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He had entered the smoking-room lightly, almost jauntily; but–not a doubt of it–he was tired–so tired that he shuffled his body twice and thrice in the arm-chair before discovering the precise angle that gave superlative comfort. . . .

‘I beg your pardon, sir.’

Dick opened his eyes. A liveried footman stood over his chair, and was addressing him.

‘Eh? Did I ring? Yes, you may bring me a glass of liqueur brandy. As quickly as possible, if you please; to tell the truth, George, I’m not feeling very well.’

The man started at hearing his name, but made no motion to obey the order.

‘I beg your pardon, sir, but the secretary wishes to see you in his room.’

‘The secretary? Mr Hood? Yes, certainly.’ Dick rose. ‘I–I am afraid you must give me your arm, please. A giddiness–the ship’s motion, I suppose.’

The secretary was standing at his door in the great vestibule as Dick came down the staircase on the man’s arm.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, ‘but may I have your name? The porter does not recognise you, and I fear that I am equally at fault.’

‘My name?’–with the same gesture that Mr Markham had used in the little back parlour, Dick passed a hand over his eyes. He laughed, and even to his own ears the laugh sounded vacant, foolish.

‘Are you a member of the club, sir?’

‘I–I thought I was.’ The marble pillars of the atrium were swaying about him like painted cloths, the tesselated pavement heaving and rocking at his feet. ‘Abominably stupid of me,’ he muttered, ‘unpardonable, you must think.’

The secretary looked at him narrowly, and decided that he was really ill; that there was nothing in his face to suggest the impostor.

‘Come into my room for a moment,’ he said, and sent the footman upstairs to make sure that no small property of the Club was missing. ‘Here, drink down the brandy. . . . Feeling better? You are aware, no doubt, that I might call in the police and have you searched?’

For a moment Dick did not answer, but stood staring with rigid eyes. At length,–

‘They–won’t–find–what–I–want,’ he said slowly, dropping out the words one by one. The secretary now felt certain that here was a genuine case of mental derangement. With such he had no desire to be troubled; and so, the footman bringing word that nothing had been stolen, he dismissed Dick to the street.

CHAPTER VI.

The brandy steadying him, Dick went down the steps with a fairly firm tread. But he went down into a world that for him was all darkness– darkness of chaos–carrying an entity that was not his, but belonged Heaven knew to whom.

The streets, the traffic, meant nothing to him. Their roar was within his head; and on his ears, nostrils, chest, lay a pressure as of mighty waters. Rapidly as he walked, he felt himself all the while to be lying fathoms deep in those waters, face downwards, with drooped head, held motionless there while something within him struggled impotently to rise to the surface. The weight that held him down, almost to bursting, was as the weight of tons.

The houses, the shop-fronts, the street-lamps, the throng of dark figures, passed him in unmeaning procession. Yet all the time his feet, by some instinct, were leading him towards the water; and by-and-by he found himself staring–still face downwards–into a black inverted heaven wherein the lights had become stars and swayed only a little.

He had, in fact, halted, and was leaning over the parapet of the Embankment, a few yards from Cleopatra’s Needle; and as he passed the plinth some impression of it must have bitten itself on the retina; for coiled among the stars lay two motionless sphinxes green-eyed, with sheathed claws, watching lazily while the pressure bore him down to them, and down–and still down. . . .

Upon this dome of night there broke the echo of a footfall. A thousand footsteps had passed him, and he had heard none of them. But this one, springing out of nowhere, sang and repeated itself and re-echoed across the dome, and from edge to edge. Dick’s fingers drew themselves up like the claws of the sphinx. The footsteps drew nearer while he crouched: they were close to him. Dick leapt at them, with murder in his spring.

Where the two men grappled, the parapet of the Embankment opens on a flight of river-stairs. Mr Markham had uttered no cry; nor did a sound escape either man as, locked in that wrestle, they swayed over the brink.

They were hauled up, unconscious, still locked in each other’s arms.

‘Queer business,’ said one of the rescuers as he helped to loosen their clasp, and lift the bodies on board the Royal Humane Society’s float. Looks like murderous assault. But which of ’em done it by the looks, now?’

Five minutes later Dick’s eyelids fluttered. For a moment he stared up at the dingy lamp swinging overhead; then his lips parted in a cry, faint, yet sharp–

‘Take care, sir! That stanchion–‘

But Mr Markham’s first words were, ‘Plucky! devilish plucky!–owe you my life, my lad.’