and took her to theatres, dances, and music-halls. Our friendship gave place to the close ties of love, and the day before I returned to Harthaven we were engaged to be married.
On the very day that I left London I received a letter from Turton, telling me that Jacob Arum and Brike had taken their departure from Brent Lodge, that the house was not to be sold, but that most of the contents were to be put up to auction at Christie's. I called to see Turton on my way from the station, and he handed me an envelope posted in London.
"From our friend Arum," he said. "It was only delivered here this morning."
I took the letter from its open envelope and read it.
"Dear Professor Turton" (Arum had written) "It may interest you to know that your conduct has driven me from the house where I hoped to have ended my days in peace. Your talk of devils and enchantments, and horrible savage rites became unbearable. It is such people as you that make village life in England impossible to those who want rest.—JACOB ARUM."
I laughed and laid the letter down on the table.
"I suppose you have been pretty busy," I said; and then I told him the great news, and he shook me warmly by the hand.
"I suspected it," he chuckled; "I suspected it. Oh, I've got eyes for witchcraft—whatever form it takes."
I asked him to dine with me that night, and, as I passed Saltby's house, I saw the doctor at the window, and stopped the car. He came hurrying out, and I told him that I was going to marry Audrey Pinson.
"Best of luck, old chap," he said. "By the by, our friend—"
"I know, I know," I interrupted. "You're to dine with me tonight—at half-past seven. A sort of celebration. Old Turton is coming. We'll have a jolly good dinner. I wired instructions yesterday."
I told the chauffeur to drive on. Saltby wanted to talk about Jacob Arum—I was sure of that. And I had had no food since half-past eight in the morning.
I CAN only tell you that Turton bored us to tears that night. He talked about witchcraft and devils and rites and incantations until I really began to think that he had gone completely off his head.
If he had been a young man, we should have thrown cushions at him and sat on his head. As it was, we could only be rude. But Turton, with a certain amount of drink inside him, was as obstinate as a mule and as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros. He wandered off into all sorts of bypaths, but he always returned to the starting-place—his firm belief that Jacob Arum had actually died, and had been raised to life again by Brike's witchcraft.
"I know the man was dead," he kept on saying. "I'm not a fool. If that whippersnapper Saltby knew half as much as I do, he'd be a consulting physician in Harley Street by now."
We were forced at last to take Turton as a joke, and we chaffed him unmercifully. He was more sensitive to ridicule than he was to direct insult, and he lost his temper about half-past ten, when we were in the middle of a game of snooker pool. He flung down his cue, put on his coat, and announced his intention of going home.
"You're a couple of turnips," he said; "and I think a turnip is the most beastly vegetable in the world. I tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to spend the rest of tonight in that house, and perhaps the whole of tomorrow, and I'll bet you each a hundred pounds that I find proofs of Brike's deviltries!"
We laughed, but when he had left the room, I said to Saltby:
"He's drunk, or gone clean off his head. You must go with him."
"I'm blessed if I do," Saltby replied. "Let him break his own neck if he likes."
"He is an old man," I pleaded; "and an old friend. And, of course, he's furious that he made that mistake about Jacob Arum. Come, Saltby, be a sportsman."
"He's spoilt our jolly evening," grumbled the young doctor. "Oh, well, I'll go. After all, I don't want him to fall into the creek."
They took their departure, old Turton muttering to himself, and Saltby very silent and dignified. I returned to the library, and sat before the fire.
I was not sorry that the evening had ended so abruptly. I wanted to be alone with my very pleasant thoughts of Audrey Pinson.
THE next morning I walked down into the village, called at Saltby's house, and learned that he had been out all night—that he had returned at eleven o'clock the night before, had put a cake and a flask of brandy in his pockets, and had said that he might not be back until lunch.
Further on, in the village, I went to Turton's cottage, and found that Turton—much to the distress of his old house keeper—had slipped a scribbled note under the door, saying that he would not be home until late the following day, and that he would like cold pheasant for supper. It was evident to me that they were both at Brent Lodge, and I decided to go there to look for them.
It was a cold morning, and the fog, though not thick enough to prevent one from walking along at a brisk rate, made it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. And so it came about that when I neared the high brick wall of Brent Lodge, and saw a vague black mass looming through the mist, I thought for a moment that I had lost my way, and was face to face with one of the numerous tarred wooden cottages in the village.
Another half-dozen steps, and I realized that it was only an enormous furniture van. A foreman was sitting on the tail of it, smoking a pipe.
"Hallo!" I said. "Going to move all this stuff to be sold at Christie's?"
"Goin' to move it, sir," the man replied; "but it 'as bin sold, and I 'ear a nice price was paid for it, too."
"Who bought it?" I queried.
"Mr. Ruben, sir, of Bond Street; we're goin' to take it all up today. There'll be two more vans along here before noon."
The news rather surprised me, for Turton had distinctly stated that the contents of the house were to be put up to auction.
"Seen two gentlemen about?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, I saw 'em—diggin' in the garden; no business of mine."
Two workmen came out with a table carefully wrapped in matting.
"Twenty-three," shouted one of them; and the foreman ticked off the number in his book. It was evident that Brike and Arum had indexed and ticketed everything before they left the house.
I passed through the door into the garden. One could not even see the house. A few rose bushes and some shrubs showed indistinctly.
I had no intention of walking through that long wet grass, hunting for Turton and Saltby. If they chose to dig in the garden that was their own affair. I imagined that it was some nonsense of Turton's. No doubt he was looking for the bodies of black fowls.
I entered the house, and saw that everything was packed for removal, and that each label bore a number and a description of the article to which it was attached. I lit my pipe and chatted with the workmen. One of them had seen
