“Yes, of course they do.”
She seized his arm and gripped it with a sudden nervous strength that amazed him.
“You—they—you haven’t heard—they’ve not told you anything he’s said——”
“No, no, of course not! You need not fear that. Doctors and nurses are used to all that. It doesn’t interest them.”
“You’re certain?”
“Certain!”
A long silence, which reminded Rendell of a respite during a thunderstorm. He stood, braced and taut, believing himself to be prepared for anything.
“What’s your name?”
The tone was nearly a normal conversational one. Rendell reeled. He had not been prepared for this.
“Rendell—Arthur Rendell. I only came to this house last night. I don’t know Trent. But do believe that you can trust me. I’d—I’d help you in any way I could. Please believe that.”
“I do believe it.”
There was a deep resonant note in her voice. The words might have been spoken by a serious child—giving the whole of her confidence to someone who had earned it.
A long silence followed.
She had sat down again and was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting in her hands.
Possibly she was thirty—dark, lithe, and deceptively frail-looking. Her hands and feet were perfect. She had large very blue eyes, which, in moments of tranquillity, looked at the world with an expression of frightened wonder. But, as Rendell had seen, they could flash with extraordinary power when she was emotionally moved. She had the rare quality of creating—by her mere presence—a sudden tension in the atmosphere surrounding her. Rendell was aware of it now, as he stood looking down at her.
She seemed to have forgotten time, place, and circumstances as she sat, leaning forward, staring into vacancy with bewildered eyes. This swift alternation from hysteria to inertia was so mysterious to Rendell that it reduced him to impotence. He stood like a slave awaiting the next demand of a capricious master. He had not to wait long.
The sound of footsteps descending the stairs stabbed broad awake in her that spirit of passionate hysteria which had so suddenly become quiescent.
In a second she was on her feet.
“Who’s that?”
“Only one of the lodgers.”
“Lodgers!”
“Yes, didn’t you know that this was a lodging-house?”
She stared at him incredulously.
“Then why is Ivor here? I saw him on Saturday,” she raced on, “only Saturday! He was well. He was going abroad the next day to work. I must see him! I must, I tell you! I’m in terrible trouble. And he’s here—delirious! You don’t know what that means to me.”
A pause, then on again, the words rushing from her in a torrent:
“I did not sleep for one second last night. I read that paragraph in the paper again and again. I couldn’t believe it. I daren’t believe it. And then, to-day, I couldn’t get away to come here. I had to come, although I was terrified of coming. And yet I ought not to be here. Anything might happen. And I’m telling you all this—you, a stranger! I shall go mad to-night when I think of it. But I can’t stay—not another minute! And God alone knows when I shall be able to come again.”
Tears blinded her eyes and she was trembling violently.
“Look here, you really can’t go on like this,” Rendell announced firmly. “You’ll make yourself ill.”
“Ill!”
“Yes—ill! And that won’t help. I promise you that, directly I can, I will ask him to telephone you. I’ll do anything else I can.”
“Wait, wait! I must think. Suppose someone saw me come in here? You’d say that I was a friend of yours. You’d do that? You remember my name? Rosalie Vivian. A friend of yours. You understand? And you’d tell them that I did not know Ivor was here. That’s what you’d say, isn’t it—isn’t it?”
“Yes. I’ll say that. How can I convince you that I only want to help you?”
“I believe it—now I’m here with you. But, when I’ve gone—to-night?—alone? Wait, wait!”
She went to the mirror, dabbed her eyes with a diminutive handkerchief, then studied her reflection critically.
“Yesterday seemed like a month. To-day has been a year. I shall soon be old.”
“Things will come out all right and——”
She turned and looked at him—and his platitudinous phrase died in middle age.
“How nice you are,” she said slowly. “Now please get me a taxi.”
Rendell stared at her.
“Well,” she went on, “is that such a very extraordinary request?”
“But—but——” he blurted out, “the one you came in is still waiting.”
“Oh, is it? That’s all right then. Please see me into it. And, remember, I came to see you.”
“Shall I see you again?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know anything.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll be in at three o’clock every day for the next week.”
With a swift movement she took his hand, pressed it, then turned, and he followed her out of the room.
They walked in silence to the taxi. Rendell watched it till it disappeared, then returned to his room, haunted by the image of a lovely face with frightened eyes.
VIII
Out of the maze of conflicting thoughts and emotions created by Rosalie Vivian’s visit, one fact eventually emerged—Rendell had become involved. Till his meeting with her, he had been a spectator—one whose curiosity had deepened hourly—but no more. At any moment he could have given up his room, returned to the normal, and regarded his adventures at No. 77 as amusing or intriguing incidents in a comedy which he had abandoned before its end.
This was so no longer. A tragic shadow had fallen across the comedy—and he had ceased to be a spectator. Even in terms of time, he was committed. He had promised to be in his room every day at three o’clock during the next week, but—apart from that—he was involved emotionally. He was convinced that her need was desperate, and that she had no one in whom to confide. Also, and more strangely, he was certain she was married, though, as she had not removed her gloves during her visit, this certainty was wholly intuitive.
Gradually other—and more obvious—certainties presented themselves. She was Trent’s mistress. Why, otherwise, had the knowledge that he was delirious made her hysterical with fear? As Rendell saw it, the governing facts were clear enough: she was married; she was Trent’s mistress; Trent was delirious; and therefore she was terrified.
But what was far more important, to Rendell, was the personal fact that she was unique in his experience. Till his marriage, women had been only a physical necessity, but, on that level, he had had many adventures. He was still deeply sensitive to a woman’s physical being, and yet, although Rosalie Vivian was beautiful, he could evoke no image of her figure from his memory. Her attraction was psychic, not physical. Nevertheless, Rendell made an essentially male mental note that—should he see her again—he would study her figure in detail. At present, he could remember only face, feet, and hands—and her amazingly blue, frightened eyes.
He had reached this point in his deliberations when he stumbled across a fact, hitherto overlooked, which instantly attained primary importance.
It was just understandable that Trent had lied to Marsden, to his publisher, and to his agent when telling them that he always went abroad to work. But it was far less understandable that he had told Rosalie Vivian—who was almost certainly his mistress—only last Saturday that he was leaving England the next day. She, then, like the others, was ignorant of the fact that Trent had had rooms at 77, Potiphar Street for years and had written all his books there.