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Chapter VI. Spottings of a Leopard

The drive to Bragley Court was stiff and uncomfortable. Bultin never did anything to put people at their ease, and Zena Wilding’s forced vivacity was as unhelpful as Bultin’s silence. The one subject that most vitally interested the majority of the party was studiously avoided.

“Don’t you think there’s always a sort of a thrill, going to a new country house?” exclaimed Zena, trying nervously to be brilliant. “Something like the curtain going up on a play?”

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Chater dutifully.

It was not encouraging, but Zena prattled on:

“And then the guests—they’re like the characters—and you wonder what’s going to happen. Of course, nothing particular ever really does happen. Just as well! Suppose it did—a fire, or a burglary, or a murder! No, thank you, we’ll leave that to the dramatists!”

She glanced at Bultin. She was speaking partly for his benefit, though partly also to drive her mind from the disturbing moment just before she had entered the car. If she made her conversation scintillating, Bultin might report it.

But Bultin was gazing out of the window, inventing headlines, although his ear did not miss a word Zena said, and it was Mr. Chater this time who broke the silence with a murmured:

“What? Yes, quite.”

Mr. Chater was able to talk fluently on occasions, but this was not one of the occasions. He, also, was recalling the moment just before he had entered the car. Unlike Zena, however, he was not trying to forget it. He was dwelling on it, probing its meaning.

The actress made one more effort.

“I suppose I can’t help seeing drama in everything,” she said, forgetting that her drama rarely rose above the level of musical comedy. “Even when I was on the Riviera—do you know the Riviera?—it was there I met Lord Aveling—yes, even on my holiday I was always inventing plots about everything and everybody. Your mind just goes on working, you know, without your knowing it.” She glanced again at Bultin. He was still staring out of the window. It was very disappointing. Well, she must give him some definite news—perhaps that would wake him up. “Yes, but one wants to get back to work. Of course, I enjoyed my holiday immensely—after my illness—but it was far too long. Do you know, it seems years and years since I put on any make-up.” Bultin did make a mental note of that phrase. “But—well, I don’t believe it will be very long now. As a matter of fact—in strict confidence—I’ve got the play in my case at this moment!… Only perhaps you’d better not mention it just yet, Mr. Bultin?”

“I promise I won’t,” he answered.

The man was just a beast! She hoped earnestly that he would break his promise.

After that she gave up, and the journey continued in silence.

They reached their destination as Lord Aveling was greeting another guest who had just preceded them, and who had made the trip from London by car. “Earnshaw,” Bultin identified. He also noticed that Lord Aveling was welcoming him effusively.

“Delighted you were able to get away, Sir James,” said Aveling. “You’re staying till Monday, of course?”

“Unless I’m called back,” replied the Liberal member, his large rich voice filling the hall. He gazed about him as he spoke, leisurely and unflurriedly. He had all the solid assurance of a well-groomed, well-fed man. “Land question, you know.”

“It’s the eternal question,” smiled Aveling. “I expect we’ll talk about it. State or private ownership. Communism or—common sense, eh? No middle course these days.”

The Liberal member looked at his host sharply. He, too, was doubting the wisdom of the middle course. Moderation was in a disconcerting minority at the moment. But it was not this reflection that had arrested him. It was “Communism or Common Sense.” He revolved the words in his mind. A slogan there, somewhere. Communism or Common Sense. Communism or Common Sensism. House of Commonism....

The Honourable Anne appeared on the stairs. Slogans vanished as he strode forward to meet her. Meanwhile Lord Aveling’s polished voice droned on:

“Ah, Miss Wilding! How are you? I hope the journey was not tiring?” He took the actress’s hand and held it for an instant. “We have something to chat about, have we not? Ah, Bultin—how is the world treating you? Or perhaps we should say, how are you treating the world? Have you brought your large note-book? Be careful of this man, Miss Wilding! He can make or ruin one in a single paragraph. We all try to keep on the right side of Mr. Bultin.”

Bultin smiled faintly. He knew that, behind his polished badinage, Lord Aveling was just a little anxious about him. This week-end was a sort of bribe. The tobacco and beads for the naughty Indian with the scalping-knife.

Then Lord Aveling turned to the last of his guests to enter through the front door. Sir James turned also with a sudden sense of responsibility. He was still leisurely and unflurried, but a little of the rich warmth left his tone as he said:

“How well we have arranged this! I arrive just in time to perform the introductions. Mr. and Mrs. Chater, Lord Aveling.”

