Part 6 (1/2)

And Sir Jonathan threw up his fine old head and laughed.

”Surely I've got India on the brain to-night, and as surely I want a good long holiday,” he said, as he sat down at his desk and picked up his pen. ”And I must remember to tell the gardener to clip that tree to-morrow. How Jan will laugh when I tell him that I was absolutely scared by a branch rubbing against the window.”

For five long minutes he sat frowning down at the pen in his hand.

Three times he commenced to write, and three times he stopped; twice he lit a cigarette and let it go out, and deeper grew the lines between the brows and round the mouth, until he s.h.i.+vered and turned quickly in his chair.

”That felt just like a sea-fog creeping up behind; stupid to keep the window open even in spring,” he said as he picked up a log from a basket by his side and threw it deftly into the wide-open grate, leant sideways to separate two bra.s.s ornaments on a table which had jangled one against the other, and sighing turned restlessly in his chair.

”Confound those great market lorries,” he muttered, looking round the room with its cabinets and shelves filled with the strange and weird, beautiful and unsightly curios he had brought back from every corner of the globe. ”They shake the house enough to bring it down about one's ears.”

The moon was slowly s.h.i.+fting as he leant back and settled himself comfortably in the high leather chair; the room was getting darker and there had fallen that intense almost palpable stillness which envelops most great cities after midnight, and against which his thoughts stood out like steel points upon a velvet curtain.

Clear and sharp as steel they shot indeed, this way and that through his mind; but hold them he could not, a.n.a.lyse or arrange them he could not, neither would his hand move towards the pen a few inches from the finger-tips.

”G.o.d!” he suddenly thundered, striking the arm of the chair with his fist. ”The answer is just there on the tip of my tongue--before my very eyes--within reach of my fingers, and yet I cannot grasp it--ah!

why! could it _possibly_ be----”

He rose as he spoke and crossed to a ma.s.sive bookcase packed to overflowing with books, switched on a light hanging near, opened the gla.s.s door and ran his hand lovingly over the leather volumes.

Then he very gently laid his hand on his left shoulder and turned with a smile lighting up his face, which abruptly went blank in astonishment.

”Upon my word,” he said, ”whatever made me think that Jan had come in and had put his hand upon my shoulder. Old fool that I am to-night.”

For a moment he stood looking into the shadowy corners, then turned again to the case, ran his finger along a row of books until he came to one with the t.i.tle ”India,” pulled it out and opened it under the light.

The book opened quite suddenly and wide, and his eyes fell on the first few lines. Without a movement he stood staring down at the printed words, reading to the end of the page, then he violently closed the book, thrust it back into the case, and closing the doors, pressed against them with both hands as though in an endeavour to keep back something which was trying to get out.

”No! my G.o.d! No! never! not that--not _that_ as an end--not for _that_ baby--and yet----”

He moved across to the desk, sank heavily like a very old man into his chair and covered his face with his hands.

Then very slowly and as though against his will he uncovered his face, and leaning forward stared across to the bookcase whilst he groped for the pen beside the book.

”And the cure,” he muttered, ”the remedy--I _must_ find it--I--I----”

His heart was thudding heavily with the merest suspicion of a complete pause between the beats, his hand trembled almost imperceptibly, whilst his eyes glanced questioningly this way and that.

”I don't understand, I don't understand!” he whispered, just like a frightened child as he plucked at his collar and moved his head quickly from side to side as though trying to loosen some stranglehold about his neck.

He turned and stared unseeingly into the fire with the look of perplexity deepening on his face, then slowly he raised his eyes, first to the delicate tracings of the Adams mantelpiece, then to the varied ornaments on the shelf.

”Tis.h.!.+” he said impatiently as they roved from the central figure of benign undisturbed Buddha, to a snake of bra.s.s holding a candle, and on to a blatant and grotesque dragon from China.

For a second he stared uncomprehendingly, then raised his head.

Inch by inch his eyes moved until they reached the top shelf of the overmantel and stopped. A s.h.i.+ver shook him as he lay back in his chair, his widespread fingers clutched at the chair arms, a tiny bead of perspiration showed upon the broad forehead.

Staring down at him, s.h.i.+ning evilly in the moonlight, was a glistening, unwavering eye.