VII
At a quarter past five that day I started for Wimpole Street, filled with a sensation of strong curiosity, for which, in mental debate with myself, I could not quite satisfactorily account. It was a very ordinary matter, surely, this selling and buying of a dog. Why, then, did it seem to me an affair of importance? I asked myself that question while I waited. The only answer I could find was that the dog was a black spaniel, and that before the sad death of my friend Deeming a black spaniel, the creature that had caused the tragedy, had mysteriously complicated, and indeed altered, my pleasant relations both with him and with Vernon. But all that was a year ago. The past does not return, and therefore it was absurd to be—to be—what? What was really the exact nature of the emotion that now beset me? Had I been strictly truthful with myself I should, perhaps, have called it apprehension. But we are not always strictly truthful even with ourselves. I think that day I named it nervousness. I was nervous, out of sorts, a little bit depressed. Vernon’s volte-face had surprised me. The dog’s cringing fear had made an unpleasant impression upon me. And so, now, as I drew near to Wimpole Street I was slightly strung up. That was the long and short of it.
In some such fashion I think I spoke to myself, explanatorily, falsely.
When I turned into Wimpole Street the image of poor Deeming was very present in my mind, and I could scarcely believe that he did not still inhabit the house to which I had come that Sunday morning. I wondered who lived there now, who was Vernon’s neighbour; and when I reached the house I looked towards it with a sad curiosity, which quickly changed to surprise. The house was transformed. Where once had been a doorstep there was now an area railing. The front door had vanished. In its place was a window, with a box in which roses and geraniums were blooming. In a moment I realised what had happened. Formerly the two houses—Nos. 300 and 301—had been one house. Since I had been there they had once more been thrown together. Vernon, then, was living now in the house that had been Deeming’s. As I grasped this fact, Vernon appeared at a window of what had been the second house. Seeing me, he smiled and waved his hand. Before I could ring, the door was opened by Cragg, his faithful man.
“Glad to see you again, Sir,” said Cragg, with a respectful bow which he had learnt, I think, in Italy.
He had several little foreign ways, but was extremely English in appearance—calm, solid, neat, and closely shaven.
I returned his greeting and stepped in.
“Ah,” I said, looking round. “So it’s all changed.”
“Yes, Sir. After Doctor Deeming’s death we got rid of the old stuff, and Mr. Kersteven bought the Doctor’s house and threw the two houses into one. It’s more suitable now.”
“It was awful before.”
“Well, Sir, it was scarcely to Mr. Kersteven’s taste. We rather roughed it for a time, Sir.”
He took my hat and stick and showed me upstairs into a charming drawing-room, in which I at once recognised many beautiful things from Vernon’s house in Rome. Here Vernon met me with an outstretched hand.
“By Jove, what a transformation!” I exclaimed.
“To be sure, you haven’t seen it since—”
“Since the frogs and the beetles and the Japanese umbrellas were turned out. No. And so now you’ve got Deeming’s house too?”
“Yes. I have joined the two together, but I use his chiefly for my work in connection with our dumb friends.”
“Oh!”
His voice was significant in that last sentence, and I realised that in him imagination was often the guide, leading him strangely, dominating him powerfully.
Tea was ready, and we sat down.
Giving expression to my thought, I said, “Strange that you should be living in Deeming’s house.”
“Why so?”
“Oh, well, you were antagonists, weren’t you?”
“Could the difference between us be called antagonism?” he asked, pouring out the tea.
“Wasn’t it? Once Deeming told me that he knew—”
I hesitated.
“Knew what?”
“Knew that you hated him.”
“Really. Did he say that?”
“Was it true?”
“Why discuss it?”
“You’re right. It’s all over now. And he, poor chap, has gone beyond the reach of earthly love or hate.”
He made no rejoinder, and I had an odd feeling as if he were silent because I had said something with which he did not agree; yet that was not possible.
“Do you think,” I said, to change the subject, “do you think that fellow will come?”
“The dog-fancier? Oh, I suppose so. He won’t let slip a chance of making twelve pounds. His dog isn’t worth more than six.”
“Then why do you give double?”
“A caprice.”
“I begin to think you are a capricious man,” I said.
“The dilettante generally is.”
He drew out his watch.
“It’s close upon six. That chap ought to be here in a moment. Ah, there’s the bell! He’s come, no doubt.”
I was conscious of a certain discomfort, but scarcely knew its cause. Putting down my cup, I sat listening intently. Vernon, too, was listening. There was in his face an expression of strained attention. When the door opened gently, I started and looked hastily round.
“Lord Elyn!” said Vernon, getting up from his chair.
“Yes. Glad to find you at home. Hulloa, Luttrell! So you’re back at last! I haven’t seen you since the death of our poor friend Deeming.”
He shook my hand.
“That was a sad business. No one to take his place. No one like him, is there?”
