III
As I walked back to the Grand Hotel I thought over Vernon’s last words and the way in which he had said them. Should I obey his injunctions? I confessed to myself with reluctance that my conversation with him that evening had made me suspicious of a friend. Yet I had Vernon’s own word for it that he was a crank on the subject of animals, and my recent experience of him almost forced me to the conclusion that in his nature, usually so gentle, there must be an odd strain of fanaticism. My mind was troubled, and I reached the hotel without coming to a decision as to whether I would speak to Deeming about his dog or not. As I came into the outer hall I saw him through the glass door sitting alone in the winter garden, smoking, with a paper, which he was not reading, lying on his knee. He did not see me, and, for a moment, I watched him with a furtive curiosity of which I was secretly half-ashamed. Perhaps stirred by my gaze, he suddenly looked up, caught sight of me, smiled, and made a slight gesture, as if beckoning me to come in and have a talk. I took off my overcoat and joined him.
“I’ve just come from Vernon,” I said, sitting down and lighting a cigar.
“Ah!” said Deeming.
He uncrossed his legs, crossed them again, and added:
“He’s got a beautiful house.”
“Yes, one of the most beautiful in Rome. He wants you to dine with him one night, I believe. Probably he’ll ask you in a day or two.”
“Very good of him.”
His voice was scarcely cordial.
“He’s a curious fellow,” he continued. “Easy in his manner, but difficult really to know, I fancy.”
“If you dine with him you may find him less reserved,” I said, rather perfunctorily.
“I don’t suppose he’ll ask me alone.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“I don’t think he cares much about me,” Deeming continued abruptly. “Do you?”
“My dear fellow, he hardly knows you,” I exclaimed. “You haven’t been quarrelling over the animal world this afternoon, have you?”
And I laughed, but without much cordiality, I fear.
“Did he say we had?”
“Good heavens, no! But you differ on the dog question, and so—”
Deeming frowned.
“The dog question!” he said. “Why on earth should you call it that?”
“Well, I mean that he’s very sensitive since he lost his dog, and that perhaps makes him a little unreasonable at times, though I must say that till the other night when he dined here I never heard him mention the subject of animals and their relation with man. And, by the way, you’ve been equally silent. Till the other night I never knew you possessed a dog.”
“Is it such an important matter that I should go about proclaiming it?”
His tone was suddenly hard and impatient.
“No, of course not.”
“I hate people who bother their friends about their pets. It’s almost as bad as the women who are always talking about the marvellous beauty and genius of their squalling babies.”
He set his lips together as if he never meant to open them again, and I saw a look as of acute nervous irritation in his eyes. It warned me not to persevere in the conversation, and made me vexed with myself for having given way to Vernon’s desire.
“Let’s have a nightcap,” I said. “What do you think of doing to-morrow? What do you say to getting a carriage and driving over to lunch at Tivoli?”
He looked more easy.
“If it is fine I should enjoy it immensely,” he said in a calmer voice.
And we talked of old gardens and the beauty of rushing water.
We spent the following day together at Tivoli. When we came back towards evening, the hall-porter handed to Deeming a note. It was from Vernon, inviting him to dine two days later.
“You see how he hates you!” I said chaffingly when he told me. “Do you mean to go?”
“Oh, yes. Why not?”
He spoke lightly, holding the note open in his hand.
He did not go, however, and for this reason. On the morning of the day he was to dine with Vernon, he left Rome for England. An urgent summons from a patient, he told me, made it necessary for him to go to London without a moment’s delay.
I remonstrated with him, but in vain.
“I’ve had quite enough rest,” he said. “I’m all right. And this is an important matter. It means a very large sum of money.”
“Health’s more than money.”
“Certainly, but I feel quite my own man again.”
He did not look it, but I said no more.
I knew that argument would be useless. He sent a note to Vernon, and, when I bade him good-bye, begged me to express his regret at being obliged to cancel the dinner.
“But I hope some day he’ll come to dine with me in London. Do tell him so,” he said, as he stepped into the omnibus to go to the station. “I should like to meet him again.”
Those were his last words. I repeated them to Vernon.
“I shall not forget that invitation, I assure you,” he said quietly. “And I may be able to enjoy Deeming’s hospitality sooner than he, perhaps, expects.”
“Why? You’re surely not going to London yet awhile? I thought you loved your June in Rome better than any other month of the year.”
“But I’ve had so many Junes in Rome that I think I shall make a change. By the way, when will you be in London?”
“Oh, certainly by the last week in April.”
“If I asked to travel back with you, would you object to my company?”
