He would take a companion with him, he would take René.

That would defeat the dream.

The warning would have saved him; no-one would attack two of them and they could go armed; they need not go near the house, and they could proceed by water and not walk through the Park.

Claude felt almost himself again as he thought out this plan.

No sooner had he reached the Chamber than he found his friend and broached the scheme to him. René was agreeable, and readily accorded his company.

'I thought of it myself,' he said. 'I can easily get permission to come with you, and we will lay this ghost once and for ever.'

Claude was so relieved that he almost lost his old foreboding.

But the night before the journey he again dreamed that he was being murdered by the murderer of Ambrosine, who wore a green coat with dark blue frogs.

At the appointed hour they set out, René endeavouring to cheer Claude, who was gloomy and taciturn, but as the journey proceeded, his spirits rose; the charm had been proved wrong in the first instance, he was not going on horseback to Saint-Cloud.

But when they reached the gates of the park, he was disappointed to find the boat stopped at the little quay and began unloading.

René had arranged with the captain; and René, it seemed, had misunderstood.

The boat went no farther.

But it was only a short walk across the park to Saint-Cloud and the Deputy's house—the captain could not understand Claude's discomfiture.

Well, they must walk—here again the dream was wrong.

He had a companion. René laughed at him; the walk would do them good this cold evening, and they would be at their destination long before dusk—as for the return, if they were not offered hospitality, well, there were good inns at Saint-Cloud.

They entered the magnificent iron gates, now always open, and started briskly across the grass.

Here it was, exactly as he had seen it in his dreams, the huge bare trees, the dead leaves underfoot, the pallid gleam of the river to the right, the expanse of forest to the left, through which now and then a fountain or a statue showed.

It was bitterly cold, the sky veiled, and presently a thin mist rose off the river, dimming everything with fog. Like the dim light of his dream.

'We shall lose our way,' he said.

'No; I know this way well.'

'You know it?'

'When I was a boy I used to live at Saint-Cloud,' said René.

They proceeded more slowly, muffled to the throats in their greatcoats, which they had worn all the journey, for it had been cold on the river also.

Claude thought of Ambrosine till his senses reeled round that one image.

Here she had walked, he with her, often enough—near was her house, near her grave.

He seemed to see her in every dimness between the trees—Ambrosine, with her fair hair mingling with the mist.

Suddenly before him a huge fountain arose with a dried basin and a featureless statue behind. And René stopped to latch up his shoe.

He was not thinking of his dream now, but he had the sensation that this had all happened before. As he looked at René, he muttered to himself, half stupidly: 'What an extraordinary coincidence!'

Then René straightened himself and slipped his hand through his friend's arm.

His mantle had fallen back a little, and Claude saw that he wore a new suit, dark green, frogged with dark blue, and again he muttered: 'What an extraordinary coincidence!'

'I know the way,' said René, and led him, as if he had been a blind man, through the shifting mist.

In a few moments they stood on the outskirts of the park and before the decayed and deserted house of Ambrosine—as he had seen it, with the weeds in the garden and the bramble across the door.

They entered the little patch of ground.

'Now we are here,' said René, 'we may as well look inside.'

So saying, he wrenched off one of the rotting shutters and climbed into the room.

Claude followed him, like a creature deprived of wits.

They stood together in the damp, dull, bare room—as they had stood together in the dream.

Claude looked at René's face, which had quite changed. 'So you murdered her?' he said in a sick voice.

'You never guessed?' asked René. 'I loved her, you see, and she loved me till you came. And then I hated both of you. I was mad from then, I think, as mad as you with your infernal dreams.'

'You murdered Ambrosine!' whimpered Claude.

'And your dream showed me the way to murder you. I have been waiting so long to find how to do it.'

Claude began laughing.

'Her fair hair—if one could open her grave one might see it again—like a pillow for her head...' He looked at René, whose pale and distorted face seemed to grow larger, until it bore down on him like an evil thing blotting out hope.

Claude did not put a hand .to any of the weapons he had brought; he fell on his knees and held up his hands in an attitude of prayer, while he began to gabble senseless words.

