’Murder.—­Percy, you come home with me,—­we’ve begun the night together, let’s end it together,—­and I’ll show you one of the finest notions for committing murder on a scale of real magnificence you ever dreamed of.  I should like to make use of it to show my feelings towards the supposititious Jones,—­he’d know what I felt for him when once he had been introduced to it.’

Percy went with me without a word.  He had not had much to drink, but it had been too much for him, and he was in a condition of maundering sentimentality.  I got him into a cab.  We dashed along Piccadilly.

He was silent, and sat looking in front of him with an air of vacuous sullenness which ill-became his cast of countenance.  I bade the cabman pass though Lowndes Square.  As we passed the Apostle’s I pulled him up.  I pointed out the place to Woodville.

’You see, Percy, that’s Lessingham’s house!—­that’s the house of the man who went away with Marjorie!’

‘Yes.’  Words came from him slowly, with a quite unnecessary stress on each.  ’Because he made a speech.—­I’d like to make a speech.—­ One day I’ll make a speech.’

’Because he made a speech,—­only that, and nothing more!  When a man speaks with an Apostle’s tongue, he can witch any woman in the land.—­Hallo, who’s that?—­Lessingham, is that you?’

I saw, or thought I saw, someone, or something, glide up the steps, and withdraw into the shadow of the doorway, as if unwilling to be seen.  When I hailed no one answered.  I called again.

‘Don’t be shy, my friend!’

I sprang out of the cab, ran across the pavement, and up the steps.  To my surprise, there was no one in the doorway.  It seemed incredible, but the place was empty.  I felt about me with my hands, as if I had been playing at blind man’s buff, and grasped at vacancy.  I came down a step or two.

’Ostensibly, there’s a vacuum,—­which nature abhors.—­I say, driver, didn’t you see someone come up the steps?’

‘I thought I did, sir,—­I could have sworn I did.’

‘So could I.—­It’s very odd.’

’Perhaps whoever it was has gone into the ‘ouse, sir.’

’I don’t see how.  We should have heard the door open, if we hadn’t seen it,—­and we should have seen it, it’s not so dark as that.—­ I’ve half a mind to ring the bell and inquire.’

’I shouldn’t do that if I was you, sir,—­you jump in, and I’ll get along.  This is Mr Lessingham’s,—­the great Mr Lessingham’s.’

I believe the cabman thought that I was drunk,—­and not respectable enough to claim acquaintance with the great Mr Lessingham.

’Wake up, Woodville!  Do you know I believe there’s some mystery about this place,—­I feel assured of it.  I feel as if I were in the presence of something uncanny,—­something which I can neither see, nor touch, nor hear.’

The cabman bent down from his seat, wheedling me.

‘Jump in, sir, and we’ll be getting along.’