Читать книгу The Inquisitor - Hugh Walpole - Страница 7

Michael Furze, when he had taken some strides into the thin evening mist, remembered that he had not asked Klitch where brother Stephen's house was. But that did not matter. He had the name of the house—The Scarf—and there must be plenty who knew it.

He was greatly pleased with himself, as, in fact, he very often was. To call him conceited would be to call him mature: he had the vanity of a child, of an animal, of anything not old enough to make mature comparisons. His own idea of himself was that he was a wonderful fellow for bringing things off. His boastfulness—he was a tremendous boaster—did not come from the nervousness of self-suspicion nor from the blindness of a fanatic. He was like a boy who thinks his school the whole world. He forgot instantly his mistakes, follies, ignorances, exposures. A varied and adventurous life had taught him nothing. In the same way he lied continually, because as soon as he said a thing it became at once for him a truth; because of his physical size, his voice, his laugh and something attractively naïf in his personality people laughed at him indulgently. He was not mean nor revengeful; desire for revenge might be stirred in him and it would have then all the determined purpose of a limited nature; as yet, in his life he had been treated on the whole well.

And now he was thinking that he was a wonder. Here he was, arriving in a town altogether unknown to him, without a penny in his pocket, and behold, within an hour, he had fifty quid! Had fifty quid as he wanted it too!

Oh yes, Mike, my son, you're a marvel. You go from place to place, all the world over, and land on your feet and get what you want, have money and food and friends for the asking! What is there about you, Mike? Hasn't God got some special purpose for you? Didn't He make you as you are that you should do some wonderful thing? Then, when the clock strikes, at the exact moment, there you will be, the world, astonished, at your feet, all glory to God! Weren't you a marvel in the War, Mike; never once hit, never ill save for that bit of dysentery in Palestine; and weren't you a marvel in America and in Constantinople and in China? Aren't you a marvel with women too? Don't they all fall for you and, when you're sick of them, don't you just leave them as a real man should?

And now you've come to the right place, Mike, my son—a cathedral town. Haven't you always wanted a cathedral? Haven't you in Venice and Toledo and Paris and Cologne stared open-mouthed at those wonderful places just as though you had some special right to them, some personal relation with them? Haven't you said, since you were a baby: 'There's nothing so wonderful, nothing I, Mike Furze, want so much'? And hasn't it been a kind of wonderful coincidence that your stinking, parsimonious, bread-scraping brother should choose, fifteen years ago, of all places in the world a cathedral town to live in? Choose it and stay in it! There's a kind of miracle for you!

He had reached the Arden Gate. He turned for a last look, and there it was, its black mass raised above the mist against the stars. Clutching his brown bag, his legs apart, he stared at it, wondering whether, in full light of day, he would be disappointed in it. This wonder came freshly to him on every fresh occasion, for after all, what could this passion of his for cathedrals be but an illusion? One day—he expected it to come at any time—he would say to himself: 'Well, now—think of that—whatever did I see in the thing?' and he knew that, when that moment came, he would suffer some loss, the kind of loss that he would suffer were he never to see his black marble crucifix again. This sense of what he would lose led him to yet further appreciation: 'No, indeed—I am no ordinary man. The ordinary man cares nothing for cathedrals.'

Through Arden Gate he walked and started down the High Street. Now he must consider the Town, about which of course he knew nothing at all.

He could not, as a visitor returning after several years might do—Shade, thin bony Shade of Miss Midgeley, are you there?—wonder at the many improvements and possibly lament them—at the up-to-date splendours of the St. Leath Hotel; at the fine sprouting of red-brick villas up the hill above Orange Street; at the renovation of 'The Bull' with its bathrooms and handsome garage; at the parking-place off the Market; at the reclamation and renovation of Pennicent Street, that once abominable heart of Seatown, now Riverside Street; at the excellent and justly famous eighteen-hole golf course carved from part of the St. Leath domain—(the St. Leaths, poor things, no longer wealthy as once they were)—the two splendid cinemas, 'The Arden' and 'The Grand,' forgetting the little cheap one, 'The Majestic' (vulgarly known as 'The Dog'), down in Riverside Street.

Yes, so modern are you, might that sparse and bony Shade exclaim, that you are contemplating (you, James Aldridge, Mayor, and you, Humphrey Carris, solicitor, and you, Fred Hattaway, architect, and you, Dick Bellamy, universal provider) a flying-field, on the other side of the river towards Pybus.

