CHAPTER x.x.x

THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF MR HOLT

I was standing in the middle of the room, Sydney was between the door and me; Mr Holt was in the hall, just outside the doorway, in which he, so to speak, was framed. As Sydney advanced towards him he was seized with a kind of convulsion,-he had to lean against the side of the door to save himself from falling. Sydney paused, and watched. The spasm went as suddenly as it came,-Mr Holt became as motionless as he had just now been the other way. He stood in an att.i.tude of febrile expectancy,-his chin raised, his head thrown back, his eyes glancing upwards,-with the dreadful fixed glare which had come into them ever since we had entered the house. He looked to me as if his every faculty was strained in the act of listening,-not a muscle in his body seemed to move; he was as rigid as a figure carved in stone. Presently the rigidity gave place to what, to an onlooker, seemed causeless agitation.

'I hear!' he exclaimed, in the most curious voice I had ever heard. 'I come!'

It was as though he was speaking to someone who was far away.

Turning, he walked down the pa.s.sage to the front door.

'Hollo!' cried Sydney. 'Where are you off to?'

We both of us hastened to see. He was fumbling with the latch; before we could reach him, the door was open, and he was through it. Sydney, rushing after him, caught him on the step and held him by the arm.

'What's the meaning of this little caper?-Where do you think you're going now?'

Mr Holt did not condescend to turn and look at him. He said, in the same dreamy, faraway, unnatural tone of voice,-and he kept his unwavering gaze fixed on what was apparently some distant object which was visible only to himself.

'I am going to him. He calls me.'

'Who calls you?'

'The Lord of the Beetle.'

Whether Sydney released his arm or not I cannot say. As he spoke, he seemed to me to slip away from Sydney's grasp. Pa.s.sing through the gateway, turning to the right, he commenced to retrace his steps in the direction we had come. Sydney stared after him in unequivocal amazement. Then he looked at me.

'Well!-this is a pretty fix!-now what's to be done?'

'What's the matter with him?' I inquired. 'Is he mad?'

'There's method in his madness if he is. He's in the same condition in which he was that night I saw him come out of the Apostle's window.' Sydney has a horrible habit of calling Paul 'the Apostle'; I have spoken to him about it over and over again, -but my words have not made much impression. 'He ought to be followed,-he may be sailing off to that mysterious friend of his this instant.-But, on the other hand, he mayn't, and it may be nothing but a trick of our friend the conjurer's to get us away from this elegant abode of his. He's done me twice already, I don't want to be done again,-and I distinctly do not want him to return and find me missing. He's quite capable of taking the hint, and removing himself into the Ewigkeit,-when the clue to as pretty a mystery as ever I came across will have vanished.'

'I can stay,' I said.

'You?-Alone?'

He eyed me doubtingly,-evidently not altogether relishing the proposition.

'Why not? You might send the first person you meet,-policeman, cabman, or whoever it is-to keep me company. It seems a pity now that we dismissed that cab.'

'Yes, it does seem a pity.' Sydney was biting his lip. 'Confound that fellow! how fast he moves.'

Mr Holt was already nearing the end of the road.

'If you think it necessary, by all means follow to see where he goes,-you are sure to meet somebody whom you will be able to send before you have gone very far.'

'I suppose I shall.-You won't mind being left alone?'

'Why should I?-I'm not a child.'

Mr Holt, reaching the corner, turned it, and vanished out of sight. Sydney gave an exclamation of impatience.

'If I don't make haste I shall lose him. I'll do as you suggest- dispatch the first individual I come across to hold watch and ward with you.'

'That'll be all right.'

He started off at a run,-shouting to me as he went.

'It won't be five minutes before somebody comes!'

I waved my hand to him. I watched him till he reached the end of the road. Turning, he waved his hand to me. Then he vanished, as Mr Holt had done.

And I was alone.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE TERROR BY DAY

My first impulse, after Sydney's disappearance, was to laugh. Why should he display anxiety on my behalf merely because I was to be the sole occupant of an otherwise empty house for a few minutes more or less,-and in broad daylight too! To say the least, the anxiety seemed unwarranted.

I lingered at the gate, for a moment or two, wondering what was at the bottom of Mr Holt's singular proceedings, and what Sydney really proposed to gain by acting as a spy upon his wanderings. Then I turned to re-enter the house. As I did so, another problem suggested itself to my mind,-what connection, of the slightest importance, could a man in Paul Lessingham's position have with the eccentric being who had established himself in such an unsatisfactory dwelling-place? Mr Holt's story I had only dimly understood,-it struck me that it would require a deal of understanding. It was more like a farrago of nonsense, an outcome of delirium, than a plain statement of solid facts. To tell the truth, Sydney had taken it more seriously than I expected. He seemed to see something in it which I emphatically did not. What was double Dutch to me, seemed clear as print to him. So far as I could judge, he actually had the presumption to imagine that Paul -my Paul!-Paul Lessingham!-the great Paul Lessingham!-was mixed up in the very mysterious adventures of poor, weak-minded, hysterical Mr Holt, in a manner which was hardly to his credit.

Of course, any idea of the kind was purely and simply balderdash. Exactly what bee Sydney had got in his bonnet, I could not guess. But I did know Paul. Only let me find myself face to face with the fantastic author of Mr Holt's weird tribulations, and I, a woman, single-handed, would do my best to show him that whoever played pranks with Paul Lessingham trifled with edged tools.

I had returned to that historical front room which, according to Mr Holt, had been the scene of his most disastrous burglarious entry. Whoever had furnished it had had original notions of the resources of modern upholstery. There was not a table in the place,-no chair or couch, nothing to sit down upon except the bed. On the floor there was a marvellous carpet which was apparently of eastern manufacture. It was so thick, and so pliant to the tread, that moving over it was like walking on thousand- year-old turf. It was woven in gorgeous colours, and covered with-

When I discovered what it actually was covered with, I was conscious of a disagreeable sense of surprise.

It was covered with beetles!

All over it, with only a few inches of s.p.a.ce between each, were representations of some peculiar kind of beetle,-it was the same beetle, over, and over, and over. The artist had woven his undesirable subject into the warp and woof of the material with such cunning skill that, as one continued to gaze, one began to wonder if by any possibility the creatures could be alive.

In spite of the softness of the texture, and the art-of a kind!- which had been displayed in the workmanship, I rapidly arrived at the conclusion that it was the most uncomfortable carpet I had ever seen. I wagged my finger at the repeated portrayals of the- to me!-unspeakable insect.

'If I had discovered that you were there before Sydney went, I think it just possible that I should have hesitated before I let him go.'

Then there came a revulsion of feeling. I shook myself.

'You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Marjorie Lindon, to even think such nonsense. Are you all nerves and morbid imaginings,- you who have prided yourself on being so strong-minded! A pretty sort you are to do battle for anyone.-Why, they're only make- believes!'

Half involuntarily, I drew my foot over one of the creatures. Of course, it was nothing but imagination; but I seemed to feel it squelch beneath my shoe. It was disgusting.

'Come!' I cried. 'This won't do! As Sydney would phrase it,-am I going to make an idiot of myself?'

I turned to the window,-looking at my watch.