what happened to them after that couldn't be traced. They seemed to vanish off the earth. Possibly they may have had their number-plates taken off, and been sold to someone who wasn't too particular. The serv- ants too, whom the tradesmen knew by sight, had covered their tracks. You'd have imagined that the black girl would have been pretty easy to follow; but they never saw a hair of her; and as for the visitors, there was nothing to show who they were, or what became of them. Well, then they broke into New Place. All the furniture was there, not even covered with dust-sheets, the linen and plate were in the cupboards, and they found lots of stores 270 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT and food in the larder and other places, some of it rotten. It seemed quite clear that the house had been deserted at a moment's notice, and, if Talbot had lived there alone, this would have supported Burrell's story. But one couldn't think of any rea- son for the silence of the guests and servants, or why they should clear out in this peculiar way. The whole business looked so fishy that it was decided to make a search of the beach, for any evidence of a murder. There were a good many sand-hollows, and some of these were on the foreshore, and so covered at high-tide. I forgot to say that Burrell never told Lilly what he did with the body, or whether he did anything with it; when he got to that point, he went quite off his head again with excite ment, and talked the maddest rubbish. Nothing was found to show that his confession was anything more than a bad dream; but supposing that the place had been washed every day by the tides, there would be no traces left, probably, and the body might very well have been carried out to sea. Where they found a hole that answered the description above high-wa- ter-mark, they dug up the sand, to see if by any chance he'd buried Talbot, but they had no luck. ... He's just gone. Either he's at the bottom of the sea, or underground in some place they haven't spotted yet; or else he was badly frightened by you escaping, with that beastly story against him, and thought it wiser to clear out until the thing blew over. Or, if THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT 271 he found you didn't mean to say anything about it, he could have come back again, before long, with his latchkey, and taken possession of his house again; saying he'd been abroad in the meanwhile. That seems far the most likely explanation, after all, don't you think so ?” “Why?" asked Joyce. “I should say that Ga- thorne was telling the truth. Probably he chucked the body in the sea. Then all these beauties at the house, finding Edward didn't come back, would imag- ine he'd got into trouble; and, as they didn't want to be let in as well, they scattered and lost them- selves.” “But at once ?” Billy objected. “You see, Joyce, from what the villagers said about the cars, it looks as if the whole gang was out of the place before Sun- day night. Surely they'd have waited at least a full day before deciding that he didn't mean to come back ?” “They mightn't. One doesn't know all they'd been up to in that cellar. ... Oh yes! Tell Shirley about that!" “What was that?" asked Shirley. "I was forgetting,” Billy said. “Yesterday, when I'd left Lilly, I thought I'd like to have a look at New Place, and see how it answered to your descrip- tion of it to Joyce. I don't mean that I thought you were romancing about it, of course; but I wondered if things had been left as you saw them in the chapel, 272 THE CASE OF SIR EDWARD TALBOT and whether it would be possible to get any clue to Talbot's whereabouts from anything he'd left behind down there. So I got leave of the police to go over the house. A bobby went with me. . . . Every- thing was just as they had said. Beds, some made, others that had been slept in; the table you dined at, still half laid; books and papers lying about; dead flowers in vases--nothing out of the way or suspi- cious; an ordinary, well furnished house, from which everybody had fled suddenly—the sort of thing one used to see in France. The organ was still open in Talbot's study, and I went down the steps, through the cellar, and up the winding staircase, at the other end, which led to the room which you jumped out of the window of. The table and the two chairs were still there; so were the bottle and the glass, both of them empty and dry, but the books had been taken away. In the chapel itself nothing had been left but the bell—I suppose that was too heavy to move and the benches, pushed against the wall. I saw the niches; but there was nothing in them, nor in the cupboard in the wall. The banners you talked about had been taken down, and so had the two big curtains. But there was a heap of curtains in an attic upstairs, and I think I spotted the throne in the drawing room; one of a pair of huge chairs. Evidently the chapel was the one place they'd taken the trouble to clear up, before they bolted.” This book should be returned to the Library on or before the last date stamped below. A fine of five cents a day is incurred by retaining it beyond the specified time. Please return promptly. APR 369- DUE HER 2012 DUE MANT DUE AUG 13 34 QUE MAR 23 DURADD 150 DUE APR-140 DE FEB 27"46