“My dear fellow! Of course I should be delighted.”
“Let us consider it a bargain, then.”
He spoke decisively, and shook me by the hand as if to clinch the bargain. Nor did he forget it.
The third week in April found us in Paris, and on the twenty-second of that month we stepped into the rapide at the Gare du Nord, bound for England.
We sat opposite to one another in the compartment, with, at first, ramparts of London papers between us; but, as we drew near to Boulogne, first Vernon’s rampart fell, and then mine. The thought of the nearness of England had got hold of us both. London ideas were taking possession of us, and, as the train rushed on towards the sea, we became restless, as if the roar of the great city were already in our ears.
“Do you know,” I said, breaking our mutual silence, “that, familiar as I am with London, I can never return to it after an absence without a feeling of apprehension. It always seems to me that in its black and smoky arms it must hold some disaster which it is waiting to give to me.”
“I’ve had that sensation, too,” said Vernon. “Among the cities of the world London is the monster, not merely by right of size but by other, and more mysterious rights. It affects my imagination more than any of the European capitals, but rather frightfully than agreeably. I feel that it is the city of adventure, but that every adventure there must have a fearsome ending.”
“No doubt we are affected by its climate and its atmosphere.”
“I dare say. Still, if anything very strange, very uncommon, should ever happen to me, I am quite sure that it will be in London.”
I smiled.
“My experience,” I said, “has been that in London I am perpetually expectant of gloomy and mysterious events, but that my life there is remarkably unromantic and commonplace.”
“You speak almost regretfully. Do you wish for gloomy and mysterious events in your life?”
“I suppose not. Yet there is a spirit hidden in one which does sigh plaintively for the strange.”
“Perhaps this time it will be gratified.”
Something in the tone of his voice moved me to say—
“Do you expect it to be gratified?”
“I! Why should I?”
“I don’t know. Something in your voice made me fancy that you did.”
He laughed.
“The London atmosphere is, perhaps, affecting me already,” he said. “The London influence is taking hold of me. I told you it always stirred my imagination.”
“At Boulogne-sur-mer!” I said, as the train ran into the station. “The monster’s arms are longer than Goliath’s!”
The stoppage of the train interrupted our conversation. We got out to stretch our legs for a moment, and as we did so I found myself wondering why Vernon, generally a very frank man, at any rate with me, should have met my plain question with an attempt at laughing subterfuge. It was a very slight matter, of course. In another man I should, perhaps, scarcely have noticed it. But it was not Vernon’s way, and therefore it struck me. I felt that he wished to prevent me from getting at the truth of his mind at this moment. Usually, his desire certainly was that the truth of his mind should be known to me.
We travelled to Calais in silence. Then came the bustle of going aboard the steamer and fortifying ourselves against the painful attentions of a sharp north-easterly wind. When we were established in our deck-chairs, and closely wrapped in rugs, we glanced round to see whether we had any acquaintances among our fellow-passengers. The steamer was just casting off, and some, like ourselves, were already settled down for the voyage, while others were tramping up and down briskly, with an air of determination, as if bent upon making their blood circulate, and getting the maximum of benefit out of the crossing. Among the latter was an elderly man, with pepper-and-salt hair and a thin, aristocratic face.
“Hullo,” I said, “there’s Lord Elyn. I wonder where he’s come from.”
Turning in his walk, he was in front of us almost as I said the words, and, seeing me, stopped, and, bending down, shook my hand.
“Where do you hail from?” he asked.
“Paris,” I answered. “I’ve been in Rome. And you?”
“Calais.”
“You’ve been staying at Calais?”
“No. I’m here for my medicine. I live on the Channel at present, or nearly. My doctor, Peter Deeming—he’ll be Sir Peter before long, I suppose—has prescribed the double voyage, from Dover and back, every day of the week for a month. I sleep at the Burlington and eat bœuf-à-la-mode at the Calais buffet every midday of my life just now.”
“Deeming’s a friend of mine—of ours,” I said. “May I introduce Mr. Kersteven—Lord Elyn.”
The two men bowed.
“It’s a pity he doesn’t take his own medicine,” said Lord Elyn. “I’ve tried to persuade him, but in vain so far. However, I’ve got his promise to come down to-night—Saturday, you know—and stay till Monday, and make the voyage with me to-morrow. I expect to find him at the Burlington when I get back.”
I saw a sharp look of eagerness come into Vernon’s face.
“Is Deeming looking ill, Lord Elyn?” he asked. “You say it is a pity he doesn’t take the medicine he prescribes for you.”