So far in the one direction: and in the other might that Shade—universally present, for whom time has no meaning—marvel also that so little is changed, that wildness still runs in Riverside Street (what of 'The Dog and Pilchard'? Is Hogg's stout shadow not hovering there yet?), the Market-place has not lost its scented country air, nor 'The Bull' its dark and tallow-candled passages, nor Canon's Yard its mysteries, nor Norman Row the dignities of its tempestuous Abbot. . . .

And the Cathedral? Here the Shade pauses, waits, and enters to find a great company in attendance. . . .

Michael Furze asked no questions. He passed down the High Street through the lighted town. Everything was alive and bustling. Motors pushed and hooted through the narrow street; the St. Leath motor-bus, having met the last train of the day, jigged its way up the hill; farmers (for it had been market day) stood solidly gossiping, moving contemptuously at the last possible instant from the path of intolerable cars; opposite Bennett's was the lighted hall-way of W. H. Smith's (and oh! the rivalry and hatred that this opposition had created) and, two doors below it, the brilliant flaunting electric-lit windows of Bellamy's main store! Here surely was promise of life and adventure for Michael Furze. Furze with his brown bag and his fifty quid!

He stopped.

'Would you mind telling me,' he asked the policeman at the corner, 'where The Scarf is? It's the name of a house. I don't know the street. Belongs to a Mr. Stephen Furze.'

The policeman directed him.

He turned to the right and down, finding himself then in an unexpected quiet, passing some railings that guarded a drop of sheer black-fronted rock. He stayed there a moment and looked downwards, to the life and lights of Seatown. He knew nothing of Seatown as yet nor of the spirit that informed it, but he had the sharp sniffing apprehensions of a child or a puppy and he realized that there was, down there, some world very different from the High Street just as the High Street was different again from the Cathedral. So small a place and three distinct worlds in it—or were they distinct? These speculations, however, were not for him, whose whole instinct was towards self-preservation and self-glory. Nevertheless he was apprehensive. The mist came up from the river and with the mist a sea-tang, a breath of the unknown. He translated this, as he moved forward, into a new nervousness as to how his brother would receive him. He was not afraid of his brother. Oh no, not he! They had never cared for one another—but who could care for Stephen? Michael had left the home in Hull—their father had been a shipping merchant—at a very early age, apprentice to the Merchant Service, and after that it was only at odd moments that they had met. Stephen had moved to London, had been some sort of broker in the City. Twenty years ago Michael had spent a week-end with them at Tulse Hill—on his own invitation, needless to say. And what a week-end! Poor Mike had emerged on the Monday a starved man: every mouthful had been grudged him. Stephen's meanness had become a mania—yes, the intensity, the preoccupation, the watching waiting lust of madness.

Wasn't it crazy, then, after such an experience, to return? The notion had come to him on the ocean, travelling from America without a penny in his pocket. He had been idly turning over the pages of some magazine when he had been confronted with a magnificent photograph of Chartres. There it was just as he had last seen it, glorious, triumphant, flattering him with the appeal that it made to him, so that his throat contracted, his fingers curved. How many others on the boat with him would feel that delighted pleasure? He remembered then that Stephen, his wife and child, had gone, fifteen years ago, to live in Polchester in the South of England. He remembered even the name of the house—The Scarf, Polchester, Glebeshire, England.

It hit him then like a blow in the stomach. Stephen must be rich by now; twenty years of miserly saving. There would be results of that. Stephen was ten years older than himself and, even twenty years ago, had been a lanky pale-faced skeleton. And there was the Cathedral, one of the most famous in England. In that moment of time, staring at the pictures of Chartres, his mind was made up, his destiny settled.

Now the child in him, part roguish, part malicious, part friendly, part fearful, anticipated the meeting.

He came to a house, isolated, not far from the church of which the policeman had told him. He could see it very dimly, but he knew it to be the one, for on either side of the gate were stone pillars surmounted by misshapen stone animals. What they represented he could not, in that light, tell. He pushed back the gate that screamed on its hinges; his feet crunched the gravelled path. Before the door he hesitated. Not a sound came to him save the rustling at his feet of a few autumn leaves taunted by the evening wind. Then, most unexpectedly, across the whole extent of the town, the Cathedral struck the hour. He waited until the full total of the five strokes that followed the chime had ended. Then, as though that had decided him, he pushed, with all his force, the bell. He heard it peal as though through an empty house. He waited and with every second of pause his impatience grew. It was as though he felt a personal insult, and he pushed the bell again; he might have been muttering: 'You'll keep me out, will you? Well, I'll show you.'

