the sense that only the very esoteric few would know who that striking-looking woman was and why it mattered so enormously to secure her good will. Well . . . it was lucky for Jane. She seemed to him, as he now thought of her, to have in herself deep wells and knee-deep meadows of happiness, rivers of freshness, enchanted gardens of leisure, which he could not enter but could have spoiled. She was one of those other people—like Pearson, like Denniston, like the Dimbles—who could enjoy things for their own sake. She was not like him. It was well that she should be rid of him. Of course she would get over it. She had tried to do her best, but she didn’t really care for him. Nobody ever had, much.
At that moment came the sound of a key turning in the lock of the cell-door. Instantly all these thoughts vanished; mere physical terror of death, drying the throat, rushed back upon him. He scrambled to his feet and stood with his back against the farthest wall, staring as hard as if he could escape hanging by keeping whoever entered steadily in sight.
It was not a policeman who came in. It was a man in a grey suit whose pince-nez, as he glanced towards Mark and towards the light, became opaque windows concealing his eyes. Mark knew him at once and knew that he was at Belbury. It was not this that made him open his own eyes even wider and almost forget his terror in his astonishment. It was the change in the man’s appearance—or rather the change in the eyes with which Mark saw him. In one sense everything about Professor Frost was as it had always been—the pointed beard, the extreme whiteness of forehead, the regularity of features, and the bright Arctic smile. But what Mark could not understand was how he had ever managed to overlook something about the man so obvious that any child would have shrunk away from him and any dog would have backed into the corner with raised hackles and bared teeth. Death itself did not seem more frightening than the fact that only six hours ago he would in some measure have trusted this man, welcomed his confidence, and even made believe that his society was not disagreeable.
Chapter Twelve
Wet and Windy Night
I
“Well,” said Dimble, “there’s no one here.”
“He was here a moment ago,” said Denniston.
“You’re sure you did see someone?” said Dimble.
“I thought I saw someone,” said Denniston. “I’m not positive.”
“If there was anyone he must still be quite close,” said Dimble.
“What about giving him a call?” suggested Denniston.
“Hush! Listen!” said Jane. They were all silent for a few moments.
“That’s only the old donkey,” said Dimble presently, “moving about at the top.”
There was another silence.
“He seems to have been pretty extravagant with his matches,” said Denniston presently, glancing at the trodden earth in the firelight. “One would expect a tramp——”
“On the other hand,” said Dimble, “one would not expect Merlin to have brought a box of matches with him from the Fifth Century.”
“But what are we to do?” said Jane.
“One hardly likes to think what MacPhee will say if we return with no more success than this. He will at once point out a plan we ought to have followed,” said Denniston with a smile.
“Now that the rain’s over,” said Dimble, “we’d better get back to the car and start hunting for your white gate. What are you looking at, Denniston?”
“I’m looking at this mud,” said Denniston, who had moved a few paces away from the fire and in the direction of the path by which they had descended into the dingle. He had been stooping and using his torch. Now he suddenly straightened himself. “Look,” he said, “there have been several people here. No, don’t walk onto it and mess up all the tracks. Look. Can’t you see, sir?”
“Aren’t they our own footprints?” said Dimble.
“Some of them are pointing the wrong way. Look at that—and that.”
“Might they be the tramp himself?” said Dimble. “If it was a tramp.”
“He couldn’t have walked up that path without our seeing him,” said Jane.
“Unless he did it before we arrived,” said Denniston.
“But we all saw him,” said Jane.
“Come,” said Dimble. “Let’s follow them up to the top. I don’t suppose we shall be able to follow them far. If not, we must get back to the road and go on looking for the gate.”
As they reached the lip of the hollow, mud changed into grass under foot and the footprints disappeared. They walked twice round the dingle and found nothing: then they set out to return to the road. It had turned into a fine night: Orion dominated the whole sky.
II
The Deputy Director hardly ever slept. When it became absolutely necessary for him to do so, he took a drug, but the necessity was rare, for the mode of consciousness he experienced at most hours of day or night had long ceased to be exactly like what other men call waking. He had learned to withdraw most of his consciousness from the task of living, to conduct business, even, with only a quarter of his mind. Colours, tastes, smells, and tactual sensations no doubt bombarded his physical senses in the normal manner: they did not now reach his ego. The manner and outward attitude to men which he had adopted half a century ago were now an organisation which functioned almost independently, like a gramophone, and to which he could hand over his whole routine of interviews and committees. While the brain and lips carried on this work, and built up day by day for those around him the vague and formidable personality which they knew so well, his inmost self was free to pursue its own life. That detachment of the spirit not only from the senses but even from the reason which has been the goal of some mystics was now his.
Hence he was still, in a sense, awake—that is, he was certainly not sleeping—an hour after Frost had left him to visit Mark in his cell. Anyone who had looked into the study during that hour would have seen him sitting motionless at his table, with bowed head and folded hands. But his eyes were not shut. The face had no expression; the real man was far away, suffering, enjoying, or inflicting whatever such souls do suffer, enjoy, or inflict when the cord that binds them to the natural order is stretched out to its utmost but not yet snapped. When the telephone rang at his elbow he took up the receiver without a start.
“Speaking,” he said.
“This is Stone, sir,” came a voice. “We have found the chamber.”
“Yes.”
“It was empty, sir.”
“Empty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure, my dear Mr.
