I got some breakfast at a coffee stall, and felt refreshed and less hopeless. As I turned to go away, I heard a voice beside me giving an order for some coffee; I turned quickly, and saw that it was young Arnold Millard. He looked forlorn and tired and haggard; I was doubtful at first whether to speak to him. I decided, however, that I might do some good, if I persuaded him that Murray Olivant was about to leave the country; it might at least drive out of his mind the murderous thought that obsessed it then. I ventured to touch his sleeve; he looked round quickly, and recognized me.
"Well, what do you want?" he asked.
"I wanted to say something about last night, sir," I replied in a whisper. "Surely it was better I should prevent you from doing what was in your mind."
He took the cup of coffee from the man, and began to drink it, without replying to me. I went on speaking after a moment or two in an eager whisper.
"He lied to you, the young lady was not there at all," I said. "More than that, he's failed to get hold of her, and he's giving up the game. He goes abroad to-morrow. And I don't know where the young lady is."
He looked at me over the cup he held, and spoke sternly. "It's a lie—and you know it," he said slowly. "Look me in my eyes now—fair and square—and tell me that he's going away."
I suppose I was never a good hand at that business of deceit; I tried now to raise my eyes to his; tried to get some words out that should bravely defend the statement I had made. But the words would not come, and my eyes fell. I turned away hurriedly, and I heard his derisive laughter echoing after me as I went. I knew that I had only made matters worse.
I had gone but a few yards when he overtook me; seized me roughly by the shoulder, and swung me round, so that I faced him. "You are his servant and his slave," he said contemptuously, "and so I suppose you must lie for the sake of your bread and butter. But tell him that his lies won't serve him; tell him that my mind is as firmly made up about him as it ever will be about anything. I know he's hiding from me—but that shan't serve him. Tell him from me that I mean to kill him, just as I said I would. It's his body for her soul: a fair exchange!"
I would have protested further, but he waved me aside impatiently, and strode off into the darkness. I wondered then if there was any man in London that morning quite so miserable as I was: any man who had failed in everything he had undertaken as I had failed. I had started out so well, with such high hopes and such high ideals—and, lo! they had all come to nothing, and it was written that I was to fail again.
I carried that thought with me through all the long day. It was with me when presently I went to Murray Olivant's flat, and stood with apparent humility before him, while he looked through his letters and toyed with his breakfast; it was with me when he put the money into my hands that was to pay, in part, for his trick—that money with which I was to purchase the steamer tickets. He had decided to go by a comparatively small vessel to the Mediterranean; or, at all events, to let it be thought that he was going by that vessel. I remember that it was called the Eaglet; and he kept up that mad trick so that he was even careful as to the choosing of his cabin. I was supposed to accompany him, and a berth was engaged for me.