“Well, Rex,—do be careful. This obsession about your bride in distress is interfering seriously with business. It’s all very well, but we—the firm—have to get on and to live.”
His reproach, I felt, was amply justified. I might have quarreled with another man in my present state of mind, but Hensman and I had been friends for many years and I had a real and deep liking and respect for him. He was the last man on earth with whom I could wish to quarrel.
“You’re quite right, old man,” I said at last. “It’s not fair on you. I’ll try to pull myself together. You don’t want us to part company?”
“Don’t be an ass, Rex,” he replied with a laugh. “It isn’t so tragic as all that. But you are playing with fire. Suppose Audley turns up all right? You are getting yourself tied up in a hopeless knot and my advice to you, once for all, is to cut yourself adrift from the whole business and have nothing more to do with it. After all, Mrs. Audley is not in actual want and whatever may have happened at Mürren she has no shadow of claim on you any further. Certainly there is no kind of reason why you should run yourself into any danger for her sake. I can’t help thinking that there is more behind the matter than we know and that those letters are meant seriously. If you were in any way legitimately involved I would not suggest you should show the white feather—indeed, I would come in with you myself to the limit. But put the question to yourself: is there any real reason, apart from your infatuation for the girl—herself a married woman, why you should continue to take a hand in a very perplexing and unprofitable business. If we knew Audley was dead and you are really fond of the girl, it would be, I quite admit, a different thing.”
I could not pretend that there was any flaw in his logic. Yet I was still restless and dissatisfied. I went home with him that night and dined with his wife and himself in their quaint little cottage home at Hampton. As I sat in that small low-pitched room—for the house was composed of two old-world cottages knocked into one—I envied my partner his domestic happiness.
When I got back to Russell Square I sat down before the big fire old Mrs. Chapman had left me and for the thousandth time went over the affair from the beginning seeking to recall any trivial circumstance that might throw some light upon it. As to the personal threat, I recklessly made up my mind that I would not allow it to influence me at all: I would not run the risk of being fooled by a practical joke on the one hand, or, on the other, weakly run away if there were any real danger.
I decided that, in any case, I would see Dr. Feng, show him the letters and, if necessary, ask him bluntly whether he were the sender.
So at eleven o’clock next morning the maid at the comfortable house in Barnes showed me into the Doctor’s sitting-room, and a few seconds later Feng, with a smile of welcome, entered with outstretched hand.
“Well, Yelverton, so pleased to see you,” he said, inviting me to a chair. “And how are things going with you?”
“Oh, pretty much as usual,” I replied rather moodily.