‘As landlord,’ said Hugo, ‘I object.  And I shall demand entrance.’

‘On what ground?’

’Under the clause which in all tenancy agreements gives the landlord the right to enter at reasonable times in order to inspect the condition of the premises,’ Hugo answered defiantly to the lawyer.

’I had considered that.  But I shall dispute the right.  You may bring an action.  What then?  No court will give you leave to force an entrance.  An Englishman’s furnished flat, just as much as his house, is his castle.  I could certainly keep you out for a year.’

‘And may I ask why you are so anxious to keep me out, Mr. Polycarp?’

’I am anxious merely to fulfil my duties.  May I ask why you are so anxious to get in?  Why do you want to thwart the wishes of a dead man?’

’I could not permit that mystery to remain for a whole year in the very middle of my block of flats.’

’What mystery?’ Polycarp suavely inquired.

During this brief conversation all Hugo’s suspicions had hurriedly returned, and he had examined them anew and more favourably.  Polycarp?  Was it not curious that Polycarp should be acting for both Ravengar and Tudor?...  Darcy?  Were there not very strange features in the behaviour of this English doctor who preferred to practise in Paris?...  And the haemorrhage?  And, lastly, this monstrous, unaccountable, inexplicable shutting-up of the flat?

He felt already that those empty rooms, dark, silent, sealed, guarding in some recess he knew not what dreadful secret, were getting on his nerves.  And was he to suffer for a year?

‘Come, Mr. Hugo,’ said Polycarp; ‘I may count on your goodwill?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hugo replied—­’I don’t know.’

PART II THE PHONOGRAPH

CHAPTER XI

SALE

Strange sights are to be seen in London.

At five minutes to nine a.m. on the first day of the year seven vast crowds stood before the seven principal entrances to Hugo’s; seven crowds of immortal souls enclosed in the bodies of women.  They meant to begin the year well by an honest attempt to get something for nothing.  It was a cold, dank, raw, and formidable morning; Hugo’s tessellated pavements were covered with moisture, and, moreover, day had not yet conquered night.  But the seven crowds, growing larger each moment, recked nothing of these inconveniences.  They waited stolidly, silently, in a suppressed and dangerous fever, as besiegers await the signal for an attack.  Between the various entrances, on the three facades of the establishment, ran the long lines of windows dressed with all the materials for happiness, and behind these ramparts of materials could be glimpsed Hugo’s assistants moving about in anxious expectation under the electric lights, which burned red in the foggy gloom.  Over