John Foss had said he was not superstitious, but he had been watching the front door from his couch, and counting. Zena Wilding, ten. Lionel Bultin, eleven. Who would enter first of the last couple?… The man—no, he had paused on the threshold. The woman preceded him. Mrs. Chater, twelve. Mr. Chater, thirteen....

The new guests dissolved to their respective rooms. Dinner was at eight, and bags had to be unpacked and clothes changed. Lionel Bultin followed a servant up the soft stair-carpet to a room on the second floor. The artist, Leicester Pratt, wagged a hand from an easy-chair as he entered.

“Hallo, Lionel,” said Pratt. “We’re to be stable lads together. I hope you don’t mind? There’s no way out, if you do. It was my idea.”

Bultin did not mind. His invitation to Bragley Court had also been Pratt’s idea. It was Leicester Pratt who had lent Bultin fifty pounds ten years ago, at the critical moment of the journalist’s career. Pratt was then an unknown artist, doing infinitely better work than he was doing to-day. Pratt had discovered Bultin, and in return Bultin had discovered Pratt. No two men had helped each other more, or understood each other better.

“Well?” queried Bultin, after five minutes of silence.

Pratt laughed.

“You know, I’m quite a little child at heart, Lionel,” he answered. “I love to call you Lionel, and even more I love to make you say, ‘Well?’ I believe I’m the only person who can do it outside the King and Mussolini. Lionel Bultin, purveyor of world news, world gossip, world washing, authority on Eden’s size in collars and Greta Garbo’s lip-stick, asking me for information! Admit it’s a score!”

“I don’t ask even little children twice,” observed Bultin, removing one of Pratt’s coats from a hook so that he could use the hook for one of his own.

“You’d ask this child twice, if it were necessary,” retorted Pratt. “You see, I have the advantage of not being a sentimentalist. You’ve grown so fond of life that you will woo it with any weapon. I dislike life so much that I’m without fear. Once life begins bargaining for my heart, I’ve done with the jade! Yes, and here’s an interesting thing,” he added. “You couldn’t commit suicide if you tried. If ever I decide to, I won’t hesitate. Posthumous opinion can find me out, if it’s amused—I shan’t be here.”

“The little child is objectionably precocious,” commented Bultin, quite unmoved. He rather enjoyed being thought a sentimentalist. “Get on with it.”

“I understood you never asked twice!” jeered Pratt. “‘Get on with it,’ is your second ‘Well?’ camouflaged. All right. Here goes. News from the advance guard, for Bultin’s column, ‘How the Wind Blows,’ preferred by ninety-nine per cent. of the population to Hamlet, the Bible, and Omar Khayyám. Paragraph One. ‘Miss Zena Wilding, age thirty-two by the kindness of her friends, forty-two by the unkindness of her enemies, and thirty-eight by the justice of God—’”

“Thirty-seven,” interposed Bultin.

“‘—is an interesting visitor at Bragley Court this week-end. She has long awaited the really big theatrical chance she so thoroughly does not deserve. My little leopard informs me that, if she is very good, but perhaps not too good, she may receive the promise of the necessary backing by Monday next.’”

“I already knew that,” said Bultin.

“Your comment was inevitable,” replied Pratt.

“She first met the backing on the Riviera,” said Bultin, “where she went to recuperate after a serious illness. Cause and nature of illness not known.”

“And possibly not for publication when known,” added Pratt. “Paragraph Two. ‘The celebrated artist, Leicester Pratt, who has the world of portraiture temporarily at his feet, who calls a scarcely less celebrated journalist by his Christian name, and whose bow ties become increasingly flowing, has been at Bragley Court for several days, and is now completing a portrait designed for next year’s Royal Academy of Lord Aveling’s only daughter, the Honourable Anne Aveling.’ Kindly turn that paragraph into a column.”

“Does this window look out on the back?” said Bultin.

“It looks out on the studio,” answered Pratt, “where the aforementioned masterpiece is in process. Paragraph Three. I think you’ll like this one better. ‘It is interesting to find Sir James Earnshaw among the guests at Bragley Court. It is well known that he does not hunt stags for the pleasure of it. Is he hunting anything else? My little leopard informs me that, if Sir James is to survive politically, he must turn Labour or Conservative, and he would be given the hand of the Honourable Anne Aveling if he decided to survive as a Conservative. This would not outrage Sir James’s private political convictions, because he hasn’t any, and then Lord Aveling might himself survive as a Marquis instead of a mere Baron, in virtue of the additional vote he brought to the Conservative Party.’”

