It rose up before him at every twist and turn. It came in letters, in harmless-looking printed circulars, in registered envelopes, in telegrams. It was left for him in a thousand forms at his clubs by messenger boys, by uniformed commissionaires, by clergymen, clerks — even women. Telephone messages would come while he was at his lunch, apparently bona fide telephone messages from well-known business firms who would start, when he took the phone, by obviously genuine business discussions to which he would listen interestedly and intently.
And then suddenly, after keeping him there for a full ten minutes:
“What we really want, Mr. Merryweather, is — one thousand and four pounds, seven and six please!”
Yet such was the obstinacy of the man that he was still refusing to give in. That the adjusters were doing it he knew full well, but he was preferring to face the endless tortures which he was undergoing, rather than admit defeat to that hazel-eyed girl who had smiled so serenely at him in his office.
Yet he knew well enough that each day was getting worse than its predecessor. Today, it was true, he had a respite. Yet no real respite, before the haunting tension was always upon him again — the perpetual dread that gave him no rest.
And then at twelve o’clock a clerk had brought him in a message — Merryweather refused to go near the telephone now — that Lord Ammington wanted him to come and lunch at the Ritz at one-thirty.
The financier hesitated a few moments. He had another luncheon party already fixed — a luncheon party à deux, that he didn’t want to miss.
But Lord Ammington was rather an important personage to him just now. He was in negotiation with him over a very big deal. This might perhaps clinch the whole matter.
“Tell Lord Ammington I’ll be there,” he said curtly.
One hour and a half later, as he sat in the lounge of the Ritz, a page approached him with a note. Merryweather’s terrors swarmed back in a moment, but one glance at the envelope reassured him.
He knew Lord Ammington’s handwriting, and took the letter with a sigh of relief, and slit it open.
A week ago he would have turned the air blue with fierce fury and bitter invective. He would have withered the page boy, singed the hall porter, consigned the whole staff to regions unnameable.
But now he never said one word. He just stood gazing stupidly at the sheet of paper he held in his hand — Lord Ammington’s note paper, Lord Ammington’s crest. And scrawled across it in a strange hand:
1004—7-6
He fell heavily into a chair.
“It’s — it’s — all — right,” he said thickly to the boy.
When he left the restaurant that afternoon one or two people commented on the fact that he seemed to have been drinking heavily.
That night Horatio Merryweather awoke suddenly with a start, and the uneasy consciousness on him that he was not alone in his room.
He had a vague idea that there had been a loud report, and he presently became alive to the fact that he could hear a faint whirring noise over by the window.
He raised himself gently on his elbow. Yes, he could hear it distinctly now — and it sounded like some perfect piece of machinery, growing louder, too, every minute!
He felt the cold, clammy perspiration breaking out over him now as he lay there striving to pierce that black darkness. A hundred sinister thoughts crowded into his mind.
Supposing that this was the last desperate move of the adjusters? Supposing that they had managed to secrete a bomb in his flat, and that in a minute!
He longed to move, to cry out for help, to put out his hand and switch on the light — yet so great was the blind, unreasoning terror on him that he was powerless to stir — terror-stricken at what the light might disclose.
He felt beads of perspiration running down his face, but he couldn’t move from sheer fright. The bedclothes seemed like a ton weight. And still that soft purring noise, like some great animal, seemed to be coming ever nearer.
And then suddenly he screamed, screamed as a man screams just before his nerves, worked to breaking point, finally snap. For a tiny little beam of light had suddenly shot up from nowhere in the darkness and was now dancing about in the air in front of him, backward and forward like a mad thing.
Another sprang up and joined it — two of them — three of them — four of them — five of them — six of them!
Horror! They were figures, real figures, shining out in that inky darkness, dancing, swaying, this way and that — backward, forward, sideways!
They were becoming steadier now — almost grouping themselves together — he could read them. There was a one — two noughts — there was a four—
Merryweather was clutching the bedclothes in an ecstasy of terror, perspiration streaming from him. He was going mad — he must be mad! It couldn’t possibly be real, it—
And then he screamed again, for suddenly a luminous face, grinning terribly, had shot up and joined those dancing figures. It had a pointed beard and a sailor’s peaked cap.
Merryweather went on screaming.
When his servants eventually broke into his room they found him huddled up on the bed in a dead faint.
VI
Daphne Wrayne dropped into a chair in the secluded corner of the palm-shaded conservatory and Lord Trewitter sat down beside her.
“Give me a cigarette, Jimmy, and tell me all the news. I’m simply dying to hear it.”
“Only one dance the whole evening,” pretending to grumble, “and I’ve got to talk shop.”
“Oh, Jimmy!”
There was a soft note of reproach in her voice as she gave a quick glance round — moved nearer to him. Then:
“There’s... there’s — no one about — darling!”
He bent down quickly.
As a couple came into the conservatory Daphne was fanning herself vigorously. Lord Trewitter was lighting his cigarette, talking calmly, conversationally, in little seemingly disconnected sentences with a pause between each one.
“It’s all been so absurdly easy, Daph — they’ve all entered into it like schoolboys. Our friend’s had it for breakfast, lunch, tea and supper — served hot, too!”
He chuckled softly and went on:
“We’ve spared no expense — sent him letters — specially printed note paper, stamped outside and in, with pukka headings — companies he deals with — all apparently genuine business on the first page. Then — he turns over and finds — the fateful numbers!
“Not only in letters, though — telegrams, registered packets, postcards, express delivery — to his clubs, restaurants, friends’ houses where he’s dined. We detailed off two men to shadow him and keep in touch with us. All so easy, my dear — like picking pennies out of a blind man’s tin!”
He lighted another cigarette — still chuckling.
“And is he getting worried, Jim?” asked the girl.
“Worried, darling? Why he’s plumb crazy! You see he’s never had a moment’s respite. The afternoon he came out of Bow Street, Alan, as a disreputable old paper-seller, was waiting for him — sold him a paper — having previously stamped the jolly old number across the middle page.
“Alan knows that it clicked,” laughing softly, “because his Highness was back again in five minutes and Alan only just got away without being seen.”
“Oh, go on — I’m loving it,” murmured the girl eagerly.
“Hugh was waiting for him at the Century Club,” went on Trewitter, “took him on at billiards and slipped a card into his cigar case. And then there was a shindy! And so on and so forth — we’ve got him into the condition now that he refuses to answer the telephone — and if they bring him up a note he wants to know its life’s history before he’ll even touch it.