Part 5

“The dilettante generally is.”

He drew out his watch.

“It’s close upon six. That chap ought to be here in a moment. Ah, there’s the bell! He’s come, no doubt.”

I was conscious of a certain discomfort, but scarcely knew its cause. Putting down my cup, I sat listening intently. Vernon, too, was listening. There was in his face an expression of strained attention. When the door opened gently, I started and looked hastily round.

“Lord Elyn!” said Vernon, getting up from his chair.

“Yes. Glad to find you at home. Hulloa, Luttrell! So you’re back at last! I haven’t seen you since the death of our poor friend Deeming.”

He shook my hand.

“That was a sad business. No one to take his place. No one like him, is there?”

He sat down and stretched his legs. I said something suitable, but with rather an uncertain voice. This unexpected arrival irritated me. And yet I thoroughly liked Lord Elyn. Vernon, too—I felt sure of it—was vexed by his arrival, but he was charmingly courteous, though, in the trifling conversation that followed, he showed traces of absent-mindedness. I knew he was listening for the sound of the bell. I knew he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the black spaniel. Six o’clock struck. The hand of a clock on the mantelpiece pointed to five minutes, then to ten minutes past six. Vernon began to betray a certain restlessness, a certain uneasiness. He twice changed his place in the room. Finally, he got up and remained standing.

“You are expecting someone?” said Lord Elyn, looking at him in some surprise.

“Yes. The fact is I’ve bought a dog—or named my price for one—and he ought to be brought here this evening.”

“Oh, I’m very fond of dogs. Kept them all my life. What sort of animal is this one?”

“A black⸺there’s the bell!”

He broke off, went swiftly over to the window and looked out. As he stood with his back turned to us I heard him utter a low exclamation.

“What did you say, Vernon?” I asked sharply.

I had not heard a word, but there was a thrilling sound in his voice which startled me. I got up also from my chair, possessed, gnawed by an inexplicable restlessness. Vernon turned round from the window. I saw the strange light in his eyes which I had sometimes noticed there when he talked about the animals and their relation with man.

“It’s the spaniel,” he said.

The words were simple enough, but the way in which he said them was not simple. It sounded cruel and triumphant.

Lord Elyn looked more surprised. He also got up.

“The arrival of this dog seems quite an event,” he said.

“Yes, quite an event,” repeated Vernon, looking towards the door. “It’s years since I’ve had a—pet.”

“If you please, Sir, there’s a person here with a dog.”

“I know. I expected him.”

“Indeed, Sir. Am I to admit him?”

“Certainly.”

“And the dog, Sir? Is he to come in too?”

“Of course. It’s the dog I want, not the man.”

Cragg remained in the doorway, looking at his master.

“What is it, Cragg?” asked Vernon. “What the deuce is the matter?”

“Well, Sir, I don’t see—I don’t, really—how we are ever going to get that dog into the house.”

“What do you mean?” said Vernon.

On his lips there was playing a slight smile.

“I never see an animal in such a state, Sir; I really never did. Hark, Sir!”

He lifted his hand. From below there came to us the sound of a long-drawn howling. Again I felt a cold chill go over me. Lord Elyn, too, was unpleasantly affected. He shook his shoulders, and said—

“Good God, what a dreadful noise! It sounds like something being tortured.”

Vernon was still smiling.

“Oh!” he said; “it’s only the natural nervousness of a dog brought to a strange house to change one master for another. Go along, Cragg. Show the man into my study. I’ll come down in a moment.”

Still looking very doubtful, Cragg disappeared, shutting the door. We three remained silent for a moment. Then Vernon said—

“I’m afraid you’re having a very fussy visit, Lord Elyn. Do sit down. I’ll go and pay the man, and be back in a minute.”

It was evident to me that he wanted—wanted ungovernably—to see the dog brought into the house. As he stopped speaking he was gone. He had almost darted out of the room.

“Dear me!” said Lord Elyn. “Dear me.”

He was a delicate, naturally nervous man, and highly sensitive. I could see plainly that he was upset, mystified by this affair of the arrival of the dog. He looked at me as if inquiring of me what it all meant.

“I wonder⸺” he began.

Then he broke off. After a pause he said—

“If the dog often howls as he did just now, Vernon won’t have much peace. I never in my life heard a more distressing noise, eh?”

