“I’d thought her looking timid.  She was looking at me now decidedly as if she were frightened of me.  ’No, no, Mr. Sabre’s not gone away.  He’s here.  Are you a friend of his?’

“I smiled at her.  ‘Well, I used to be,’ I said.  She didn’t smile.  What the dickens was up?  ’I used to be.  I always thought I was.  My name’s Hapgood.’

“‘Perhaps you’d better come in.’

“You know, it was perfectly extraordinary.  Her voice was as sad as her face.  I stepped in.  What on earth was I going to hear?  Sabre dying?  Wife dying?  Air-raid bomb fallen on the house and everybody dead?  ’Pon my soul, I began to feel creepy.  Scalp began to prick.  Then suddenly there was old Sabre at the head of the stairs.  ‘What is it, Effie?’ Then he saw me.  ‘Hullo, Hapgood!’ His voice was devilish pleased.  Then he said again, rather in a thoughtful voice, ‘Hullo, Hapgood,’ and he began to come down, slowly, with his stick.

“Well, he wasn’t dead, anyway; that was something to go on with.  I took his hand and said, ’Hullo, Sabre.  How goes it, old man?  Able to do the stairs now, I see.  I was down to Tidborough and thought I’d come and look you up again.’

“‘Fine,’ he said, shaking my hand.  ‘Jolly nice of you.’  Then he said, ‘Did you go to the office for me, Hapgood?’

“‘Just looked in,’ I said offhandedly.  ’Saw a clerk who said you weren’t down to-day, so I came along up.’

“He was doing some thinking, I could see that.  He said, ’Jolly good of you.  I am glad.  You’ll stay a bit, of course.’  The girl had faded away.  He went a bit along the passage and called out, ’Effie, you can scratch up a bit of lunch for Mr. Hapgood?’

“I suppose she said Yes.  ‘Lunch’ll be on in about two minutes,’ he came back to me with.  ’You’re later than when you came up last time.  Come along in here.’

“Led me into the morning room and we sat down and pretended to talk.  Very poor pretence, I give you my word.  Both of us manifestly straining to do the brisk and hearty, and the two of us producing about as much semblance of chatty interchange as a couple of victims waiting their turn in a dentist’s parlour.  The door was open and I could hear some one moving about laying the lunch.  That was all I could hear (bar Sabre’s spasmodic jerks of speech) and I don’t mind telling you I was a deal more interested in what I could hear going on outside than in anything we could put up between us.  Or rather in what I couldn’t hear going on outside.  No voices, none of those sounds, none of that sort of feeling that tells you people are about the place.  No, there was some mystery knocking about the place somewhere, and it was on the other side of the door, and that was where my attention was.

“Presently I heard the girl’s voice outside, ‘Lunch is ready.’