He sat down and stretched his legs. I said something suitable, but with rather an uncertain voice. This unexpected arrival irritated me. And yet I thoroughly liked Lord Elyn. Vernon, too—I felt sure of it—was vexed by his arrival, but he was charmingly courteous, though, in the trifling conversation that followed, he showed traces of absent-mindedness. I knew he was listening for the sound of the bell. I knew he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the black spaniel. Six o’clock struck. The hand of a clock on the mantelpiece pointed to five minutes, then to ten minutes past six. Vernon began to betray a certain restlessness, a certain uneasiness. He twice changed his place in the room. Finally, he got up and remained standing.
“You are expecting someone?” said Lord Elyn, looking at him in some surprise.
“Yes. The fact is I’ve bought a dog—or named my price for one—and he ought to be brought here this evening.”
“Oh, I’m very fond of dogs. Kept them all my life. What sort of animal is this one?”
“A black—there’s the bell!”
He broke off, went swiftly over to the window and looked out. As he stood with his back turned to us I heard him utter a low exclamation.
“What did you say, Vernon?” I asked sharply.
I had not heard a word, but there was a thrilling sound in his voice which startled me. I got up also from my chair, possessed, gnawed by an inexplicable restlessness. Vernon turned round from the window. I saw the strange light in his eyes which I had sometimes noticed there when he talked about the animals and their relation with man.
“It’s the spaniel,” he said.
The words were simple enough, but the way in which he said them was not simple. It sounded cruel and triumphant.
Lord Elyn looked more surprised. He also got up.
“The arrival of this dog seems quite an event,” he said.
“Yes, quite an event,” repeated Vernon, looking towards the door. “It’s years since I’ve had a—pet.”
“If you please, Sir, there’s a person here with a dog.”
“I know. I expected him.”
“Indeed, Sir. Am I to admit him?”
“Certainly.”
“And the dog, Sir? Is he to come in too?”
“Of course. It’s the dog I want, not the man.”
Cragg remained in the doorway, looking at his master.
“What is it, Cragg?” asked Vernon. “What the deuce is the matter?”
“Well, Sir, I don’t see—I don’t, really—how we are ever going to get that dog into the house.”
“What do you mean?” said Vernon.
On his lips there was playing a slight smile.
“I never see an animal in such a state, Sir; I really never did. Hark, Sir!”
He lifted his hand. From below there came to us the sound of a long-drawn howling. Again I felt a cold chill go over me. Lord Elyn, too, was unpleasantly affected. He shook his shoulders, and said—
“Good God, what a dreadful noise! It sounds like something being tortured.”
Vernon was still smiling.
“Oh!” he said; “it’s only the natural nervousness of a dog brought to a strange house to change one master for another. Go along, Cragg. Show the man into my study. I’ll come down in a moment.”
Still looking very doubtful, Cragg disappeared, shutting the door. We three remained silent for a moment. Then Vernon said—
“I’m afraid you’re having a very fussy visit, Lord Elyn. Do sit down. I’ll go and pay the man, and be back in a minute.”
It was evident to me that he wanted—wanted ungovernably—to see the dog brought into the house. As he stopped speaking he was gone. He had almost darted out of the room.
“Dear me!” said Lord Elyn. “Dear me.”
He was a delicate, naturally nervous man, and highly sensitive. I could see plainly that he was upset, mystified by this affair of the arrival of the dog. He looked at me as if inquiring of me what it all meant.
“I wonder—” he began.
Then he broke off. After a pause he said—
“If the dog often howls as he did just now, Vernon won’t have much peace. I never in my life heard a more distressing noise, eh?”
“It was very distressing,” I assented.
Lord Elyn did not sit down, but went to and fro in the room like one disturbed.
“A most distressing noise!” he repeated, uncomfortably. “Most distressing. It really almost sounded like a human being in agony, didn’t it?”
“Yes, it did.”
“What sort of dog is it?” he asked presently, standing before me. “Do you know?”
“A black spaniel.”
“A spaniel? They’re the most sensitive breed of dog I know, intensely nervous and easily frightened, but very affectionate. They attach themselves in an extraordinary manner to those who are kind to them.”
“Hulloa!” he exclaimed. The door had reopened, and Vernon came in.
“Well,” he said, “it’s all right. I’ve got the dog for twelve pounds.”
“Where is it?” said Lord Elyn.
“Downstairs in my study. I’ve had to tie him up for the moment. Poor fellow, he’s nervous at getting into a strange house.”
“Let’s have a look at him,” said Lord Elyn.
I saw that Vernon hesitated, and thought he was going to refuse the request, natural though it was. But if he had intended to do so, he quickly changed his mind.
“Certainly,” he said. “Come downstairs. My study is in the part of the house that once belonged to Deeming.”
Lord Elyn went out of the room, I followed, and Vernon came last.
“To the right!” he said, when we reached the bottom of the staircase. “This corridor unites the two houses.”
We followed the direction indicated.
“Here’s the study,” said Vernon. “It’s a real workroom, dedicated to the cause of our dumb friends.”
“The animals?” said Lord Elyn. “It seems to me, after this evening, that dumb is scarcely the appropriate adjective to apply to them.”
Vernon laughed. He had his hand on the door of his study, and was still laughing as he opened it.