It was on the Monday and about five o'clock in the afternoon. He was walking from the Charing Cross Road towards Leicester Square, when, from a doorway ahead of him, a couple emerged. They did not turn his way but preceded him, so that he only saw their backs. But he had no doubt who one of the couple was. The fair hair, the tall, slim, long-limbed figure, the perverse sloppiness of dress which could not quite obscure her grace of youth, betrayed the disdainful prodigy of Rackham Park. The creator of Linda Spavinsky swam ahead of him. Had he doubted her identity, a glance at the door from which she had emerged would have dispelled the doubt. It was the entrance to a picture gallery, where, cubes and curves having served their turn and gone, the rotundists were having an innings. Everybody and everything was in rounds, palaces and gardens and ships and Westminster Bridge, and men and women were all in circles. The circle was the principle of life and art. Joan Whitworth would be drawn to the exhibition as a filing to a magnet. Undoubtedly Joan Whitworth was ahead of Hillyard and he began to hurry after her. But he checked himself after a few paces. Or rather the aspect of her companion checked him. His appearance was vaguely familiar, but that was all. It was not certainly Sir Chichester Splay, for the all-sufficient reason that the Private View had long gone by; since the very last week of the exhibition was announced in the window. Moreover, the man in front of him was younger than Sir Chichester.
The couple, however, crossed the road to the Square Garden, and Hillyard saw the man in profile. He stopped so suddenly that a man walking behind him banged heavily against his back. The man walked on and turned round after he had passed to stare at Hillyard. For Hillyard stood stock still, he was unaware that any one had run into him, in all his body his lips alone moved.
"Mario," he whispered. "Mario Escobar!"
The man who had been so far the foremost in his thoughts during the last weeks that he never thought that he could have failed to recognise him. Mario Escobar! And with Joan Whitworth. Millicent Splay's letter flashed back into his memory. The distress which he had seemed to hear loud behind the written words—was this its meaning and explanation? Joan Whitworth and Mario Escobar! Certainly Joan knew him! He was sitting next to her on the night when "The Dark Tower" was produced, sitting next to her, and talking to her. Sir Charles Hardiman had used some phrase to describe that conversation. Hillyard was strangely anxious to recapture the phrase. Escobar was talking to her with an air of intimacy a little excessive in a public place. Yes, that was the sentence.
Hillyard walked on quickly to his club.
"Is Sir Charles Hardiman here?" he asked of the hall porter.
"He is in the card-room, sir."
Martin Hillyard went up the stairs with a sense of relief. His position was becoming a little complicated. Mario Escobar was B45, and a friend of Joan Whitworth, and a friend of the Splays. There was one point upon which Martin Hillyard greatly needed information.
Hardiman, a little heavier and broader and more obese than when Hillyard had last seen him, was sitting by a bridge table overlooking the players. He never played himself, nor did he ever bet upon the game, but he took a curious pleasure in looking on, and would sit in the card-room by the hour engrossed in the fall of the cards. The sight of Hillyard, however, plucked him out of his occupation.
"So you're back!" he cried, heaving himself heavily out of his chair and shaking hands with Martin.