Bultin condescended to turn away from a wardrobe he had been examining, and fix Pratt with a rather fish-like eye.

“Really?” he said.

“Really,” nodded Pratt. “Thank you for your passionate interest. I charge 3/10 for that one. But you can have the next paragraph for nothing. ‘Miss Edyth Fermoy-Jones is studying Nobility at first-hand. This is a pity, because we shall now lose those delicate flights of fancy that have illuminated so many of her previous volumes on High Life, and which once caused a Countess to bathe regularly in expensive hock. My little leopard tells me that her next novel will open with an accident to a young man at a railway station. A very beautiful widow will convey the young man to an ancestral home, will fall in love with him, and will discover that he is really a necklace thief. When a celebrated artist is murdered for painting a mole on the neck of a débutante, the young man will be arrested for the crime, and only the beautiful widow will know that his heart was too pure to devise anything worse than stealing necklaces.’”

“Will it come out that the real murderer of the artist was a famous journalist?” inquired Bultin.

Leicester Pratt laughed, and ran on:

“But the next paragraph is worth another 3/10. I might even work you up to four bob. ‘If Lord Aveling, already secretly harassed for funds, becomes a Marquis, how will he meet enhanced expenses? Perhaps—my little leopard tells me—Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Rowe, who have made a fortune from pork and who are anxious to emerge from the sausage-skin that has encased them so long, could supply the answer. They and their charming daughter, Ruth, have been staying for some days at Bragley Court, and if Ruth were launched into Society with a Capital S, it is possible that Lord Aveling would be able to support a marquisate. And, incidentally, to justify the expense of backing a show, while waiting.’”

Bultin refused to register any gratitude.

“Who is the attractive widow?” he asked.

“Nadine Leveridge,” sighed Pratt, in mock disappointment. “Well, if I can’t interest you above-stairs, let me try below-stairs. Leopards also prowl in basements. Do not be surprised if you are given bamboo-shoots for dinner to-night. We have a Chinese cook. No good? I’ll try again. We have something in the domestic line more attractive than a Chinese cook—a very pretty maid. Name, Bessie. Delightful figure. Make a good model. But when this was suggested to her, she was filled with charming confusion.” He rose and stretched himself. “I shall waste no more time over you, Lionel. You’re not worth it. I shall take a stroll before dressing.”

“Do,” said Bultin. “Since you can’t tell me anything about the most interesting people here.”

“Who?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Chater.”

“Ah, the Chaters,” answered Pratt. “Yes, there I’m beaten. The little leopard knows nothing about the Chaters.”

“Nor does Lord Aveling,” replied Bultin. “But James Earnshaw does. And, unless I am reaching my dotage, the Chaters know something about James Earnshaw. Which is my bed?”

“That one over there.”

“Good. I’ll have the other one.”

Pratt laughed and left the room. Outside he paused. Harold Taverley, the one man he had not mentioned, was entering his room opposite, and threw him a smile.

“Why does that man always make me see red?” wondered Pratt.

He went downstairs thoughtfully.

Chapter VII. Whitewash and Paint

A narrow passage led from the back of the lounge-hall into the grounds, and as Leicester Pratt passed out into a sheltered lawn, its dark surface streaked with slits of light from upper windows—one window being that of his bedroom—he noticed a thin coil of smoke spiralling upwards. Then Nadine Leveridge gleamed at him out of a shadow.

She was a creature of dazzling white, softened by the deep green of her dress. Her shoulders were perfectly formed and perfectly revealed. One was tempted to envy the narrow green strips curving with such apparent insecurity over them. A double rope of pearls made a loop in front of the simple green bodice. A silk wrap, also of green, but deeper and more brilliant in hue, partially covered one shoulder.

“Nadine Leveridge is Life’s relentless weapon,” thought Pratt. “A woman for fools to fear.”

Pratt did not fear her. He could even stand and regard her, deliberately studying her subtle challenges with the impertinent privilege of an artist.

“You’ve dressed early,” he said. She nodded. “Not afraid of the cold?”

“Not a bit.”

He felt for his cigarette-case, and found he had left it in his room.

