And at that chance utterance Willoughby's briar pipe ceased suddenly to bubble. A moment's silence followed, then Willoughby swore violently, and a second later he stamped upon the carpet. Durrance's imagination was kindled by this simple sequence of events, and he straightway made up a little picture in his mind. In one chair himself smoking his cigar, a round table holding a match-stand on his left hand, and on the other side of the table Captain Willoughby in another chair. But Captain Willoughby lighting his pipe and suddenly arrested in the act by a sentence spoken without significance, Captain Willoughby staring suspiciously in his slow-witted way at the blind man's face, until the lighted match, which he had forgotten, burnt down to his fingers, and he swore and dropped it and stamped it out upon the floor. Durrance had never given a thought to that dinner till this moment. It was possible it might deserve much thought.
"There were you and I and Feversham present," he went on. "Feversham had asked us there to tell us of his engagement to Miss Eustace. He had just come back from Dublin. That was almost the last we saw of him." He took a pull at his cigar and added, "By the way, there was a third man present."
"Was there?" asked Willoughby. "It's so long ago."
"Yes—Trench."
"To be sure, Trench was present. It will be a long time, I am afraid, before we dine at the same table with poor old Trench again."
The carelessness of his voice was well assumed; he leaned forwards and struck another match and lighted his pipe. As he did so, Durrance laid down his cigar upon the table edge.
"And we shall never dine with Castleton again," he said slowly.
"Castleton wasn't there," Willoughby exclaimed, and quickly enough to betray that, however long the interval since that little dinner in Feversham's rooms, it was at all events still distinct in his recollections.
"No, but he was expected," said Durrance.
"No, not even expected," corrected Willoughby. "He was dining elsewhere. He sent the telegram, you remember."