“I’ve got to get away. It’s no good, Henry.”
“I’ll give Piggy your letter,” Henry went on, “and tell him how you feel. He’ll recall you all right. But I know he’s very strong on your coming to life again. You ought to have done it ages ago; when you came back from Russia, in fact. Look here, Tony, be a reasonable being. Shave off your beard, and take the artistic colour off that scar. Turn up in London as yourself, and wire Raymond to come up and meet you. I want her got away from here.”
“Then get Piggy to wire to her, or her father. There are a dozen ways in which it can be done. I refuse quite definitely to have anything to do with it. If Piggy hasn’t recalled me by Monday, I shall simply go. You can tell him that, if you like; and you can tell him that I shall probably kill some one if I stay here.”
Without another word he got up, walked round the seat, and disappeared into the passage.
A little later Henry emerged from a cave upon the seashore. There were a number of these caves, some large, some small, under the far side of the headland.
The boundary of Luttrell Marches lay a quarter of a mile behind.
Henry walked briskly along the shore, keeping close to the cliff so that he might walk on rock instead of shingle. Presently he left the beach and climbed a steep zigzagging path. Twenty minutes’ walk brought him to a small inn where he picked up his car and drove away.
Next day in Sir Julian’s room he unburdened himself and delivered Anthony’s letter.
“’M, yes; I’ll recall him,” said Piggy frowning. “He’s no good where he is, if that’s his frame of mind. But it’s a pity—a pity. It bears out exactly what I’ve always said. He has extraordinary abilities; I suppose he might have made a brilliant success in almost any profession, but he’s impayable.... I don’t think we’ve got a word for it in English ...; he lacks the vein of mediocrity which I maintain is indispensable—the faculty of being ordinary which, for instance, you possess.”
Henry blushed a little, and Sir Julian laughed.