“I’m sorry I can’t oblige,” remarked Nadine. “Mr. Taverley gave me this.”

She held up her cigarette. Pratt noticed that it was a State Express 555.

“Don’t move for a moment,” he said. She stood motionless, her eyebrows raised a little. Only the cigarette smoke continued its movement. “The lady with the cigarette. The lady in green. Modern Eve. Woman. Anything you damn like. When do I paint her?”

“She’d have to pawn her pearls to pay your price,” smiled Nadine, puffing the cigarette again.

“That’s terribly material.”

“Goes against the grain?”

Now Pratt smiled.

“You must hate meeting pieces of wood like Bultin and me,” he observed.

“Nonsense—nobody’s wood!” retorted Nadine. “Some people build wooden walls around themselves, that’s all. Bultin does, certainly.”

“Yes, I agree. He’s chained himself inside in case he should get out and collapse. But—me?”

“Something could move you.”

“What?”

“I’ve no idea. But I couldn’t. That’s why I don’t think I’ll pawn my pearls, thank you. Any one who paints me must be an out-and-out idealist.”

“An idealist is merely another sort of man who builds a wall round his passions.”

“And whose passions are the most ardent when the wall goes?” replied Nadine. “Yes, I know all about that! But he begins with a kind heart, and I only allow artists with kind hearts to paint me. I’ve seen your Twentieth-Century Madonna!”

“I should never have thought you feared the truth, Nadine,” reproved Pratt.

“I don’t. But no artist can paint the whole truth. He just paints his half—and the other half can’t answer back from the canvas. The half I fear is your half—all by its little lonesome!”

“Touché,” murmured Pratt, “although I am not admitting there is any other half.”

“Didn’t you paint the other half when you were twenty? I remember a picture called ‘Song of Youth.’”

“My God, spare me!” he winced. “Must that ghastly song follow me to the grave? And anyway,” he added, “how on earth do you remember that ancient atrocity? From your appearance, your memory shouldn’t take you back so far.”

“I’m in shadow.”

“Kindly step out of it.”

She hesitated, then did so.

“I repeat my astonishment,” said Pratt, staring at her. “You look twenty yourself! And now, I suppose, you will charge me with gallantry? No, I couldn’t stand that! Not immediately after the resuscitation of my ‘Song of Youth!’ Excuse me, before I become utterly whitewashed!”

“I’ll excuse you,” answered Nadine, throwing her cigarette away, “but I don’t think I’m exactly the kind of person to whitewash anybody.”

“Thank God!” said Pratt devoutly.

He watched her pass back to the house, then stepped on to the dark lawn. It was thirty strides across. Beyond, a flagged path led between bushes to the studio.

As he reached the building he felt in his pocket for the key. There had been no afternoon sitting that day, for horses had supplanted canvas; and there was not much chance of a sitting on the morrow, either. A stag was to be routed out of Flensham Forest, to perform its entertaining death-run. Well, he could add a few touches to the picture by himself, and finish the thing on Sunday. He’d have to get it out of the way by then, if Ruth Rowe’s was to follow.

“Where the devil—?” he murmured.

Then he saw the key in the door, and recalled that he must have left it there after his visit with Mr. Rowe before tea. It was then that the picture of Ruth had been decided on.

He turned the key and entered the large room. Ruth’s picture would be dull compared with Anne’s. There was little to paint about Ruth. There were fathomless depths to reveal in Anne. He knew them. He could pierce through right down to the bed. Yes, he liked this picture—there was something definitely challenging in it. “No whitewashing, my child—we’ll show ’em—a bit of real collaboration. As a rule, I’m the only one that understands, but you understand, too. That’s what makes it!”

And Earnshaw’s presence here this week-end added its touch of ironic justification. Anne could sell her soul, like the rest of them—or the mythical thing that was called a soul!

He switched on the light, and turned to the picture of the Honourable Anne Aveling.

It was almost obliterated by a long, broad smudge of paint. The smudge, crimson lake, began at Anne’s right ear, and descended diagonally across the dark-green riding habit.

“Something could move you!” Nadine’s words screamed through his ears, as though repeated by an invisible loud speaker turned full on. He found himself trembling. He fought against vulnerable emotion.

“Somebody’s gone mad here,” he thought. “All in a moment.”

He recalled the moment when he had seen red in the passage outside his bedroom. Yes… it could happen.

