'My dear Douglas, you are so mysterious, and so unexpectedly--shall I say, didactic! You do intend to be didactic, don't you, dear?--that you must excuse my calling your attention to the fact that the person who brought this note still waits.'
I rang the bell. Bartlett appeared.
'Tell the person who brought this letter that the answer is: "I am coming at once."'
When the servant had vanished, Violet eyed me with a quizzical smile.
'So you are going. I hope that the Marquis of Twickenham has exaggerated the gravity of his condition, and that on your arrival you will find him in the enjoyment of perfect health. Is that the kind of observation you think I ought to make?'
'It's quite possible,' I retorted, 'that I shan't find the Marquis of Twickenham at all.'
With that I left her. As I journeyed Strandwards I discussed within myself the possibility. Such was the conflict of my emotions that when the cab was about to turn off the Embankment into Norfolk Street I bade the driver go a little farther on before taking me to my destination. I knew that from the moment in which I set foot in the building, which Mr. Babbacombe had chosen for the exhibition of his uncanny gifts, I was committed to a course of action which, I was beginning to realise more clearly every moment, might lead I knew not whither. I might have been the first to pull the strings, but the figure once set in motion, if I was not careful, might have me at its mercy for ever and a day.
'I'll put a stop to the gruesome farce at its very opening. I'll tell the fellow that I'll have nothing to do with his hideous deception. If I become the accomplice of such a fiend as he is, my latter state will be worse than my first.'
With the determination strong upon me to be quit of the man and his misdeeds, I alighted at the door of Cortin's Hotel.
'Is the Marquis of Twickenham here?'