Part 10 (1/2)

”How do you know?” I said fiercely. ”There's no proof. It's all theory so far. The calculations may be wrong.”

The man stared at me wonderingly. He saw me as a man fighting with some strange anxiety, with his forehead damp and s.h.i.+ning, his spectacles aslant on his nose and the heavy folds of his frock-coat shaken with a sudden impetuosity.

”How do you know?” I repeated, shaking my fist in the air. ”How do you know he isn't going to die?”

Sarakoff fingered his beard in silence, but his eyes shone with a quiet certainty. To the man from Birmingham it must have seemed suddenly strange that we should behave in this manner. His mind was sharpened to perceive things. Yesterday, had he been present at a similar scene, he would probably have sat dully, finding nothing curious in my pa.s.sionate att.i.tude and the calm, almost insolent, inscrutability of Sarakoff. He forgot his turquoise finger nails, and stared, open-mouthed.

”Ain't going to die?” he said. ”What do yer mean?”

”Simply that you aren't going to die,” was Sarakoff's soft answer.

”Yer mean, not die of the Blue Disease?”

”Not die at all.”

”Garn! Not die at all.” He looked at me. ”What's he mean, Mister?” He looked almost surprised with himself at catching the drift of Sarakoff's sentence. Inwardly he felt something insistent and imperious, forcing him to grasp words, to blunder into new meanings. Some new force was alive in him and he was carried on by it in spite of himself. He felt strung up to a pitch of nervous irritation. He got up from his chair and came forward, pointing at Sarakoff. ”What's this?” he demanded. ”Why don't you speak out? Yer cawn't hide it from me.” He stopped. His brain, working at unwonted speed, had discovered a fresh suspicion. ”Look 'ere, you two know something about this blue disease.” He came a step closer, and looking cunningly in my face, said: ”That's why you offered me a five-pound note, ain't it?”

I avoided the scrutiny of the sparrow-egg blue orbs close before me.

”I offered you the money because I wished to examine you,” I said shortly. ”Here it is. You can go now.”

I took a note from a safe in the corner of the room, and held it out.

The man took it, felt its crispness and stowed it away in a secure pocket. His thoughts were temporarily diverted by the prospect of an immediate future with plenty of money, and he picked up his hat and went to the door. But his turquoise finger nails lying against the rusty black of the hat brought him back to his suspicions. He paused and turned.

”My name's Wain,” he said. ”I'm telling you, in case you might 'ear of me again. 'Erbert Wain. I know what yours is, remember, because I seed it on the door.” He twisted his hat round several times in his hands and drew his brows together, puzzled at the speed of his ideas. Then he remembered the card that Symington-Tearle had given him.

He pulled it out and examined it. ”I'm going across to see this gent,”

he announced. ”It's convenient, 'im living so close. Perhaps he'll 'ave a word to say about this 'ere disease. Fair spread over Birmingham, so they say. It would be nasty if any bloke was responsible for it. Good day to yer.” He opened the door slowly, and glanced back at us standing in the middle of the room watching him. ”Look 'ere,” he said swiftly, ”what did 'e mean, saying I was never going to die and----” The light from the window was against his eyes, and he could not see the features of Sarakoff's face, but there was something in the outline of his body that checked him. ”Guv'ner, it ain't true.” The words came hoa.r.s.ely from his lips. ”I ain't never not going to die.”

Sarakoff spoke.

”You are never going to die, Mr. Herbert Wain ... you understand?...

_Never_ going to die, unless you get killed in an accident--or starve.”

I jerked up my hand to stop my friend.

Wain stared incredulously. Then he burst into a roar of laughter and smacked his thigh.

”Gor lumme!” he exclaimed, ”if that ain't rich. Never going to die! Live for ever! Strike me, if that ain't a notion!” The tears ran down his cheeks and he paused to wipe them away. ”If I was to believe what you say,” he went on, ”it would fair drive me crazy. Live for ever--s'elp me, if that wouldn't be just 'ell. Good-day to yer, gents. I'm obliged to yer.”

He went out into the sunlit street still roaring with laughter, a thin, ragged, tattered figure, with the shadow of immortality upon him.

CHAPTER X

THE ILLNESS OF MR. ANNOT

The departure of Mr. Herbert Wain was a relief. I turned to Sarakoff at once and spoke with some heat.

”You were more than imprudent to give that fellow hints that we knew more about the Blue Disease than anybody else,” I exclaimed. ”This may be the beginning of incalculable trouble.”