She gazed at him with such suffering in her eyes that Rendell looked away. But she seized his arm with sudden nervous intensity.
“Tell me this—do the dead know the secrets of the living? Do they discover what we never dared to tell them? And if they know, do they care? Do the dead suffer? Tell me that.”
“I do not know,” Rendell replied. “How should I know?”
She looked up at him with unseeing eyes, then said slowly:
“I do not think the dead suffer. They discover our secrets, but they do not care. Perhaps, to them, life here seems very distant and infinitely small—a game of children in a nursery. They only smile at the secret which frightens us. And, anyhow, they would forgive, don’t you think? Surely the dead would forgive the living?”
“I don’t know what to say to you,” Rendell replied. “You’ve a vivid imagination. Well, all I can tell you is that I do not think I’m a coward—physically. I’ve been in danger more than once. But my imagination frightens me—and I’ve little enough of it. But, look here, we’ve got to be practical. You’re not alone, are you? You’re with friends?”
She studied him for some moments with a meditative expression.
“What a nice person you are,” she said at last. “So nice—and so stupid. Why should I come to you, a stranger, if I had friends? You see how stupid you are? I am alone. I have left his flat. It’s all just as it was, but it is locked up. The eight-day clock is still ticking in the sitting-room. I can hear it. Tick . . . tick . . . tick. I shall never go there again, and I shall sell everything, or give it away. I’ve a suite in a private hotel in Knightsbridge.”
“But——” Rendell began, but she waved him into silence.
“His friends think I’ve gone to the country. Only his lawyer knows where I am. There’s business to be done, you see. He’s left me everything, do you know that? But I don’t want it—I have enough money without his. But I can’t stay any longer. I must go.”
“And you will come one day next week?”
“Yes, next week.”
She looked round the room, as if to convince herself of its actuality, then went slowly out, followed by Rendell.
They walked to the street in silence. A large car was waiting. She got in and drove away without saying another word.
As he returned to the house, Rendell discovered that she had not asked how Trent was.
IV
Wrayburn had so stressed the necessity for early arrival on the Sunday that Rendell dined at seven o’clock and reached 4, Waldegrave Road, Fulham, soon after eight.
The house was the gloomiest of a gloomy row. It was tall, menacing, and few of the windows were illuminated. Opposite it, instead of houses, was an abnormally high wall—enclosing some institution—which overshadowed the pedestrian and created the atmosphere of a barracks or a prison.
Rendell pushed open a rusty gate, groped along a cobbled path, and mounted narrow steep steps. Then he pulled the bell, thereby awakening a melancholy peal in a crypt-like basement.
The door was opened by a breathless woman, resembling a barrel, who asked what he wanted.
“I have come to see Mr. Wrayburn.”
“Have you now! Well I never! Come in.”
Rendell went in. The hall was dimly lit, but, nevertheless, he gained a clearer view of the woman who was regarding him with heaving curiosity. She had a round puffy face, mottled with red patches, and black eyes like boot-buttons. Distrust had branded her features. Possibly she was unconsciously aware of the fact, for she always assumed a jovial expression.
“Come to think of it, I don’t know if he’s in.”
This remark, like those which had preceded it, was uttered in the tone of one making a joke.
“Best way to find out is to go up and see. Seeing’s believing, so they say. I’ll show you his room.”
Rendell followed her, convinced that this offer proceeded from curiosity rather than courtesy. They mounted slowly to the top of the house. A proceeding which occupied some time, and one which developed a complicated wheeze in the landlady.
She groped to a door and opened it. Darkness.
“There! He ain’t in! What did I tell you?”
She switched on the light and Rendell went into the room.
Its appearance surprised him, for it contradicted the expectations created by the exterior of the house, and those collected on the long ascent to the top of it.
It was a large oblong room with pale green distempered walls, which were entirely bare. The uneven boards were stained black. There was no carpet, but several rugs of varying sizes formed a geometrical design on the floor. In a corner was a divan bed. Near the window stood a writing-desk and within arm’s length was a row of dictionaries, ranged on a shelf fastened to the wall. A card index-cabinet, numerous bookcases, a typewriting-table, and a compactom were arranged with mathematical exactitude. Order predominated—every effect was calculated. There was nothing to offend, and nothing to distract—nothing to charm, and nothing to repel. Logic had frozen everything into a final unity.
“Didn’t expect to see a room like this, I’ll warrant. No more don’t I, as you might say. All his doing—not mine. Did everything himself, he did. Stained them boards, distempered them walls, brings his own furniture! And all as cool as you like. Say-nothing sort, he is. Does for himself, too. Yes, believe it or not, I never come in here. Makes his own bed! I said to him once, I said: ‘Some woman’s missed a treasure in you—what a husband you’d make,’ Lor, he did give me a look.”
She laughed noisily, then went on:
“Sure he’s expectin’ you? Precious few come to see him.”
Rendell said nothing, hoping she’d go.
“You’re looking at that gas-fire—and well you might! Ever see such a big one in all your born days? Well, I daresay he wants it. A colder-looking feller I never did see. Fair gives me the shivers to look at him. But that there gas-fire! I have to laugh whenever I see it. It’s what they call an Oxo size in the shops.”
A slight movement at the open door made them both turn. Wrayburn stood in the entrance surveying them with passionless enmity.
The landlady crossed to him, talking noisily, but two swift movements of his hand towards the stairs were too contemptuous to be ignored. Her chatter died and she went out, looking over her shoulder at him with an expression of frightened astonishment.
While she descended the stairs laboriously, Wrayburn stood in the doorway listening. When all was still, he said to Rendelclass="underline"
“Now that the hoofs of that animal can no longer be heard, we can sit down. You’re not in a hurry, are you? You’re not! That’s all right then.”
He pressed his hand to his forehead and stood motionless with closed eyes.
“I say!” Rendell exclaimed. “You’re not feeling ill, are you?”
“The vibrations of that quadruped are disruptive,” Wrayburn replied slowly. “Also, it’s cold. You think it’s cold, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Rendell lied, finding the evening a pleasantly warm one. “But tell me this,” he went on. “Are you sure you’re not overworking?”
“I am not working. I finished a bout with the world a few weeks ago. A bout with the world is my term for a job, you understand. I’ve saved some money. When it’s gone, I shall re-enter the arena—probably.”
The pause before the last word, and its emphasis, isolated it in much the same manner as a spot-light gives prominence to one figure in a crowd.
Rendell glanced at his companion, not knowing what to say. Wrayburn had stretched himself limply in the arm-chair opposite him, but the tightly-clenched hands testified to some act of inner compulsion—some rallying of the will.