He heard someone approaching; light spread behind the fan. The door opened and an old woman stood there, peering out into the dusk. He knew that she was Sarah Furze.

'Who's there?' she said.

He stepped forward, but she did not move.

'Don't you know me?' he cried, and his voice boomed into the house. 'I'm brother Mike!'

She stared at him, pushing her head forward. He could see that she was very much older than when he had seen her last. Her face was dry, faintly yellow, seamed with wrinkles, and her eyes dull and strained with the defeated gaze of someone very short-sighted. Then he realized with a shock that she was more than short-sighted; she was blind.

The voice must have told her who it was, for she stood aside. He passed by her into the house.

'Michael!' she said, her voice quavering with astonishment. 'I can't see. . . .'

'It's myself sure enough,' he shouted at her as though the knowledge of her blindness made him think that she must also be deaf. 'Turned up again like a bad penny.' Then he caught her by the shoulder, pulled her towards him and kissed her. Her cheek was dry and powdery. She was a little old woman wearing a faded black silk dress, her grey hair plaited in old fashion but very neatly above her wrinkled forehead.

'There's no one in the house,' she said.

He stood there, staring about him. He realized a number of things—one that the place was lit by gas, another that the hall, the stairs were dry and clean like an old yellow bone. Yes, dryness and cleanliness and a faint, a very faint odour in the air of mortality, as though far away in the heights or depths of the house someone were lying awaiting burial. It was not altogether unpleasant, this very faint odour; it was chemical, perhaps, rather than corporeal. Yes, the odour of a chemist's shop, many degrees rarefied. He was sharp and observant in any new place because he had, in his life, travelled so far and encountered so many adventures. He noticed that once the wallpaper of the hall and staircase had been a bright yellow with crimson roses. Now the walls were dim as things are that have been kept underground away from the light. The only furniture of the hall was an umbrella-stand, very ancient, leaning a little away from the door as though it feared the draught; above this a looking-glass and at the side of the glass some coats hanging like corpses. Only one picture hung on the wall, a photogravure of Father Christmas arriving in a family of excited, clapping, laughing children and pouring from his sack a multitude of gifts. One other thing he noticed, and that was that at the head of the stair, was a high window, its glass of yellow-and-green lozenges.

Plenty of time for looking at things, he thought, for there he was and there Sarah was, motionless, staring in front of her with her sightless eyes. There was no sound at all save the faint hiss of the gas-jet in the globe above his head. He must be doing something about this. The silence was twisting his nerves.

'Stephen out, is he?' he cried heartily. (His voice seemed to drive up to the green-and-yellow window and back again.) 'When will he be back?'

'Soon—very soon—any minute now.'

'I've come to stay the night.'

'You must talk to Stephen,' she said, rubbing her lip with her fingers.

'Aren't you glad to welcome me, old girl, after all this time?' he said, feeling that something must be done.

'Yes, yes.' Her lips moved in a smile. 'Where have you been all this while, Michael?'

'The world over, old girl. Places you've never heard of, I'll be bound. And now I've come home.'

'Yes. Stephen will be surprised.'

'I bet he will.' He wondered whether she were still uncertain of his identity. She stood there with indecision. And yet she could not be uncertain. Once you'd met him you'd recognize Michael Furze again anywhere, in the very confines of the deepest darkness.

However, he could not stand there for ever, so he said:

'What about sitting down, old girl, and waiting a bit? I've been travelling all day.'

'Yes, of course.'

'I only left the boat this morning.'

'The boat?'

'Yes. I've come from America. Come straight here to see how you were all getting along.'

It seemed that she had made up her mind, for again with that smile which came and went as though she herself had nothing to do with it, she moved down the hall. She moved with the concentrated certainty of the blind and, coming to a door on the left, opened it.

'You can make yourself comfortable here perhaps. Stephen won't be long, I'm sure.'

He moved in, taking his brown bag with him. He was at once struck with the icy coldness of the room.

'My God!' he thought. 'I shan't be able to stay here a week.'

He saw things that he recognized. The old clock on the mantelpiece with the grumpy face, faint yellow marks of discoloration that gave it a pouting mouth and a twisted nose. It was not going; the hands pointed to quarter-past eleven. Two large china ornaments, country girls in wide-brimmed hats carrying baskets of flowers; two arm-chairs of horsehair; a white wool rug with black lines on it; a glass-fronted cabinet containing some very mediocre china, a Swiss cow-bell, a carved wooden box. All these things he remembered from his childhood. On that same rug Stephen had, in one of those dry, bitter tempers of his, rubbed his knuckles in his brother's eyes until he screamed again. His mother had slapped him for opening the cabinet without permission. The clock made a noise, when it was going, like an old man in a wheezing hurry. He had been all the world over and had returned to these same things. He could fancy that they recognized him and he half expected the old clock to start off again on its wheezy way to show him that it remembered him. But no—everything here was frozen into silence.

