"I tell you, it didn't mean anything, but for a second it gave me a creepy feeling. We were alone on the deck, with the sea booming past and the deck-chairs sliding: and those two faces, either of which might have come out of canvas in an old gallery, looking at me in the twilight. But the next minute, along came Tim Emery, looking a little green but determined. He tried to be boisterous, and couldn't quite manage it. But it closed Bohun's mouth. Bohun detested both Emery and Rainger, and didn't trouble to conceal it."
"About," observed H. M. in a thoughtful rumble, "about Messrs. Rainger and Emery. Do you mean to tell me that a highly paid director, well known in his own name, threw up a good job to chase across the ocean with this wench?"
"Oh, no. He's on leave after two years without a vacation. But he chose to spend his vacation trying to persuade Marcia not to be a fool." Bennett hesitated, remembering the fat expressionless face with its cropped black hair, and the shrewd eyes that missed no detail. "Maybe," Bennett said, "somebody knows what that man thinks about. I don't. He's intelligent, he seems to guess your thoughts, and he's as cynical as a taxi-driver."
"But interested in Tait?"
"Well possibly."
"Signs of manifest doubt. You're very innocent, son," said H. M., extinguishing the stump of his cigar. "H'm. And this fella Emery?"
"Emery's more willing to talk than the others. Personally, I like him. He buttonholes me continually, because the others like to sit on him and he frankly detests 'em. He's the hopping, arm-flinging sort who can't sit still; and he's worried, because his job depends on getting Tait back to the studio. That's why he's there."
"Attitude?"
"He seems to have a wife back in California whose opinions he brings into every conversation. No. Interested in Tait as the late Mr. Frankenstein was interested: as something he'd created or helped create. Then, yesterday -
The poisoned chocolates.” As he began to speak, the heavy gong-voice of Big Ben rose and beat in vibrating notes along the Embankment. It was a reminder. Another city, with its blue dusks and deathly lights where top-hats made faces look like masks, and where Marcia Tait's welcome had been as tumultuous as in New York. The liner had docked day before yesterday. In the crush as the boat-train drew into Waterloo station, he had not had the opportunity for a leave-taking. But John Bohun had elbowed through the corridor for a parting handshake. "Look here," he said, scribbling on a card, "here's the address." Once in London atmosphere, he was himself again; brisk, efficient, humorous-eyed, because he was at home. "Marcia will go to the Savoy for one night, as a blind; she'll slip away tomorrow morning to this address. Nobody else knows it. We, shall see you, of course?"