Having crossed the lawn he avoided Aunt Carrie’s sad and tender eye as she stood awaiting him by the portico and stuttered and stammered his way round to the French window of the drawing-room. He let himself in by the French window, lifting his feet with great care over the narrow bottom ledge. He went into the smoking-room and composed himself in a chair to write. His way of composing himself was to adjust himself accurately with his back to the chair and then allow himself to fall.
He wrote shakily: Memorandum from Observation Post No. 1 12.15×3.14. No smoke again to-day, a bad sign. The chief offender has not appeared but am convinced of trouble. Am daily expecting to be called in defence of Neptune. Query. Am still concerned over the presence here of my daughter Hilda and the man Teasdale. Why? The answer to this may reveal the clue. But there are many comings and goings against me especially since the disappearance of Ann. Above all I must protect myself and hold myself in complete readiness.
A sound disturbed him and he looked up peevishly. Aunt Carrie had come in — Caroline was always coming in; why couldn’t she leave him alone? He shut his writing-book jealously and crouched in the chair very shrunken and angry and suspicious.
“You haven’t taken your rest, Richard.”
“I don’t want my rest.”
“Very well, Richard.” Aunt Carrie did not insist; she looked at Richard with that sad and tender gaze, her eyes red around the rims and swollen about the lids. Aunt Carrie’s heart gushed towards Richard; poor dear Richard, it was dreadful that he should not know and yet it might be worse, even, if he did. Aunt Carrie could not bear to think of it.
“I want to ask you, Caroline.” The dull suspicious eye became shot with a coaxing playfulness. “Tell me, Caroline, what are they doing at the Neptune?”
“Why, nothing, Richard,” she stammered.
“I’ve got my interests to safeguard,” Richard said with great cunning. “A man must look after himself. A man who is tampered with like me. You understand, Caroline.”
A painful silence. Aunt Carrie said again, pleadingly:
“Don’t you think you should rest a little now, Richard?” Dr. Lewis was always insisting that Richard should have more rest but Richard would not rest more. Aunt Carrie was sure it would help Richard’s poor head if Richard rested more.
Richard said:
“Why is Hilda here?”
Aunt Carrie smiled with a watery brightness.
“Why, she’s come up to see you, Richard, and to see Arthur. Grace might have come too… only she’s going to have another baby…. You remember, Richard dear, I told you.”
“Why do all these people keep coming about the house?”
“Why.” Aunt Carrie’s watery smile was brave; not wild horses would have dragged the truth from her. If Richard must know he would not know from her. “Why, what people. Richard? Now do come and rest. I beg of you.”
He glared at her, his irritation mounting to a fever heat, then leaving him suddenly; and when his irritation left him he felt quite bewildered. His pale ringed eyes fell and he discovered his own hand that held the diary shaking violently. Often his hands would twitch this way and his legs too. It was the electricity. All at once he wanted to cry.
“Very well.” Drooping, and with a childish desire for sympathy, he explained: “It’s the current that makes me… the electricity.”
Aunt Carrie helped him from his chair and helped him upstairs and helped him partially to undress and to stretch himself out upon his bed. He looked an old exhausted man and his face was very flushed. He fell asleep instantly and slept for two hours. He snored heavily.
When he awoke he felt splendid, completely refreshed and full of vigour and intelligence. He ate his bread and milk greedily, a lovely big bowl of bread and milk. It tasted sweet and pulpy and it was not burning in his mouth and his hand did not twitch with electricity any longer. He looked to see that Aunt Carrie had gone out of the room; then he licked up the last of the bowlful with his tongue. It always tasted better that way.
Afterwards he lay staring at the ceiling clasping the warmth in his stomach and hearing the buzz of a blue-bottle on the window-pane and letting warm thoughts buzz through his head and being conscious of his own prodigious capabilities. All sorts of projects and conjectures flashed through his prodigiously capable mind. There was even a marriage ceremony at the back of it all, dim and warm, with music, great swelling organ music and a slender virgin of unsurpassable beauty who adored him.
He was lying like this when the noise of cars arriving disturbed him. He raised himself on his elbow, listening, and with great quickness he understood that people were coming. A look of delighted cunning flashed into his face. This was his chance, a great chance while the electricity was off.
He got up. It was not easy for him to get up, the movements were complicated and numerous, but with such prodigious capabilities nothing was impossible. He worked himself sideways upon his elbow and rolled off the bed. He fell with a bump in the kneeling position. He waited for a minute, listening to see if anybody had heard the bump. Good! No one had heard the bump. He crawled on his knees to the window and looked out of the window. One car, two cars; it was exciting now, he was enjoying himself, he wanted to laugh.
Supporting himself on the window ledge he raised himself slowly — this was the worst of all but it was done at last — then he got into his dressing-gown. It took him quite five minutes to get into his dressing-gown; the arms were so difficult and he began by putting it on back to front, but eventually the dressing-gown was on and corded over his underwear. He did not put on shoes for shoes make a noise. He stood triumphant in his dressing-gown and underwear and socks, then very cautiously he went out of his room and started to descend the stairs.
There was only one way to descend the stairs. The banister was useless, the banister held and hindered. No! The only way to descend the stairs was to stand accurately on the top stair of all and look straight ahead like a diver and then suddenly let the feet go. The feet went down the stairs with quite a rush that way, but it was important not to look at the feet nor to think about them either.
Richard got down to the hall in this manner and he stood in the hall very pleased with himself and listening. They were in the dining-room; he could hear the voices plainly, and he advanced slyly to the door of the dining-room. Yes, they were in there, he could hear them talking and he was listening. Good, very good! Richard got down, and sprawled on the tiled floor with his eye to the keyhole. Observation Post No. 2, Richard thought, oh, very, very good — Richard saw and heard everything.
They were all seated round the dining-room table with Mr. Bannerman, the lawyer, at the head and Arthur at the foot. Aunt Carrie was there and Hilda and Adam Todd and the man Teasdale. Mr. Bannerman had a great many papers and Arthur had papers too, and Adam Todd had one single paper but Hilda and Aunt Carrie and Teasdale had no papers at all. Mr. Bannerman was speaking.
“It is an offer,” Mr. Bannerman said. “That’s how I regard it. It is an offer.”