Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the robot's head turned and shook his refusal.
Maugham stared, aghast. He was at a loss for word or deed.
"I never saw Maugham around again after that," continued Harrigan. "He virtually went into seclusion and no one saw him at his old haunts. Not that he'd been in the habit of moving around a good deal—he hadn't. But now, abruptly, he appeared to give up all his customary walks and visits and to retire into his house.
"You get used to situations like that involving inventive or creative people of course. You think nothing of it. I didn't, I know, though I was possessed of some curiosity about Herman. But out in his neighborhood, where people knew nothing about Herman, certain rumors began to circulate—that Maugham had hired an assistant, and that the assistant now did all Maugham's errands for him. And so on....
"I happened on a description of his assistant one afternoon and it sounded pretty much like Herman. I was amused at the way in which people can get things balled up. They do, you know. Take any court, any trial—the so-called 'circumstantial evidence,' correctly interpreted, is the most effectively damning. Eyewitness accounts vary as much as the weather and are as unreliable actually.
"So that too passed over me.
"I think it was about two months after I had last seen Maugham that I learned of his plans to move west. It was entirely an accident. I happened to be in the circulation department one morning when the circulation manager of the paper got a letter from Maugham asking him to change his address.
"'You know that fellow Maugham, don't you, Harrigan?' asked Howells.
"'Sure,' I said. 'What's he been up to now?'