“It was very distressing,” I assented.

Lord Elyn did not sit down, but went to and fro in the room like one disturbed.

“A most distressing noise!” he repeated, uncomfortably. “Most distressing. It really almost sounded like a human being in agony, didn’t it?”

“Yes, it did.”

“What sort of dog is it?” he asked presently, standing before me. “Do you know?”

“A black spaniel.”

“A spaniel? They’re the most sensitive breed of dog I know, intensely nervous and easily frightened, but very affectionate. They attach themselves in an extraordinary manner to those who are kind to them.”

“Hulloa!” he exclaimed. The door had reopened, and Vernon came in.

“Well,” he said, “it’s all right. I’ve got the dog for twelve pounds.”

“Where is it?” said Lord Elyn.

“Downstairs in my study. I’ve had to tie him up for the moment. Poor fellow, he’s nervous at getting into a strange house.”

“Let’s have a look at him,” said Lord Elyn.

I saw that Vernon hesitated, and thought he was going to refuse the request, natural though it was. But if he had intended to do so, he quickly changed his mind.

“Certainly,” he said. “Come downstairs. My study is in the part of the house that once belonged to Deeming.”

Lord Elyn went out of the room, I followed, and Vernon came last.

“To the right!” he said, when we reached the bottom of the staircase. “This corridor unites the two houses.”

We followed the direction indicated.

“Here’s the study,” said Vernon. “It’s a real workroom, dedicated to the cause of our dumb friends.”

“The animals?” said Lord Elyn. “It seems to me, after this evening, that dumb is scarcely the appropriate adjective to apply to them.”

Vernon laughed. He had his hand on the door of his study, and was still laughing as he opened it.

VIII

Lord Elyn went in first. I followed. The study was, as Vernon had said, a real workroom. There was little furniture in it, and what there was was plain and serviceable. Near the one window, which looked out at the back on to the backs of other houses, was a large writing-table covered with documents, pamphlets, magazines, address-books, gum-bottles, elastic bands, balls of string, a Remington typewriter, piles of paper bands for fastening newspapers and manuscripts, etc. In the midst of this ordered rummage stood a cabinet photograph of a man. I did not examine it then, but I knew later that it was Arthur Gernham, the notorious anti-vivisectionist. A few chairs, a thick Turkey carpet, and two revolving bookcases completed the furniture. The walls were tinted a dull red, and there were red curtains at the window. There were no pictures or ornaments. On the mantelpiece stood a clock which struck the quarter after six as we came in.

“Where’s the—oh, there he is!” said Lord Elyn.

The black spaniel was lying crouched upon the floor in a corner near the window, a dark patch against the red of the curtain which touched him. He had been tied by a piece of cord to the writing-table, but had shrunk back, as if in an effort to escape, until he could go no farther. Now he lay with his face turned towards the door, motionless, staring. When we saw him he did not move. He only looked at us.

He only looked at us, I have said. Then why did Lord Elyn stop short just inside the door, as if startled? Why did I feel an almost invincible desire to get out of this room, even out of this house of my friend? It must have been the violence of terror in the dog’s eyes contrasted with the absolute stillness, the stillness as of death, of his body. Yes, I think it must have been that which affected us. For in violence there is always contained the suggestion of intense activity, the suggestion of movement, and the dog’s eyes conveyed to me the feeling that his soul was rushing from us, while his body lay there before us against the red curtain like a carven thing.

“There he is!” Lord Elyn repeated in a low voice.

He looked at me and then at Vernon. I thought he was going out of the room, and I am sure he wanted to do so; but he stood where he was in silence and again looked towards the spaniel.

“Well, what do you think of him?” asked Vernon.

The sound of his voice perhaps made Lord Elyn conscious that we were behaving somewhat absurdly, that we were almost huddling together, he and I, beside the door. For he took a step—but only a step—forward, and answered, with an evident effort to speak more naturally:

“Oh, he looks a good specimen. He’s well bred; I should say, well bred—yes.”

Again he glanced at me as if questioning me. All this time the spaniel did not move, but lay staring at us with eyes full of horror. His stillness appalled me.

“And what do you think, Luttrell?” said Vernon.

It was with a difficulty that was extraordinary to me that I answered him.

“You’ll have a lot of trouble with him,” I said.

“Why?” said Vernon quickly.