And René fell on him with the knife that had killed Ambrosine.

 

4.—THE HIDDEN APE

No record of prior publication found

"Nothing at all," smiled the Doctor, "but a few bruises and shock. No, really nothing. It was a very brave thing for Joliffe to do," he added; "extremely brave."

"Of course, I understand that," said Professor Awkwright, a little stiffly. He felt that the Doctor thought him lacking in gratitude and sympathy, and he knew that he was indeed incapable of any emotional expression, also that he resented, deeply resented, the intrusion of the violent and sensational into a life that he had contrived to make exactly as he wished it to be.

But, all the same, he did feel immensely grateful to Joliffe, and said so again, snappishly, blinking behind the thick crystal spectacles that distorted his pale eyes.

"Naturally I shall do all in my power to show my deep appreciation."

The Doctor, who did not like the Professor, cheerfully remarked:

"It is rather rare, you know, for a scholar—a man who leads an intellectual and sedentary life—to be so prompt and decisive in action; it's no reflection on Joliffe to say that I would have thought him the last man—not to have the will to, but to have the power—to risk his life for another."

When the Doctor had gone Professor Awkwright rather resentfully considered these words. He agreed with the Doctor; he secretly thought that Joliffe's action was quite amazing and the last thing he would have expected of him.

"I could never have done it," he confessed to himself ruefully. He had always, in a kindly fashion, patronized Joliffe, but now Joliffe was definitely revealed as the superior being. Really, in the Professor's estimation, the whole episode was disagreeable, and what was worse, slightly ridiculous; he was sure that the Doctor had been faintly amused.

Yet, he certainly ought to feel grateful to Joliffe and on many counts.

The incident which had first alarmed, then irritated the Professor, was this: his orphan ward Edmund had been out as usual with his tutor, Samuel Joliffe, and Charles the vicar's son, just one of the usual rambles over the lovely North Wales hills which were undertaken every day as a matter of duty; when Edmund, scrambling on ahead, had slipped, like the clumsy lad he was, over a precipice and hung, stunned, on a ledge overhanging a ravine.

Now the Professor would have thought that the jolly athletic Charles, a stout, trained youth, would really without any fuss at all have gone down the face of the rock and brought up Edmund; but Charles had done nothing of the kind; he had just "lost his head" like a silly girl and could think of nothing better to do than to run and fetch help from the nearest cottage which was some distance away. On the other hand, Samuel Joliffe, middle-aged, stiff-limbed, shortsighted, absent-minded to all appearances, cautious and timid, whom no one would expect to be quick or active, had actually lowered himself down the face of the precipice, supported Edmund till help arrived and then, with great coolness and dexterity, with the aid only of a dubious rope and some frail saplings, hauled up Edmund and himself to safety.

It was all, Professor Awkwright thought, very grotesque, the sort of thing one would so much rather had not happened.

He peeped in at his nephew sleeping heavily on his bed behind a screen. Mrs. Carter, the housekeeper, was in charge; the wretched woman seemed to enjoy the sensation caused by the accident, as Professor Awkwright looked at the boy with the bandaged head, breathing heavily under the influence of the sleeping potion, she began to murmur the praises of Mr. Joliffe.

It was clear that the tutor would be a hero in the eyes of everyone; the Professor resented this as a fuss and an interruption to a very smooth existence, but he was, at bottom, a just, even an amiable man, and he did not wish to evade his obligations to Samuel Joliffe.

So he went downstairs rather nervously to the study where he was sure the tutor would be working and, as he went, he honestly put before himself the extent of his obligations towards Samuel Joliffe; these were very varied and deep and amounted to far more than gratitude for the rather absurd act of heroism yesterday.

Professor Awkwright was a born scholar and solitary; his one interest and passion was the most abstruse branch of archaeology, the deciphering of dead languages; he had always had sufficient means to enable him to devote himself entirely to this fascinating labor and the one interruption in a life otherwise devoid of incident had been when his only brother had died and left in his charge a sullen, unruly boy of ten years of age, of the type known as "difficult and awkward," slightly abnormal and not very lovable, but a boy who had a comfortable income from a nice little fortune that would make him, when he attained his majority, quite a wealthy man.