The gas was already lit. The room was bare in spirit and irreproachably clean.

Sarah had left him then, so he sat down on one of the horsehair chairs, his bag at his feet, and wondered what would come next.

He had not long to wonder, for the door opened without a sound and Stephen stood in the room.

'I believe he was in the house all the time,' Michael thought. But he went cordially to his brother, shook his hand with almost extravagant warmth and cried:

'What about this for a surprise, old boy? Delighted to see you.'

Stephen had not altered very greatly in twenty years. He was sparser, sparer; his body had a preserved look, as though he had been kept all this time in some kind of spirit. He was as tall as his brother, and his big white nose, projecting from his gaunt face, suggested a possibility, like Michael's, that it had a life of its own. It was a peering, active probing nose with its own knowledge, its own discoveries, its own conclusions. He had scanty grey hair, wisps of it brushed carefully over the white domed skull; pale shaggy eyebrows; eyes mild, sleepy; a mouth uncertain, rather tremulous.

In truth, had it not been for the nose and a curious lithe active movement of the long thin body, Stephen Furze might seem a gentle, sluggish, easy man, kindly of intention, non-interfering. He wore a black frock-coat of ancient cut, a high white collar, a black bow-tie. His garments were old but scrupulously brushed and neat. When he spoke all Michael's childhood and youth rushed back to him, for Stephen's voice had a soft, gentle ring about it that distinguished it from all others.

When he spoke he gave an impression of great politeness but of firmness too. There was nothing humble in his tone, and he had a way of suddenly protruding his eyes from under the heavy white lids so that they looked at you as a candle shines when the cover is lifted.

He gripped his brother's podgy hand and it was then that his body seemed to rise, hover and hang forward.

'A surprise! I should think so! We thought you the other end of the earth. We'd no idea where you were, and naturally, for you haven't written to us for years.'

Michael removed his hand and stepped back.

'I was always hoping to write and tell you that I was a millionaire,' he said. 'Thought my luck would change, but it didn't. Then in New York I was suddenly home-sick, felt I must see old England again. Before I died, you know.' He laughed.

'Died!' said Stephen. 'We are both far from that, I hope.'

'I only landed at Drymouth this morning and came straight here.'

'Well, sit down, sit down,' Stephen said, with a kind of warm gentleness. 'You'll stay and have something to eat with us? You can't refuse us that after all this time. Where are you stopping? "The Bull"?'

(This, thought Michael, with my bag staring at him!)

Michael squared his shoulders.

'I've come straight here,' he said. 'Can you give me a bed for the night?'

Stephen gave a quick apprehensive look round the room. He looked at the china ornaments, the cabinet, the table. It was as though he were guarding these things, protecting them from attack.

He stood by the fireside. He rubbed his nose.

'The fact is, Mike, we're not prepared for you. You should have given us warning. Poor Sarah—I don't know whether you noticed, but she's blind, poor thing—a terrible deprivation. And at the moment we have no maid——'

'Oh, I'm used to roughing it,' Michael broke in heartily. 'I'll sleep anywhere. If I stay for a bit I can look around——'

At the word 'stay' Stephen Furze straightened his body, then turned with a gentle twisting movement towards his brother.

'Stay? Well, as to that . . .'

This short conversation had brought his childhood back to Michael with an amazing vividness—for always, from the very beginning, the relations of the two brothers had been like this: they had never wasted time over preliminaries, had been at once in opposition, Michael with the blustering vehemence of his simple egotism, Stephen with the quiet resolve of a monomaniac.

Stephen always had his way. But now—and how curious that it should be so late postponed!—they were meeting for the first time in serious contact as grown men. Michael had the obstinacy of his naïf selfishness, Stephen the driving determination of his monomania. But, as yet, there was no battle, for Michael said:

'Look here, Stephen. I didn't mean to spring this upon you. Truly I didn't. I should have written, but I only made up my mind at the last moment. I'm like that, you know. A rolling stone. Never know where I'll be to-morrow. I just said to myself: "I must have somewhere quiet in England for a week or two after rolling round." Then of course I thought of you. And then the Cathedral—I like cathedrals, I don't know why. . . . I'll be no trouble to you. I only want a room and my breakfast. And of course I'll pay for my keep.'