“Why? Why, he’s evidently a very nervous dog. I should think it’ll take time to reconcile him with his new home and his new master.”

“Good God!” said Lord Elyn.

As I finished speaking the dog had suddenly howled again. Involuntarily I stepped back.

Vernon laughed once more.

“Why, anybody would think you were afraid of him,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

I tried to laugh too—to laugh at myself.

“He gave tongue so very unexpectedly,” I said. “Poor fellow! Poor fellow!”

I was speaking to the dog, but I did not go towards him. The faint disgust with which he had already inspired me in the Park was stronger now that I was with him in a room. I was conscious of an almost invincible desire to go straight out of the house, to get into the open air, quickly, without delay. But with this feeling blended another, more subtle, one that surprised me by its force.

I longed, before I went, to untie that crouching dog, to let him escape from the room, the house, to set him free. With the disgust of him mingled a curious pity for him that was inexplicable to me then.

I think Lord Elyn shared my feelings, but he acted differently from me. For, whereas I now moved away to go, he suddenly, with determination, walked forward towards the spaniel. Seeing this, I stopped just outside the door in the corridor. From there I witnessed a sight that increased my sensation of pity, and at the same time deepened my sensation of disgust.

Lord Elyn, when he was near the spaniel, bent down a little, snapping his fingers and saying, “Poor beast! poor beast!” whereupon the dog suddenly sprang up from the floor against his breast, in an obvious attempt to nestle into his arms as if for protection against some danger. Lord Elyn, surprised, tried to hold him, but failed, and let him drop heavily to the floor.

Vernon interposed. Going forward quickly he said, “I’m awfully sorry, Lord Elyn. He’s muddied you. Come out and Cragg shall brush it off.”

The dog shrank back against the curtain.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Lord Elyn began.

But Vernon took his arm and drew him with a sort of gentle inflexibility towards the door and into the corridor where I was standing.

“Cragg,” Vernon called; “Cragg.”

“Sir,” said the man coming from the hall.

Vernon shut the door of the study sharply.

“Just get a brush, will you? The dog has put his dirty paws on Lord Elyn’s coat.”

“Certainly, Sir.”

He turned on the electric light. Lord Elyn stood under it to be brushed. I noticed that his face looked very white, but thought it might be the effect of the light upon it. When Cragg had finished, Lord Elyn said—

“Good-night, Vernon,” and walked hastily towards the hall door.

“May I come with you?” I said.

“Do.”

I bade Vernon good-bye with a word and a hand-grasp, and in a moment Lord Elyn and I were out in the street.

“Ouf!” said Lord Elyn, blowing out his breath.

He stood still, looking towards that part of the house which had been Deeming’s.

“By Jove!” he said, as if speaking to himself.

Then, suddenly conscious that he was not alone, he exclaimed—

“Pray forgive me, Luttrell, but the fact is I—well, I don’t know why, but that dog has made a very disagreeable impression on me, very disagreeable. D’you know, when he sprang upon me just now I felt a sensation—by Jove, it was a sensation of horror, of abject horror.”

He walked on slowly.

“I noticed you were looking very pale in the hall,” I said.

“Pale? I should think so! The whole business—I say, what did you think of it, eh?”

“How do you mean?” I asked evasively.

“What d’you think of the dog?”

“Poor beast! It seemed very nervous.”

“Nervous! It was half-mad with terror. I never saw a dog in such a state before. And Vernon such a lover of animals, too! That’s the strange part of it.”

“You think it was Vernon it was afraid of?”

“To be sure. Didn’t you see it spring upon me for protection, and directly he approached it shrank away like a thing demented? Now, I’ve been with animals all my life—brought up among ’em—and never before have I seen an animal’s instinct betray it. Animals know in a second the men that are fond of ’em and the men who hate ’em. But this dog’s all at sea. It thinks Vernon’s a regular devil—a dog-torturer. It’s half-crazed with fear of him. That is as plain as a pikestaff. The thing’s unnatural, Luttrell—it’s d⸺d unnatural!”

He spoke with a vehemence that showed how greatly his nerves were upset. I could not contradict, because I absolutely agreed with him.

“That dog,” he added, “gives me the shudders.”

“Poor wretch!” I said.

“You pity him too?” he asked.

“Yes. But when he gets to know Vernon it will be all right. Vernon has a positive passion for animals.”