Professor Awkwright had the conventional ideas of duty and subscribed, to the full, to the codes endorsed by his class and training, so he very scrupulously did his best with his unwelcome charge and made the great sacrifice of keeping with him a boy so obviously unfitted for school.

And after the Professor had found Samuel Joliffe, Edmund was no trouble at all; and the little household in the exceedingly comfortable but lonely Welsh mansion ran very smoothly and with a most agreeable, if eventless, harmony.

For Samuel Joliffe, besides being the perfect tutor, was the perfect secretary, the perfect assistant, and had thrown himself with the greatest ardor into the Professor's enthusiastic labors.

Indeed, Professor Awkwright, pausing at the door of the study, realized, in the emotional upset of the accident, that Joliffe was absolutely essential to him; after eight years of his support, help, assistance and company Joliffe was indeed indispensable; indispensable, that was the word.

"I daresay," said the little scholar to himself, pausing on the threshold, "I never quite appreciated Joliffe—of course, he has been handsomely paid and very well treated, but really I don't believe that I ever quite realized his—his sterling worth."

And Professor Awkwright thought, with a shudder, how ghastly it would have been if poor Edmund had died in that miserable way; he was fond of the unattractive boy who would probably never evoke any other affection in all his futile life.

And with that sharp realization of happiness that comes when happiness is threatened, the Professor cast over with profound gratitude all the blessings he had hitherto taken for granted...the smooth, easy life; the congenial, successful work; the way that all four of them, himself, Joliffe, Edmund, Mrs. Carter the housekeeper, all fitted together, like hand in glove—the comfort, the peace, the ordered leisure of it all! And surely much of this was owing to Joliffe—Joliffe who was never out of humor, nor ill, nor wanted a holiday, who was never tired or dull, who had known from the first how to "manage" Edmund, who never crossed Mrs. Carter nor vexed the servants, who worked so diligently, with such enthusiasm and skill under his employer's direction...

The Professor opened the door quickly; he crossed to the desk where Joliffe was sitting (as he had known he would be), and said:

"I don't know how to thank you, Joliffe, how to express my gratitude, I really don't."

Joliffe rose and stared; this was the first time since his knowledge of him that Awkwright had expressed himself on impulse; the tutor stood humbly; behind him the huge desk was neatly piled with the manuscripts that embodied their joint labors on the subject of the Minoan language.

"But," added the Professor with even greater warmth, "I am quite resolved that you shall have your name on the book. That is only just—it is your work as much as mine, you have been far more, for years now, than an assistant—"

Joliffe's sandy face flushed.

"I could not think of that, sir, really, I couldn't; what I have done has been the greatest pleasure and honor."

He spoke sincerely, without servility; Awkwright grasped his hand.

"I know. But, of course, we are to go equal shares in this—I ought to have thought of it before."

He glowed with the pleasure of his generous action; it was no ordinary prize, no feeble glory that he offered; he believed that when his, their, book was published it would bring to the authors a fame equal to that of Champollion.

For the two secluded scholars working almost in secret were convinced that they had discovered the clue to the long-dead language of one of the most interesting civilizations of prehistoric Greece, that of Crete.

Joliffe said:

"I hope, sir, yesterday had not put this into your mind. What I did was nothing. Anyone would have done as much."

"I don't think so, Joliffe."

"Anyone, sir, as fond of Edmund as I am."

"Again I disagree. Presence of mind, coolness like that! Rare indeed. But, of course, one can't talk of rewards; absurd, of course; but—"

The Professor sat down in front of the great bow-window; his kindly, conventional and rather simple face, with the thin beard, speckled like his grey tweed coat, and the thinner hair exact and glossy over the large brow was clearly outlined against the shining laurels in the garden and the blue hills beyond.

Joliffe regarded him with meek intentness.

"But, you were saying, sir," he prompted—

"I was about to say," remarked the Professor candidly, "that a shock—like this—clarifies the air, as it were. I suppose we live rather a monotonous, rather an old-fogeyish sort of life, values get a little dimmed, one gets absorbed in the past, in one's work.