He turned away from the canvas, to control himself. He stared round the studio. On another easel was a large painting of a stag, done by Anne herself. It was not good, saving for the terrible, dull fear she had somehow planted in the stag’s eyes—a fear she should not have known about, since she hunted. He concentrated on the stag’s eyes for a few seconds, then turned his own eyes back to the ruined canvas. The fit of trembling had passed.

“Queer game,” he said aloud. “I wonder whether I shall ever have the pleasure of painting the person who did this?”

He glanced at his watch. Five minutes to seven. He left the studio abruptly, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. A spent cigarette-end loomed dully from the ground. He picked it up.

Some one was moving in the path. He dashed forward and grabbed. Sheer instinct had caused the sudden action. A hand banged him in the chest, and he staggered. When he had recovered, he was alone.

As he came to the end of the flagged path a figure met him off the edge of the lawn.

“Good-evening,” said the figure.

Pratt regarded the face that rose abruptly before his, and smiled.

“Good-evening, Mr. Chater,” he answered.

“That’s a good guess,” replied Chater. “We’ve not met.”

“No, that’s how I guessed,” responded Pratt. “Process of elimination. You came on the 5.56, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve not been here before?”

“No, my first visit. Rather a nice place, isn’t it? I’m just having a stroll round.”

“I’m afraid you won’t see much in this darkness.”

“Enough to get one’s bearings. Where does this lead? Is that building over there the stables?”

He was gazing along the flagged path.

“No, that’s a studio,” answered Pratt.

“Oh, yes, there’s an artist here, isn’t there?”

“Well—he calls himself an artist. Are you interested in art, by any chance?”

“Me? Not particularly. Who’s the fellow?”

“What fellow?”

“The artist?”

“Leicester Pratt.”

“Oh, Leicester Pratt! He’s rather the craze just now, isn’t he?”

“Some people like his work.”

“And some don’t?”

“They all pay big prices for it.”

“Then I don’t suppose he worries! Is he painting anybody here?”

Pratt paused for a second before replying.

“I have just been looking at a picture he is painting of somebody here.”

“Good?”

“He thinks so.”

“Who’s it of?”

“Lord Aveling’s daughter.”

“Oh, not his wife.”

The remark was made carelessly, but Pratt realised that his face was being watched, and he took great pains that it should convey nothing as he answered dryly:

“I said his daughter.”

“So you did,” smiled Chater. “Rather an attractive girl, though I’ve only seen her for a moment. Isn’t she just going to be engaged or something?”

“Do I follow you?”

“Eh?”

“The ‘something?’”

Chater’s smile augmented to a laugh, and his teeth gleamed in the dusk.

“Don’t mean to insinuate anything,” he said. “It’s Earnshaw, isn’t it?” As Pratt did not respond, he added, “Hope I’m not asking too many questions; but when you’re a sort of stranger—well, it’s helpful to know things. Often saves you from making a faux pas. Curiosity’s not one of my natural vices.”

“That idea would never occur to me, Mr. Chater,” observed Pratt ironically.

The irony made no impression.

“I admit I would rather like to see that picture, though,” Chater went on. “Is one allowed in the studio?”

“I’m afraid it’s locked,” replied Pratt.

“Locked? Then how did you get in?” inquired Chater.

“I have the key,” said Pratt, “and I locked it.”

“That sounds as if you’re Leicester Pratt.”

“I am.”

“You might have warned me. Now I shall spend the rest of the evening trying to recall our conversation to see if I’ve put my foot in it! Or p’r’aps you’ll save me the trouble? Have I?”

There was something cheap, almost insulting, in Chater’s coolness, which appeared to have been deliberately acquired, whereas the sangfroid of Pratt was a natural inheritance. The artist answered:

“You have not even put your foot in my studio. Or—have you?”

“What, put my foot in your studio?” exclaimed Chater. “How could I have, if it’s locked?”

“It wasn’t locked ten minutes ago.”

Chater’s expression changed slightly. It was still cool, but a watchful quality entered into it.

“Ten minutes ago I was saying good-evening to a maid,” he said.

A clock struck seven as he spoke. It was a clock over the stables.

“I see,” murmured Pratt. “Then you have not been out here ten minutes?”

“I’d just come out when I met you.”

“Did you meet anybody else?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Pratt, but what’s all this about?”

Pratt shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing important,” he replied. “See you at dinner.”