“I think him looking very ill—pale and worried and played out. He is too great a success and pays the penalty—works too hard, like most successful men. He ought to have prolonged his holiday in Rome. I can’t imagine why he hurried back to town so unexpectedly.”
“Oh,” I said, “I can explain that. He was summoned to town by an important patient.”
“Really!” said Lord Elyn. “I never heard of it.”
He sounded slightly incredulous.
“I saw him almost directly he arrived,” he added; “and when I inquired why he had shortened his trip to Italy, he merely told me that he was all right and had got sick of doing nothing.”
“Well,” I answered, “he left Rome at a moment’s notice, and gave me the reason I told you.”
“Oh! Well, then, of course, it was so. A pity for him—though not for us, eh? He’s a wonderful doctor. No one like him. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must take exercise. I keep walking the whole time, by command.”
He nodded, and went off up the deck at a brisk pace.
“I’m sorry to hear that about Deeming,” I said to Vernon.
“Yes. It’s a pity he was called away from Rome.”
His voice, too, sounded incredulous.
“Why d’you say it like that?” I asked. “You don’t think he told us a lie?”
“Why put it so cruelly? He may have made an excuse. When one receives a boring dinner-invitation, one has sometimes a previous engagement.”
“A dinner-invitation! Surely you don’t—?”
“Well, he was to have dined with me the night of the day he left. But, of course, it may have been a pure coincidence.”
Lord Elyn passed us again, and repassed.
“I say, Luttrell,” Vernon added, “what do you say to one more night out of London? What do you say to a night at the Burlington?”
“At Dover?”
“Yes.”
“But the luggage! It’s all registered through.”
“We’ve got our dressing-cases, and my man has a bag with my pyjamas. Evening dress doesn’t matter for a night. I’m sure the Burlington will forgive us, especially if we engage a sitting-room.”
“Oh, yes, that doesn’t matter.”
“What do you say, then?”
“I don’t know that I mind, but—what’s made you think of it all of a sudden? Have you taken a violent fancy to Lord Elyn?”
My voice was challenging. He only smiled quietly.
“A very violent fancy. I like obedient men.”
Lord Elyn passed once more with a serious, determined air. He did not look at us. He was intent on his medicine.
“You’re joking.”
“So were you.”
I laughed.
“Of course. You don’t choose to tell me your reason for wishing to stop at Dover?”
“I think you’ve guessed it.”
He unrolled the rug from his legs and got up.
“I’m going to take some medicine, too. Think over the Burlington and tell me presently.”
In a moment I saw him join Lord Elyn, and they walked up and down together, talking busily.
Of course, I had “guessed it.” He wanted to meet Deeming again, to meet him directly we landed in England. My previous suspicion—it had been almost more than a suspicion—was confirmed. I felt positive now that Vernon had cut short his stay in Rome, given up his June there, in order to follow Deeming to London and try to see more of him. The obsession of the black spaniel—I called it that now in my mind for the first time—was still upon him, had been upon him ever since the night when I had made my two friends acquainted with each other in the winter garden of the Grand Hotel. And Deeming? Had he really invented an imaginary patient in order to have a good excuse for leaving Rome and so avoiding Vernon’s dinner? If that were so, then I was assisting at a sort of man-hunt, in which two of my friends were pursued and pursuer. I began to feel as if I were going to be involved in something extraordinary. And yet how vague, how fantastic it all was! And my own position? I tried to review it. If I assisted Vernon in any way, could I be called—or rather, should I be, that was the only thing that mattered—disloyal to Deeming? I felt rather uncomfortable, and yet—and this was strange—rather excited. I thought of my conversation with Vernon about London. I had been absent from it for some time, yet already, and on the sea, I felt affected by its powerful and dreadful influence, felt that curious sense of apprehension which I had mentioned to Vernon in the train. Suddenly I resolved to fall in with my friend’s wish to stay the night at Dover. After all, what did it matter? He and Deeming would certainly meet in London. Why strive to postpone the meeting? It seemed to me—I was thinking somewhat absurdly, I acknowledge it—that it would be better, safer, that the encounter should take place at Dover, under the white cliffs, with the sea-wind coming in, perhaps, through open windows. London was mephitic, and turned one to gloomy and morbid imaginations. The sea-wind might blow away Vernon’s extraordinary suspicions of Deeming, and lay to rest the obsession of the black spaniel.
Moved by this idea, when Vernon presently stopped before me with Lord Elyn, I said—
“I give my vote for a night at the Burlington.”
“Capital!” said Vernon. “I’ve been telling Lord Elyn we thought of staying, and he is sure our tweeds and coloured ties will be forgiven us.”