“I am not sure that this is quite my best work,” he said timidly—­“a little hazardous perhaps.”

“Would you say that?” asked Thresk.

“Yes, indeed I should.”  Mr. Hazlewood had the air of one making a considerable concession.  “The very title is inaccurate. The Prison Walls must Cast no Shadow.”  He repeated the sentence with a certain unction.  “The rhythm is perhaps not amiss but the metaphor is untrue.  My son pointed it out to me.  As he says, all walls cast shadows.”

“Yes,” said Thresk.  “The trouble is to know where and on whom the shadow is going to fall.”

Mr. Hazlewood was startled by the careless words.  He came to earth heavily.  All was not as yet quite ready for the little trick which had been devised.  The Pettifers had not arrived.

“Perhaps you would like to see your room, Mr. Thresk,” he said.  “Your bag has been taken up, no doubt.  We will look at my miniatures after tea.”

“I shall be delighted,” said Thresk as he followed Hazlewood to the door.  “But you must not expect too much knowledge from me.”

“Oh!” cried his host with a laugh.  “Pettifer tells me that you are a great authority.”

“Then Pettifer’s wrong,” said Thresk and so stopped.  “Pettifer?  Pettifer?  Isn’t he a solicitor?”

“Yes, he told me that he knew you.  He married my sister.  They are both coming to tea.”

With that he led Thresk to his room and left him there.  The room was over the porch of the house and looked down the short level drive to the iron gates and the lane.  It was all familiar ground to Thresk or rather to that other man with whom Thresk’s only connection was a dull throb at his heart, a queer uneasiness and discomfort.  He leaned out of the window.  He could hear the river singing between the grass banks at the bottom of the garden behind him.  He would hear it through the night.  Then came a knocking upon his door, and he did not notice it at once.  It was repeated and he turned and said: 

“Come in!”

Hubbard advanced with a note upon a salver.

“Mrs. Ballantyne asked me to give you this at once, sir.”

Thresk stared at the butler.  The name was so apposite to his thoughts that he could not believe it had been uttered.  But the salver was held out to him and the handwriting upon the envelope removed his doubts.  He took it up, said “Thank you” in an absent voice and waited until the door was closed again and he was alone.  The last time he had seen that writing was eighteen months ago.  A little note of thanks, blurred with tears and scribbled hastily and marked with no address, had been handed to him in Bombay.  Stella Ballantyne had disappeared then.  She was here now at Little Beeding and his relationship with the young struggling barrister of ten years back suddenly became actual and near.  He tore open the envelope and read.

“Be prepared to see me.  Be prepared to hear news of me.  I will have a talk with you afterwards if you like.  This is a trap.  Be kind.”