Chater turned his head as Pratt began to resume his way.

“Do we like each other?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” answered Pratt.

That was also Chater’s conviction as, after watching the artist disappear into the house, he himself turned back to the flagged path and walked towards the studio. If Pratt had not locked the studio door, he would not have seen the thirteenth guest at dinner.

Bultin was fixing an over-large white tie round his collar when Pratt rejoined him. Bultin liked large things. His soft felt hat was of Italian dimensions, although it came from a shop in Piccadilly.

“Enjoy your walk?” asked Bultin, without turning his head.

“Immensely,” answered Pratt, throwing off his coat, “though not quite as much as Edyth Fermoy-Jones would have enjoyed it in my place. ‘Why?’ the famous journalist refused to inquire. Because, my dear Lionel, Edyth Fermoy-Jones would have made a most sensational discovery, and would have torn up the first chapter of that novel of hers.”

“The one thing I have never learned to do without an effort,” said Bultin, “is to tie a white tie.”

“And she would have started her story afresh, you vile pretender! Yes, Lionel, I made a mistake when I described her plot to you just now. It will certainly contain the marvellous necklace round the neck of the attractive widow—a double rope of pearls worth—you like to quote figures, don’t you?—worth every penny of ten thousand pounds. You can make it twenty, if you like. Edyth Fermoy-Jones will make it fifty. But it won’t be stolen! Not, at least, for several chapters—till her editor has put the wind up her by shouting for more drama. No, a picture will be mutilated, instead. Less hackneyed idea, isn’t it? With first-rate possibilities for development, and an unimpeachable setting. Studio—model’s screen—artist’s lay figure—strange pictures on large easels—somebody hiding behind one of ’em—” He paused, arrested by a thought, then continued: “The mutilated picture in Miss Fermoy-Jones’s studio will be of a baron’s daughter. Value—no, price—one thousand guineas. Smeared over with paint, my boy. Smeared over with paint.”

“I thought that was the fate of all pictures,” remarked Bultin.

“The fate is bearable when there is only one artist,” answered Pratt. “But here there are two. The first artist’s smear has been smeared out by the second. I wonder how Epstein feels when people daub his statues? Scornful? Callous? Cynical? Or just bloody angry? I must ask him.”

Bultin’s nose for a true scent was as accurate as any hound’s. He paused for a moment in his struggle with his tie.

“Like that?” he said quietly.

“I don’t suppose, Lionel,” replied Pratt, kicking off his shoes, “there’s a soul alive without his vulnerable spot. An elephant’s got one behind his ear. I’ve got one behind my paint. Where’s yours?”

“You’ll have to paint me, as you paint other people, to find out,” answered Bultin, almost humanly.

“Perhaps I’ve found out already, without using my brushes.”

“Or perhaps I haven’t got one? Or perhaps the only individual who will ever find it out is the unpleasant old man with the scythe.”

“Death,” mused Pratt. “I’m not thinking of Death. That’s miles away....”

He stopped abruptly. Bultin loosened his tie, pulled it off, and began again.

“Are you sure, Leicester?” he inquired. “Are you quite sure—with your mutilated picture only a few yards away? There may be murder committed in Miss Fermoy-Jones’s novel yet—eh? By an artist?”

“I don’t kill,” said Pratt. Then he recalled the moment when he had seen red in the passage, and again when he had found himself trembling in the studio. He held up his hand. It was perfectly steady. He smiled. “No; I don’t kill. The murder may appear in Miss Fermoy-Jones’s shocker, but it won’t be reported in Monday’s newspaper. I’m afraid I won’t be giving you that paragraph. Just the same, Lionel,” he went on contemplatively, “there’s a lot beneath a quiet surface. The person who spoilt my picture may have been a quiet sort of a person. He may have been more surprised than any one at his action. A sudden moment of passion, eh? A sudden dizziness? It can happen.” He raised a slender finger. “Listen! Dead quiet, isn’t it? Not a sound! But if we could really hear, Lionel? Storms brewing in the silence? There’s silence in the passage outside this door here—silence in the hall below—silence on the lawn, silence in the studio—silence in a room where an invalid lies. A brooding silence, my boy—that’s not going to last!”

Bultin looked at Pratt, whose hand now dropped into a pocket to emerge with two small objects. One was a cigarette-end. State Express 555. The other was the key to the studio.

“Damn this tie,” said Bultin, and chose another.