“That’s not the point,” exclaimed the Prophet, hastily. “The point is which promise is to be kept.”
“I should say the one made to the relative. Wait a bit, though! Yes, I should say that.”
The Prophet breathed a sigh of relief. But some dreadful sense of honesty within him compelled him to add,—
“I forgot to say that he’d pledged his honour to the architects—that is, to the strangers who lived beside a river.”
“What—and not pledged it to the relative?”
“Well, no.”
“Then he ought to stick to the promise he’d pledged his honour over, of course. Nice for the relative! The man’s a damned fool, Hen. Do have a drink, old chap.”
Thus did Mr. Robert Green drive the Prophet to take the first decisive step that was to lead to so many complications,—the step towards Mr. Ferdinand’s pantry.
At precisely a quarter to eleven p.m. the Prophet stood upon his doorstep and, very gently indeed, inserted his latchkey into the door. A shaded lamp was burning in the deserted hall, where profound silence reigned. Clear was the night and starry. As the Prophet turned to close the door he perceived the busy crab, and the thought of his beloved grandmother, sinking now to rest on the second floor all unconscious of the propinquity of the scorpion, the contiguity of the serpent, filled his expressive eyes with tears. He shut the door, stood in the hall and listened. He heard a chair crack, the ticking of a clock. There was no other sound, and he felt certain that Mr. Ferdinand and Gustavus had heeded his anxious medical directions and gone entirely to bed betimes, leaving the butler’s pantry free for the nocturnal operations of the victim of Madame. For he recognised that she was the guiding spirit of the family that dwelt beside the Mouse. He might have escaped out of the snare of Mr. Sagittarius, but Madame was a fowler who would hold him fast till she had satisfied herself once and for all whether it were indeed possible to dwell in the central districts, within reach of the Army and Navy heaven in Victoria Street, and yet remain a prophet. Yes, he must now work for the information of her ambitious soul. He sighed deeply and went softly up the stairs. His chamber was on the same floor as Mrs. Merillia’s, and, as he neared her door, he rose instinctively upon his toes and, grasping the tails of his evening coat firmly with his left hand, to prevent any chance rustling of their satin lining, and bearing his George the Third silver candlestick steadily to control any clattering of its extinguisher, he moved on rather like a thief who was also a trained ballerina, holding his breath and pressing his lips together in a supreme agony of dumbness.
Unluckily he tripped in the raised pattern of the carpet, the candlestick uttered a silver note, his pent-in breath escaped with a loud gulp, and Mrs. Merillia’s delicate voice cried out from behind her shut door,—