The Tower of Oblivion Part 31

"Yes. There are one or two small things I want, and also a few things I think I'd better destroy."

"Couldn't you," I said slowly and quite deliberately, "have taken her home and seen about your things to-morrow?"

I felt the beginning of his perturbation. "It's so dashed awkward, George," he stammered. "I don't want to go in the daytime."

"Couldn't you go to-morrow night and still take her home?"

Again he muttered, his eyes on the ground. "Why waste a day?"

"If, as you say, you want a change--supposing you were to go off somewhere for a bit--wouldn't you like somebody with you?"

"No, George," he answered curtly.

"You are going away?"

"Yes," he admitted.

"Immediately?"

"Yes."

"Where to?"

"I don't know yet."

"Would you let me come with you?"

"No."

"Would you, if it were possible, take Julia?"

"No."

"Might both of us come with you together?"

"No." And, raising his voice, "No, I tell you, no!" he said.

We had stopped by a rather shabby-looking thicket of rugosa roses near the diving-stage. The pink-flowered hedge hid us from the house. I spoke quietly, not to give my own agitation too much head.

"Derry," I said, "you remember what you showed me with that flashlight that night in your rooms?"

With marked reluctance he answered, "Yes I do."

"I've been thinking about that. I've been thinking a lot about it. Of course it makes a considerable difference how far away you hold the lamp."

"A h.e.l.l of a difference," he muttered.

"Do you always hold it at the same distance?"

His whole mind seemed to wriggle. "I haven't, if you must know. But why drag all this up again? I offered to tell you before but you wouldn't listen."

"I hadn't the reason then that I have now. Do you--move it about deliberately?"

"I have to some extent. I told you that. I did by an effort of will when I came here for a day's rest."

"A day's rest?... You're not going back to that book. You know that better than I do. That book's all past and done with. Something's happened since."

I saw him turn pale. "What do you mean?" he asked almost inaudibly.

"You came here on Friday midday. I've watched you carefully ever since.

Let's--well, let's stick to terms of the flash-lamp. Except for a quarter of an hour or so at breakfast yesterday morning, when you talked about your book, you've had that lamp steadily rather close to the edge of the table. Isn't that so?"

"I tell you a holiday's a holiday," he said faintly.

"Let me go on. I want to know how close that lamp has been. The closer you hold it the more ecstatically you experience, you know. Very well.

Now has there been a moment since yesterday when ... _you've held it as close as you could get it_?"

I was in time to catch him as he swayed. He clutched at my shoulder.

"George----"

"Steady--but tell me----"

"George--I've been trying to remember----"

"What! Good G.o.d! You don't remem--_so close that you don't remember_?"

"I honestly--but no, that isn't true--I seem to remember something--let me think, let me think.... What time did I go to bed last night?"

"Later than usual. Not till half-past nine."

"What was I doing? Tell me what I was doing. I was looking at pictures or something, wasn't I?"

"You were looking at the Hogarth prints."

"Yes, yes, that's right.... I didn't fall asleep, did I?"

"No, you didn't."

He muttered thickly. Outrageous, extravagant, beyond reason as it was, his sincerity could not be doubted. "It made no difference to him,"

Julia had said; but that her words should be taken _au pied de la lettre_ like that!... He continued to mutter.

"I do remember something--I do remember--at least I did this morning--I thought I did--but it went. Why didn't I come into breakfast? _Why_ was I going away without any breakfast? _Why_ wouldn't I have breakfast, George? I'm sure there was a reason, but I can't for the life of me remember." Then he began to talk rapidly. "That lamp--very close, you say--touching--something all instantaneous and burning--one intense brilliant spot--no before or after--all isolated by itself--but I'll swear I didn't fake the lamp that time! By all that's sacred I swear it, George! Something happened in the night that had nothing to do with me at all! It all happens in the night. Why"--he flung out his arms in a perfectly amazing appeal--"if I'd moved the light at all it would have been farther away! I _wanted_ to do that book! I thought about nothing else from the moment I went upstairs! I ached to be at it--wished this wasted week-end was over--I saw it all again perfectly clearly, beautifully clearly! I'd got out of bed. And then ... everything went out. It was exactly as if somebody'd taken that torch out of my hand, somebody with a stronger will than mine, and concentrated it--in the very moment when I saw that book practically written--one bright blazing bull's-eye----"

There was a little bench about four yards away. I think I needed its support more than he. Together we reached it and sat down. He turned the beautiful grey-blue eyes on me.

"George," he said more quietly, "something happened. I know it did."

I made no reply.