Stephen said gently, 'Yes.'

'Only a room and breakfast. I'd want a fire in my room though. I feel the cold. . . .'

'Well,' said Stephen, 'what . . .?'

'Oh, about twenty-five bob a week, don't you think?' Then from his breast-pocket he took his roll of notes and laid them on the table in front of him. 'I'm in funds just now,' he said.

Stephen looked at the money. His hand moved quietly forward and he touched them. He murmured, 'There's a lot of money there.'

'Yes. Fifty pounds.'

'What are you going to do with it?'

'Oh, I've got to live on that until I've found something to do.'

He was uneasy, even frightened. The cold dead room seemed suddenly charged with life as a dark place is filled with light. He had the sense that his brother was drawing him in with his long arms and holding him in an embrace; some instinct made him take the money and put it back in his coat; as he did so he heard Stephen draw a long breath, like a sigh, something poignant and sad, a deep murmur of regret.

'Yes—I think we could manage that, Michael. We have no servant as I told you. Only Sarah and my daughter. But I think we could manage. It will be pleasant to have you after all this time.'

Michael stood up. He knew that they had achieved, in that moment, a relationship different from any that they had ever known—closer, more intimate. At the same time he realized that he had a kinship with Stephen that he had never suspected. He had always liked money, but only for the things that it bought him. Now he felt that there was something in money itself, the look of it, the feel of it. When Stephen had touched those notes he had wanted to cry out 'Now you leave that alone!' Stephen must have saved a lot, being the miser he was. There must be plenty hidden away in the house somewhere, he wouldn't wonder. . . .

With this thought he was also uncomfortable. Something said to him: 'Get out of this. Leave the house, the town. Don't come back. You're not such a bad fellow. You were safe five minutes ago. Be safe again.'

But of course he liked risks. . . . He liked risks. The two brothers stood facing one another. They had never been friends, and Stephen, being ten years older, had always had his way. But now. The ten years were gone, didn't count. Stephen was thin and worn. He didn't look well. He mightn't live so very long.

They moved upstairs.

The room that Stephen showed him had an old canopy bed with faded crimson hangings. On the wall was a text, with painted flowers: 'Thou God seest me.' The wash-stand, two chairs, a wardrobe were shabby and it was very cold.

'You won't forget about the fire,' Michael said.

'No, no. It may not burn very well at first. There hasn't been a fire for some time in here. I'll tell Elizabeth.'

Michael put the bag on the floor.

'Well. . . . That's good. I'm glad we've come to an arrangement. Look here, I'll pay you in advance for the first week.' He took out the money. 'Here's a pound. I'll give you the five shillings to-morrow when I get change.'

'Oh, I think I can change another pound.' Stephen took from his pocket a strong black purse with a steel clasp. He found ten shillings and then brought five shillings in silver from his trouser-pocket. Michael gave him another pound. Stephen put them in his purse; the clasp shut with a snap.

He stood rubbing his long hands together.

'We live extremely simply here. Very quiet.'

'That's what I want—quiet. I've been bumming around too long.' He bent down to his bag. Stephen watched every movement with such intentness that Michael longed for him to go. He wanted him out of the room.

'When's supper?'

'Half-past seven. There'll be a friend of ours, a Major Leggett.'

Oh, so he entertains, does he? Not too mean for that. What's this smell in the room? As though everything had been washed with some antiseptic soap. He took out his pyjamas, a small battered case with razors and brushes. Stephen's eyes never left him.

'I'll be down for supper.'

Then Stephen did an odd thing. Michael's broad stout body was bent over the bag. He felt his brother's hand rest on his back; then his fingers touched his neck where the short bristly hairs stood out.

'See you later then,' Stephen said softly and went away.

When his watch told him that it was half-past seven he went downstairs. In the sitting-room he found a man and a girl. The man he disliked instantly. This antipathy, which, in the end, was to affect a great many others beside themselves, was at once mutual. It was not odd that Leggett should dislike Michael, for it was his lot in life to be like an animal with his back to the wall, frightened and defiant at once, fawning and snarling, driven almost crazy by fear, distrust, malice, consciousness of his own brilliance and the injustices under which he suffered, judging others by himself so that he thought everyone capable of the mean, false, violent actions that belonged to his own character.

