Flames Part 27

"You showed the gentleman--the gentleman who is dead--to his room last night?"

"Yes, sir. Oh, sir, I can't believe he's really gone so sudden like."

"Then you saw the lady with him?"

"Yes, of course. Oh--"

"Hus.h.!.+ What was she like?"

The housemaid's nose curled derisively.

"Oh, sir, quite the usual sort. Oh, a very common person. Not at all like the poor gentleman, sir."

"Young?"

"Not to say old, sir. No; I couldn't bring that against her. She wore a hat, sir, and feathers--well, more than ever growed on one ostrich, I'll be bound."

"Feathers!"

A vision of the lady of the feathers sprang up before Julian, wrapped in the wan light of the early dawn. He put several rapid questions to the housemaid. But she could only say again that Marr's companion had been a very common person, a very common sort of person indeed, and flas.h.i.+ly dressed, not at all as she--the housemaid--would care to go out of a Sunday. Julian tipped her and left her amazed upon the dim landing.

Then he and Valentine descended the stairs. The landlord was waiting in the pa.s.sage in an attentive att.i.tude against the wall. He seemed taken unawares by their appearance, but his eyes immediately sought Valentine's face, still apparently questioning it with avidity. Julian noticed this, and recollected that the man had insisted on a likeness existing between Marr and Valentine. Possibly that fact, although apparently unremembered, had remained lurking in his mind, and was accountable for his own curious deception. Or could it be that there really was some vague, fleeting resemblance between the dead man and the living which the landlord saw continuously, he only at moments? Looking again at Valentine he could not believe it. No; the landlord was deceived now, as he had been in the death-chamber above stairs.

"May we come into your room for a moment?" Julian asked the man. "I want to put to you a few questions."

"But certainly, sir, with pleasure."

He opened the side door and showed them into his sanctum beyond the gla.s.s window. It was a small, evil-looking room, crowded with fumes of stale tobacco. On the walls hung two or three French prints of more than doubtful decency. A table with a bottle and two or three gla.s.ses ranged on it occupied the middle of the floor. On a chair by the fire the Gil Bias was thrown in a crumpled att.i.tude. One gas-burner flared, unshaded by any gla.s.s globe. Julian sat down on the Gil Bias. Valentine refused the landlord's offer of a chair, and stood looking rather contemptuously at the inartistic improprieties of the prints.

"Did you let in the gentleman who came last night?" asked Julian.

"But, sir, of course. I am always here. I mind my house. I see that only respect-"

"Exactly. I don't doubt that for a moment. What was the lady like,--the lady who accompanied him?"

"Oh, sir, very chic, very pretty."

"Didn't you hear her go out in the night?"

The landlord looked for a moment as if he were considering the advisableness of a little bl.u.s.ter. He stared hard at Julian and thought better of it.

"Not a sound, not a mouse. Till the bell rang I slept. Then she is gone!"

"Would you recognize her again?"

"But no. I hardly look at her, and I see so many."

"Yes, yes, no doubt. And the gentleman. When you went into his room?"

"Ah! He was half sitting up. I come in. He just look at me. He fall back.

He is dead. He say nothing. Then I--I run."

"That's all I wanted to know," Julian said. "Valentine, shall we go?"

"By all means."

The landlord seemed relieved at their decision, and eagerly let them out into the pouring rain. When they were in the dismal strip of garden Julian turned and looked up at the lit windows of the bedroom on the first story. Marr was lying there in the bright illumination at ease, relieved of his soul. But, as Julian looked, the two windows suddenly grew dark. Evidently the economical landlord had hastened up, observed the waste of the material he had to pay for, and abruptly stopped it.

At the gate they called a cab.

"No; let us have the gla.s.s up," Julian said; "a drop of rain more or less doesn't matter. And I want some air."

"So do I," said Valentine. "The atmosphere of that house was abominable."

"Of course there can be no two opinions as to its character," Julian said.

"Of course not."

"What a dreary place to die in!"

"Yes. But does it matter where one dies? I think not. I attach immense importance to where one lives."

"It seems horrible to come to an end in such a place, to have had that wretched Frenchman as the only witness of one's death. Still, I suppose it is only foolish sentiment. Valentine, did you notice how happy Marr looked?"

"No."

"Didn't you? I thought you watched him almost as if you wondered as I did."

"How could I? I had never seen him before."

"It was curious the landlord seeing a likeness between you and him."

"Do you think so? The man naturally supposed one of us might be a relation, as we came to see Marr. I should not suppose there could be much resemblance."

"There is none. It's impossible. There can be none!"

They rattled on towards Piccadilly, back through the dismal thoroughfares, towards the asphalt ways of Bloomsbury. Presently Julian said:

"I wish I had seen Marr die."

"But why, Julian? Why this extraordinary interest in a man you knew so slightly and for so short a time?"

"It's because I can't get it out of my head that he had something to do with our sittings, more than we know."

"Impossible."

"I am almost certain the doctor thought so. I must tell him about Marr's death. Valentine, let us drive to Harley Street now."

Valentine did not reply at once, and Julian said: