“What have I done?” asked Eustace.  “Why does it come after me?  I’m no worse than other men.  I’m no worse than you, Saunders; you know I’m not.  It was you who were at the bottom of that dirty business in San Diego, and that was fifteen years ago.”

“It’s not that, of course,” said Saunders.  “We are in the twentieth century, and even the parsons have dropped the idea of your old sins finding you out.  Before you caught the hand in the library it was filled with pure malevolence—­to you and all mankind.  After you spiked it through with that nail it naturally forgot about other people, and concentrated its attention on you.  It was shut up in the safe, you know, for nearly six months.  That gives plenty of time for thinking of revenge.”

Eustace Borlsover would not leave his room, but he thought that there might be something in Saunders’s suggestion to leave Brighton without notice.  He began rapidly to regain his strength.

“We’ll go on the first of September,” he said.

* * * * *

The evening of August 31st was oppressively warm.  Though at midday the windows had been wide open, they had been shut an hour or so before dusk.  Mrs. Prince had long since ceased to wonder at the strange habits of the gentlemen on the first floor.  Soon after their arrival she had been told to take down the heavy window curtains in the two bedrooms, and day by day the rooms had seemed to grow more bare.  Nothing was left lying about.

“Mr. Borlsover doesn’t like to have any place where dirt can collect,” Saunders had said as an excuse.  “He likes to see into all the corners of the room.”

“Couldn’t I open the window just a little?” he said to Eustace that evening.  “We’re simply roasting in here, you know.”

“No, leave well alone.  We’re not a couple of boarding-school misses fresh from a course of hygiene lectures.  Get the chessboard out.”

They sat down and played.  At ten o’clock Mrs. Prince came to the door with a note.  “I am sorry I didn’t bring it before,” she said, “but it was left in the letter-box.”

“Open it, Saunders, and see if it wants answering.”

It was very brief.  There was neither address nor signature.

“Will eleven o’clock to-night be suitable for our last appointment?”

“Who is it from?” asked Borlsover.

“It was meant for me,” said Saunders.  “There’s no answer, Mrs. Prince,” and he put the paper into his pocket.  “A dunning letter from a tailor; I suppose he must have got wind of our leaving.”

It was a clever lie, and Eustace asked no more questions.  They went on with their game.

On the landing outside Saunders could hear the grandfather’s clock whispering the seconds, blurting out the quarter-hours.

“Check!” said Eustace.  The clock struck eleven.  At the same time there was a gentle knocking on the door; it seemed to come from the bottom panel.