Several days passed, during which Rendell’s anxiety increased till he was about to go to Waldegrave Road, if only to ascertain whether Mrs. Munnings knew how Wrayburn was. But, knowing that Wrayburn would deeply resent any interference, he decided to wait another day before making any inquiries.
At nine-thirty that night, however, when Rendell was alone in his room, writing to Rosalie, the door opened and Wrayburn appeared.
Rendell was so intent on his letter that he remained unaware of Wrayburn’s presence till he looked up and saw him standing in the doorway.
It might have been the shock of thus discovering him, or something spectral in his appearance, but a sudden chill invaded Rendell as he sat looking up at him.
He rose slowly and took a step towards him.
“Hullo! Are you——”
“Could you oblige me with a bottle of whisky?”
Wrayburn spoke with icy precision.
“Yes, of course, I’ll get it.”
Rendell turned, not sorry to escape from Wrayburn’s steely scrutiny. The request amazed him, for Wrayburn never touched alcohol. Presumably he wanted the whisky for medicinal purposes.
Rendell shot a glance at him unobserved. Wrayburn was no better—that was certain. Only his will was maintaining him.
“There you are,” Rendell said, handing him a bottle. “Anything else? Or are you all right now?”
“I’m all right—now.”
Rendell turned and bent down, intending to lock the cabinet from which he had taken the bottle. He had always locked it when Captain Frazer had been in the house and continued to do so from habit.
Hearing no movement behind him, he assumed that Wrayburn had gone, so he took the opportunity to arrange the bottles in the cabinet before locking it.
Nearly a minute passed.
“Good-bye, Rendell.”
He started violently. He had been certain that Wrayburn had gone. He rose quickly and turned round.
But the room was empty.
“Well, I’m damned! I suppose he’s all right. Anyway, you can’t ask him anything.”
He returned to the table and tried to continue his letter, but it was useless. Wrayburn haunted him. He kept looking up to see if he had returned.
At last he abandoned the letter, and began to pace the room, reviewing his relations with Wrayburn from their first conversation in that restaurant to their extraordinary meeting to-night.
Finally, he went to bed. But he slept abominably, owing to a succession of bad dreams—in every one of which someone called to him in a language he did not understand.
VIII
The next morning Rendell left the house soon after breakfast and was out the whole of the day.
He returned at six o’clock to find Marsden in his room—a pale gesticulating Marsden, who brandished a newspaper frantically.
“Wrayburn!”
“Well, what’s wrong?”
Marsden thrust the paper at him.
“Look! . . . There!”
Rendell took the paper mechanically, but continued to gaze at Marsden incredulously. “For God’s sake, read it, Rendell!”
The print became a blur and the paper fell from his hand.
“Wrayburn?”
Rendell did not recognise his own voice.
“Yes, yes! Read it!”
Rendell picked up the paper.
He read slowly—frequently finding it difficult to understand the simplest words.
He learned that at twelve o’clock that morning a Mr. Scott—who was a lodger in 4, Waldegrave Road, Fulham—thought he detected a faint smell of gas on the top floor. He knocked several times on the door of a room occupied by a Mr. Denis Wrayburn, but could obtain no reply. Becoming alarmed, he went downstairs and informed the landlady, Mrs. Munnings. She went with him to the top floor and he knocked again more violently, but with the same result.
Then, with great difficulty, Scott broke the door in. The room was full of gas. Wrayburn was lying fully dressed on the bed—dead. He had been dead for some hours.
Scott immediately telephoned the police, who arrived a few minutes later. Soon after their departure a reporter appeared, to whom Scott gave a graphic account of his discovery.
On a little table by the bed were three pound notes, and a bottle of whisky—half empty. But what amazed Scott were the elaborate precautions taken by Wrayburn to ensure that no gas should escape from the room. Windows, door, fireplace, were covered with thick close-fitting felt. Even the cracks in the boards were plugged with wadding. “It must have taken him hours,” was Scott’s final statement.
Rendell folded the paper carefully and put it on the table. Then he picked up his hat.
“Why—what—where are you going? Rendell!”
Marsden shouted the last word, for Rendell had turned and was going out of the room.
A moment later the front door closed behind him.
He began to walk rapidly, unaware of direction. The rain which had been threatening all day was now falling heavily, but he did not notice it. On and on he strode, conscious only of a necessity for speed. . . .
That gas fire . . . that huge gas fire . . . the bottle of whisky—half empty. . . . He had plugged the cracks in the floor with wadding. . . . The cold grey eyes, intent on their task. The long slender fingers—
Wrayburn!
Long-forgotten incidents flashed upward from his memory, like sparks. That first visit to Wrayburn’s room—the cigarettes, the black coffee. Wrayburn had walked back with him that night. Yes, nearly to Potiphar Street. Then they had parted. And—a few moments later—he had felt a hand on his arm. “I only wanted to know whether you’ve been bored. You haven’t? That’s all right then—that’s all right.”
(The rain was blinding him. He couldn’t see where he was going.)
Lying fully dressed on that bed. Dead for some hours. That’s what the paper said. . . .
When was it he had come for the whisky? Last night? Yes, last night.
“Could you oblige me with a bottle of whisky?”
“Yes, of course, I’ll get it.”
. . . . How many days had passed since he had taken those things to Waldegrave Road at ten o’clock that morning? Four days? Five days? Five days! He had been alone in that room for five days—his body an arena where Will had wrestled with Illness. And yet, had he been ill—physically? Or had his Will had Loneliness for adversary?
Courage! Wrayburn’s courage! To pit himself alone against a world—to make no concessions—to take his stand on himself. What a Will had been sheathed in the fragile scabbard of that body!
. . . . The way he used to flush suddenly . . . the quick flick of his hand to dismiss a subject . . . the slender body . . . the narrow head . . . the dank little beard.
Wrayburn!
There was something rare about him; something beautiful, with a non-human beauty; something unique.
Thrown away on a rubbish heap! A spirit to whom the world was a wilderness. A spirit, seeking its kindred and finding them not. A spirit doomed to come to earth—perhaps to expiate the dark acts of its pride. The Stranger—the Solitary—the Alone.
Wrayburn!
That gas fire—the rugs arranged on the floor in a geometrical pattern—the way he studied each cup to make certain of its absolute cleanliness—the row of dictionaries on that shelf—the divan bed. . . .
And he had become bored by him. He had visited him less and less frequently. Only to listen had been asked of him—but he had refused even to listen. The last human being had deserted Wrayburn. Each day his money grew less. (Three pounds on the little table by the bed!) Every hour the necessity for another “bout with the world” came nearer. For five days he lay on that bed and watched it come nearer—nearer.