I strove to speak with conviction, for I was trying to convince myself.

“I know he has. And yet⸺”

He hesitated.

“What, Lord Elyn.”

“Well, didn’t it strike you that he looked at the dog very queerly?”

“Queerly?”

“Yes, not as if he had a great fancy for it.”

I said nothing.

“What made him buy it?” said Lord Elyn.

“I’ve no idea” I answered.

And indeed at that moment I was wondering, wondering almost passionately.

“I’ll swear he doesn’t like the dog,” said Lord Elyn, still with vehemence. “He may be as fond of animals as you like, but he isn’t fond of this one.”

“If he hadn’t taken a liking to it why should he buy it?”

“That’s more than I can say. It’s a queer business. I had an idea that—that you perhaps, had some inkling what was up.”

And again his look questioned me.

“I haven’t indeed,” I said.

And I spoke the truth. I was in the dark, in blackness.

A hansom passed us slowly at this moment. Lord Elyn hailed it.

“I must get home,” he said. “I’m dining out. Shall I give you a lift?”

“No, thank you. I’ll walk. I like the exercise.”

“Good-bye, then.”

He stepped into the cab and drove off, while I walked slowly back to Albemarle Street.

Lord Elyn had made my thoughts clearer to me by his blunt expressions. He had asked me if I had any inkling of what was up, and, when he said that, I knew quite certainly that, to use that slangy phrase, I thought something was up. Vernon had been moved by some strange impulse to buy the black spaniel, had some strange purpose in connection with it. I felt sure of this. My instinct told me that it was so. What had caused this impulse? What was this purpose?

I wondered, but could not tell.

I reviewed Vernon’s character as I knew it carefully, considered all that I had heard of him from others, trying to find a clue that would guide me to comprehension. But I remained perplexed. I knew good of him. I had always heard praise of him, except from one person, the man who was dead and in whose house he now lived. Deeming had said to me once that Vernon was a black fanatic; the phrase was strong, brutal even. It recurred to my mind as I walked, and stayed there. Then I thought of the terror in the spaniel’s eyes as it lay motionless against the red curtain of the workroom. And I was troubled, I was strangely ill at ease. It seemed to me that in my friend, hidden away like a thing hidden in a cave, was something mysterious, something even terrible, and that the black spaniel was connected with it. But how could that be? Vernon loved all animals. He was at this very moment devoting his life to the advancement of their welfare. For them he had thrown off his long idleness of the lounging traveller, the luxurious art-lover, who wandered from country to country buying to please his whim. For them he stayed in England and lived laborious days. Why, then, when I thought of the spaniel shut up in his study, should I be chilled with fear? I reasoned with myself, but in vain. The sense of fear, of mystery, remained with me. It was deepened by an incident which occurred six days later.

During those days I had not seen Vernon; I had heard nothing of him or of the black spaniel.

The incident to which I alluded was my meeting for the first time with Arthur Gernham.

At a man’s dinner, given by a famous throat-specialist renowned not only as a surgeon but as a host, I found myself sitting opposite to a very remarkable-looking man of about forty years of age. I had not been introduced to him, and had no idea who he was, but he at once attracted my attention by his air of fiery vitality and his unconventional attire. Instead of the ordinary evening dress, he wore a pair of black trousers, a loose silk shirt with a turned-down collar and very small black tie, and a double-breasted smoking-coat which concealed his waistcoat, if he had one. His powerful, sinewy wrists were unfettered by cuffs, and his powerful throat was free from the stiff linen ramparts over which the average Englishman faces the world in the evening. He was evidently a man who hated restraint. His face was pale, of the hatchet type, with a long hooked nose, the bridge of which was unusually marked; a large mouth, unsmiling but not unkind; a narrow, very high forehead, and gleaming hazel eyes. His head was sparsely covered with odd tufts of light-brown hair.

During dinner Gernham talked a great deal in a rasping voice. His conversation was interesting, for he was not only intelligent, but obviously an enthusiast, and one who was entirely fearless of the opinion of others. I wondered much who he was, and as we were getting up from the table I found an opportunity to ask my host.

“Arthur Gernham,” he said. “Very down on us doctors, but an interesting fellow. In another age he’d have courted persecution for the faith that is in him. Let me introduce you.”

And he did so.

Gernham shook me warmly by the hand.

