It gave Mr. Petre a moment’s relief in his suffering to notice with what deference his old friend the clerk noted so strange a plan, without deposit, without explanation. He was more convinced than ever that this unknown Self was of vast consequence. Then, after all this trouble, a new thought struck him. Would it not be better to wait an hour or two? Could he not discover Terrard’s address and see whether it had really gone through? Such a man must be in the reference books. The miserable man hesitated, irresolute, when a shock hurled him into a decision. He saw, standing between himself and the light, a most extraordinary figure, tall, aquiline, with intense dark eyes, a waxed and forbidding mustache, black (for it was dyed), and an odd snarling way of speech, of which its owner was profoundly innocent, and which, indeed, he took for the common tone of a man about town. In that blotted-out mystery of the past he must—this sinister apparition must—have known Mr. Petre abominably well. A light of recognition shone in his eye. He strode up, a menacing smile upon his lips; he addressed Mr. Petre with a dreadful familiarity; he even did what your distant acquaintance commonly forbears to do, he darted out a forefinger, thrust it out against Mr. Petre’s side, and winked.
“Not stopping here, eh? Not quite your style? Where’ve you been all this time, eh? Hiding?”
Mr. Petre’s heart stopped beating.
“No,” he said, in a strained voice which he could hardly bring out. “No ... I’m not stopping here.” Then he dashed out through the door, leapt into a cab and was gone.
But in that little space to Waterloo, and in the train for two hours, his terror grew and grew. What had he done? What had he been? What thieves’ kitchen had he known? Who was that damnable stranger? How many men possessed what secrets of his life—and he possessing not the simplest, not the most innocuous detail of it?
Yes; he must, he must, he must discover; but he must discover before any fatal guess, any frightened random answer of his to some chance question, should destroy him.
One thing consoled him; the valiant loyalty of that Registration Clerk at the Splendide, whom now he felt to be his own brother in a world of misery and fear. For as Mr. Petre had leaped into that cab he had shot a glance at the dreadful Mephistopheles, and had seen him asking a question at the desk, and had seen the noble official, who had all power in his hands, shake his read resolutely and turn away.
But the whole thing was getting worse and worse; those brief hours, not forty-eight hours, only the second night after the blow had fallen—and already he was in the net, caught.