And then he fancied he could hear a sound within the flat, and he forgot these transcendental speculations, and for him the secret of the universe lay behind the blinds of Francis Tudor's drawing-room. Yes, he could hear a sound. It was the distant sound of a man talking—loudly, slowly, and distinctly—but too far off for him to catch even one word. He guessed, as he pushed the window a little wider open, and bent his ear to the aperture, that the voice must be in a room beyond the drawing-room. It continued monotonously for a long time, with little breaks at rare intervals; it was rather like a parson reading a sermon in an empty church. Then it ceased. And there were footsteps, which approached the window, and retired. He noticed that the light within the room was being moved, but it cast no human shadow on the blind. The light came finally to a standstill, and then there followed sounds which Hugo could not diagnose—short, regular sounds, broken occasionally by a sharp clash, as of an instrument falling. And when these had come to an end, there were more footsteps—a precise, quick walking to and fro, which continued for ages of time. Lastly, the footsteps receded; something dropped, not heavily, but rather in a manner gently subsiding, and a groan (or was it a moan, a tired suspiration?) wakened in Hugo's spinal column a curious, strange thrill. Then silence, complete, definitive, terrifying.
By merely pushing the window against the blind, he could enter and know the secret of the universe.
'Why am I doing this?' he asked himself, while he pushed the window. 'Why have I done this?' he asked himself, as he stood within the immense and luxurious room.
He gazed round with a swift and timid glance, as a man would who expects to see that which ought not to be seen. To his left was the fireplace, with a magnificent mirror over it. On the mantelpiece burned a movable electric table—lamp, with twin branched lights. He observed the silk-covered cord lying across the mantelpiece and disappearing over the further edge; by the side of the lamp was a screwdriver. Exactly in front of the lamp, on a couple of trestles such as undertakers use, lay an elm coffin, its head towards the mantelpiece. At the opposite end of the room was another fireplace and another mirror, with the result that Hugo saw an endless succession of coffins and corpse-lights, repeated and repeated, till they were lost in a vague crystal blur, and by every pair of corpse-lights was a screwdriver.
He stood moveless, and listened, and could detect no faintest sound. Across the room from the principal window there was a doorway with a heavy portière; not a fold of the portière stirred. To his right, near the other window, was a door—the door by which Camilla had entered that night a month ago; it was shut. His glance searched among the rich confusion of furniture—fauteuils, occasional tables, sofas, statuary, vases, cabinets. He peered into every corner of the silent chamber, and saw nothing that gave a sign of life. He even gazed up guiltily at the decorated ceiling, as though some Freemason's Eye might be scanning him from above.
The coffin reigned in the room; all else was subservient to its massive and sinister presence, and the bright twin-lamps watched over its majesty with dazzling orbs.
Hugo went near the coffin, stepping on tip-toe over the thick-piled rugs, and examined it. There was no name-plate. He looked at himself in the mirror, and again he murmured a question: 'Why am I here?' Then he listened attentively, fearfully. No sound. His hands travelled to the screwdriver on the mantelpiece, and then fifty of his hands picked up fifty screwdrivers. And he listened once more. No sound.
'I must do it. I must,' he thought.
The next moment he was unscrewing the screws in the lid of the coffin, and scarcely had he begun the task when he realized that what he had heard from the balcony was the screwing of these same screws. There were twelve, and some of them were difficult to start, but in due course he had removed them all, and they stood in a row on their heads on the mantelpiece. He listened yet again. No sound. He had only to push the lid of the coffin to the left or to the right, or to lift it up. He spent several seconds in deciding whether he should push or lift, and then at length fifty Hugos lifted bodily the lids of fifty coffins. And after a dreadful hesitation he lowered his gaze and looked.
Yes, it was Camilla! He had known always that it would be Camilla.