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Page 8
"I believe so."
"May I suggest that your patient and the 'well-known man' to whom
you referred are one and the same?"
"It is not so, Mr. Harley," returned Sir Charles in a tired
voice. "Nothing so simple. I realize more than ever that I must
arrange my facts in some sort of historical order. Therefore I
ask you again: will you dine with me to-night?"
"With pleasure," replied Harley, promptly. "I have no other
engagement."
That his ready acceptance had immensely relieved the troubled
mind of Sir Charles was evident enough. His visitor stood up. "I
am not prone to sickly fancies, Mr. Harley," he said. "But a
conviction has been growing upon me for some time that I have
incurred, how I cannot imagine, but that nevertheless I have
incurred powerful enmity. I trust our evening's counsel may
enable you, with your highly specialized faculties, to detect an
explanation."
And it was instructive to note how fluently he spoke now that he
found himself temporarily relieved of the necessity of confessing
the source of his mysterious fears.
CHAPTER II. THE SIXTH SENSE
Paul Harley stepped into his car in Chancery Lane. "Drive in the
direction of Hyde Park Corner," he directed the chauffeur. "Go
along the Strand."
Glancing neither right nor left, he entered the car, and
presently they were proceeding slowly with the stream of traffic
in the Strand. "Pull up at the Savoy," he said suddenly through
the tube.
The car slowed down in that little bay which contains the
entrance to the hotel, and Harley stared fixedly out of the rear
window, observing the occupants of all other cars and cabs which
were following. For three minutes or more he remained there
watching. "Go on," he directed.
Again they proceeded westward and, half-way along Piccadilly,
"Stop at the Ritz," came the order.
The car pulled up before the colonnade and Harley, stepping out,
dismissed the man and entered the hotel, walked through to the
side entrance, and directed a porter to get him a taxicab. In
this he proceeded to the house of Sir Charles Abingdon. He had
been seeking to learn whether he was followed, but in none of the
faces he had scrutinized had he detected any interest in himself,
so that his idea that whoever was watching Sir Charles in all
probability would have transferred attention to himself remained
no more than an idea. For all he had gained by his tactics, Sir
Charles's theory might be no more than a delusion after all.
The house of Sir Charles Abingdon was one of those small,
discreet establishments, the very neatness of whose appointments
inspires respect for the occupant. If anything had occurred
during the journey to suggest to Harley that Sir Charles was
indeed under observation by a hidden enemy, the suave British
security and prosperity of his residence must have destroyed the
impression.
As the cab was driven away around the corner, Harley paused for a
moment, glancing about him to right and left and up at the neatly
curtained windows. In the interval which had elapsed since Sir
Charles's departure from his office, he had had leisure to survey
the outstanding features of the story, and, discounting in his
absence the pathetic sincerity of the narrator, he had formed the
opinion that there was nothing in the account which was not
susceptible of an ordinary prosaic explanation.
Sir Charles's hesitancy in regard to two of the questions asked
had contained a hint that they might involve intimate personal
matters, and Harley was prepared to learn that the source of the
distinguished surgeon's dread lay in some unrevealed episode of
the past. Beyond the fact that Sir Charles was a widower, he knew
little or nothing of his private life; and he was far too
experienced an investigator to formulate theories until all the
facts were in his possession. Therefore it was with keen interest
that he looked forward to the interview.
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