Mr. Manley, having dealt with the letters which had come by the five-o'clock post, read half a dozen chapters of the last published novel of Artzybachev with the pleasure he never failed to draw from the works of that author. Then he dressed and set forth, in a very cheerful spirit, to dine with Helena Truslove. His cheerful expectations were wholly fulfilled. She had divined that he was endowed, not only with a romantic spirit, but with a hearty and discriminating appetite, and was careful to give him good food and wine and plenty of both. With his coffee he smoked one of Lord Loudwater's favourite cigars. Expanding naturally, he talked with spirit and intelligence during dinner, and made love to her after dinner with even more spirit and intelligence. As a rule, he stayed on the nights he dined with her till a quarter to eleven. But that night she dismissed him at ten o'clock, saying that she was feeling tired and wished to go to bed early. Smoking another of Lord Loudwater's favourite cigars, he walked briskly back to the Castle, more firmly convinced than ever that every possible step must be taken to prevent any diminution of the income of a woman of such excellent taste in food and wine. It would be little short of a crime to discourage the exercise of her fine natural gift for stimulating the genius of a promising dramatist.
He was not in the habit of going to bed early, and having put on slippers and an old and comfortable coat, he once more turned to the novel by Artzybachev. He read two more chapters, smoking a pipe, and then he became aware that he was thirsty.
He could have mixed himself a whisky and soda then and there, for he had both in the cupboard, in his sitting-room. But he was a stickler for the proprieties: he had drunk red wine, Burgundy with his dinner and port after it, and after red wine brandy is the proper spirit. There would be brandy in the tantalus in the small dining-room.
He went quietly down the stairs. The big hall, lighted by a single electric bulb, was very dim, and he took it that, as was their habit, the servants had already gone to bed. As he came to the bottom of the stairs the door at the back of the hall opened; James Hutchings came through the doorway and shut the door quietly behind him.
Mr. Manley stood still. James Hutchings came very quietly down the hall, saw him, and started.
"Good evening, Hutchings. I thought you'd left us," said Mr. Manley, in a rather unpleasant tone.
"You may take your oath to it!" said James Hutchings truculently, in a much more unpleasant tone than Mr. Manley had used. "I just came back to get a box of cigarettes I left in the cupboard of my pantry. I don't want any help in smoking them from any one here."
He opened the library door gently, went quietly through it, and drew it to behind him, leaving Mr. Manley frowning at it. It was a fact that Hutchings carried a packet, which might very well have been cigarettes; but Mr. Manley did not believe his story of his errand. He took it that he was leaving the Castle by one of the library windows. Well, it was no business of his.
At a few minutes past eight the next morning he was roused from the deep dreamless sleep which follows good food and good wine well digested, by a loud knocking on his door. It was not the loud, steady and prolonged knocking which the third housemaid found necessary to wake him. It was more vigorous and more staccato and jerkier. Also, a voice was calling loudly:
"Mr. Manley, sir! Mr. Manley! Mr. Manley!"