“My dear colleague Kersteven has often spoken of you,” he said. “You sympathise with our efforts, don’t you?”

He jerked his head upwards and looked at me keenly. I said something—I’ve forgotten what—and he continued abruptly—

“Come along. Let’s have a good talk. Have a cigar.”

He gave me a very large one, flung himself down in an armchair, and talked enthusiastically of Vernon.

“I’ve been almost living in his house this last week,” he said. “We’re preparing a fresh campaign on behalf of the blessed beasts, our brothers. We’ve got together some statistics that’ll startle the comfortable elbow-chair Englishmen, I can tell you. I’ll never rest till I’ve roused the country to the horrors that are being perpetrated every day, every hour, every minute, upon the defenceless animals God has committed to us to be good to. And Vernon—what a splendid chap he is! What a colleague! All pity! The man’s made of pity, made of tenderness. Ah, but you know that!”

“Yes!” I said.

I thought of the black spaniel. Here was an opportunity to find out how Vernon and his pet were getting on together.

“You’ve been in the house with Vernon a great deal lately?” I began.

“Every day and all day,” he said, “this last week.”

“How’s that new pet of his?” I asked. “Reconciled and happy in his new home?”

“Pet?” said Gernham.

“Yes, the dog.”

“He hasn’t got one. Don’t you know the hideous story? He once had a spaniel called⸺”

“I know,” I interrupted. “And he’s got another.”

“Not he!” rejoined Gernham, with sledge-hammer certainty. “He’ll never have another. I understand the poor chap’s feelings. At the same time⸺”

But here I interrupted again, and told Gernham the story of Vernon’s acquisition of the spaniel. He heard me with an amazement he did not try to conceal.

“And you mean to say the dog’s in the house now?” he cried, when I had finished.

“I suppose so, unless he’s got rid of it already.”

Gernham sat quite still with his thin hands spread out on his knees staring at me hard.

“This is extraordinary,” he said at last, with a sort of biting decision.

“You mean that he didn’t mention the fact that he had a dog?”

“I mean more than that. I mean that he concealed it from me.”

“Concealed it?”

“Certainly. I’ve got any amount of animals—dogs, cats, the whole show—and I’m always urging Kersteven to set up a happy family. We preach kindness, he and I. We ought to practise it actively as much as we can. But his feelings about his dead dog have always stood in the way. I’m perpetually trying to convert him to my view. I’ve been at it this week.”

“And he said he hadn’t a dog?”

“No. But he never said he had one. It’s much the same thing under the circumstances. I should never have thought Kersteven could be deceitful. I don’t like it. I—I hate it!”

At this moment we were interrupted. Two of the other men came up and we had no more private talk that evening. When I was going away Gernham said—

“Come and see me—will you? Here’s my card.”

He gave it to me, shook my hand, and as I turned to go said—

“You’ve spoilt my evening, I can tell you that.”

I thought, “And you’ve spoilt mine,” but I did not say it.

IX

I went home that night wondering whether Vernon had got rid of the black spaniel. Perhaps he had found it impossible to reconcile it to its new quarters, and had sold it or given it back to the man with the fur cap. Or perhaps it was still in the house. If that were so, it was very strange, very unlike Vernon to have concealed the fact from Arthur Gernham. But, in either case, he had been deceitful, deliberately deceitful, with a friend, and a friend whom he greatly admired and respected.

This incident of my meeting with Gernham deepened my sense of fear, of mystery. My instinct—I now felt sure of it—was right. Some strange under side of Vernon’s character was active at this moment. I knew him only in part; much of him I did not know. A stranger now seemed to confront me in the night, a stranger by whose feet crouched something black and terrified. What was this stranger’s purpose? What could it be?

I reviewed carefully my whole acquaintance with Vernon, but especially the latter part of my acquaintance with him, when Deeming was in relation with us both. It was then, when Deeming came into his life, and only then, that Vernon had shown me for the first time a man in him whose presence I had not suspected, whose exact nature I did not know. This man was roused by Deeming. I should have let him sleep. But, having been roused, he had surely been sleepless ever since. Yes, that was so. Thus far, things were clear to me. Something—the strange man in Vernon—had been wakeful, ardent ever since, was wakeful, ardent now. This man it was who worked shoulder to shoulder with Gernham. This man it was who had bought the black spaniel.