Physically he was a short stocky man who looked as though he had to do with horses. He was bald, of an unhealthy complexion, streaky, sometimes grey, sometimes bloody like uncooked beef. His mouth was both hard and conceited, his eyes small and suspicious, but, in spite of these disadvantages, there was something pathetic, alone, driven, about him.

Something spiritual in him warned him of inevitable defeat. He had played, it appeared, many different rôles, had once kept horses, had run a shop in London, had been a journalist, had married a Spanish lady who had died and left him a small fortune which he had soon spent. He was, it was understood, quite hopelessly in the hands of the Jews. He insisted that he should be called Major, although it was one of those ranks that the War had bestowed and that gentlemen had long discarded. He was a lively, bitter, spiteful talker with wide knowledge of men and affairs. He was an enemy of society; there are always one or two of these in every community. They are the jungle-animals of social life.

The girl was of course Elizabeth Furze, the daughter of Stephen and Sarah Furze.

Michael's first idea of her was that she was a plain, gaunt woman of no attraction whatever.

She was tall, thin, pale, with large grey eyes, prominent cheek-bones, a high pallid forehead. Her clothes were simple, old-fashioned in cut; her dark hair was dragged back from her forehead as though to accentuate her plainness. On this first evening she scarcely spoke. She had the self-eliminating air of a woman who, whether from shyness or a sequence of unhappy experiences, had decided long ago that she would offer fate no chance to hurt or shame her. She busied herself during the meal, handing things, taking plates away, and Michael observed that her movements were exceedingly quiet and even graceful. By the end of the evening he thought that she was not so plain, for her eyes were gentle and she had dignity.

The meal, as he had expected, was very meagre. There was some thin, tasteless soup, a piece of cold beef which Stephen carved, some potatoes in their jackets, a blancmange. 'It's a good thing,' Michael thought, 'that I shall be taking my meals elsewhere.' He himself talked much and loudly. He always did so when the atmosphere around him was silent and still. It was as though he was conscious of a void which he must fill. He boasted a lot of the things that he had done and the places that he had seen. He told many stories, booming away, thinking himself excellent company. When he talked like this something pleasantly simple appeared in his character. He trusted those around him because he was pleased with himself. When he was not attacked he was ready to be kind to everyone. Leggett said very little and, when the meal was ended, departed. A little later Michael went up to his room because there was nothing else to do. He found a fire lighted there and he sat in front of it, smoking his pipe.

He hadn't done so badly, he reflected. He had established himself in the house and so in the town. He had an idea that things would happen to him here. Perhaps he would find a rich wife. He would like to settle down and have a child or two.

There must be money in this house. He would become Stephen's confidant, his partner in his affairs perhaps. He had done the right thing; he had come to the right place. . . .

But in the night he had a dream which, unlike many dreams, he remembered in every detail on awaking. He was standing outside a cathedral: a magnificent façade, with a great rose window, carved stone figures, a glorious pattern of leaves and animals above the vast door. This cathedral stood at one end of a Market-place which was filled with people, talking, buying and selling, all busy and happy. As he watched, thinking how happy they were, the sun disappeared and the air was cold; the hearty chatter died down to a sound like the twitter of birds. Everyone gazed about, apprehensively. Then there was a great silence as though a door closed and shut them off from him. He himself felt a trembling expectant fear. Then, as the sky darkened, he looked about him and saw that the market was emptied. The booths were there, the piled fruit, the gaily coloured flowers, clothes hanging, brass pots and pans, china—not a human being anywhere. Absolute silence. Something told him that he ought to run for his life but he could not move.

The leather apron in front of the great door was pushed back and a little procession came out. First two men in black appeared carrying an empty stretcher. They were followed by a small group of persons, also in black and quite silent. Behind these, walking by himself, was a tall figure. Michael saw, with a shudder, that the head of this man was twisted on one side as though his neck were broken. The little procession advanced without a sound and it seemed that the softly shod feet made no contact with the pavement. The air now was bitterly cold and the silence held a kind of crowded emptiness as though, near him, hundreds and hundreds of people were watching and holding their breath.

Michael saw that the procession was making directly for himself, and he knew that if it reached him something appalling would follow. But he could not move. The stretcher, the followers, the man with the twisted neck advanced nearer and nearer. He was in an agony of terror. Then he heard arise on every side of him, like a wind getting up among trees, the whisper: 'The Inquisitor! The Inquisitor!'

With a great cry he awoke. He found that his pyjamas were damp with sweat. He lit a candle. There was still a faint colour in the ashen fire. The text looked down on him from the wall. He could hear someone snoring in a distant room.