Three John Silence Stories | Page 4

African spears, hung on the wall behind her. A hat-rack,
with a bronze plate full of very large cards, led his eye swiftly to a dark
staircase beyond. Mrs. Pender had round eyes like a child's, and she
greeted him with an effusiveness that barely concealed her emotion, yet
strove to appear naturally cordial. Evidently she had been looking out
for his arrival, and had outrun the servant girl. She was a little
breathless.
"I hope you've not been kept waiting--I think it's most good of you to
come--" she began, and then stopped sharp when she saw his face in the
gaslight. There was something in Dr. Silence's look that did not
encourage mere talk. He was in earnest now, if ever man was.
"Good evening, Mrs. Pender," he said, with a quiet smile that won
confidence, yet deprecated unnecessary words, "the fog delayed me a
little. I am glad to see you."
They went into a dingy sitting-room at the back of the house, neatly
furnished but depressing. Books stood in a row upon the mantelpiece.
The fire had evidently just been lit. It smoked in great puffs into the
room.
"Mrs. Sivendson said she thought you might be able to come," ventured
the little woman again, looking up engagingly into his face and
betraying anxiety and eagerness in every gesture. "But I hardly dared to
believe it. I think it is really too good of you. My husband's case is so
peculiar that--well, you know, I am quite sure any ordinary doctor
would say at once the asylum--"

"Isn't he in, then?" asked Dr. Silence gently.
"In the asylum?" she gasped. "Oh dear, no--not yet!"
"In the house, I meant," he laughed.
She gave a great sigh.
"He'll be back any minute now," she replied, obviously relieved to see
him laugh; "but the fact is, we didn't expect you so early--I mean, my
husband hardly thought you would come at all."
"I am always delighted to come--when I am really wanted, and can be
of help," he said quickly; "and, perhaps, it's all for the best that your
husband is out, for now that we are alone you can tell me something
about his difficulties. So far, you know, I have heard very little."
Her voice trembled as she thanked him, and when he came and took a
chair close beside her she actually had difficulty in finding words with
which to begin.
"In the first place," she began timidly, and then continuing with a
nervous incoherent rush of words, "he will be simply delighted that
you've really come, because he said you were the only person he would
consent to see at all--the only doctor, I mean. But, of course, he doesn't
know how frightened I am, or how much I have noticed. He pretends
with me that it's just a nervous breakdown, and I'm sure he doesn't
realise all the odd things I've noticed him doing. But the main thing, I
suppose--"
"Yes, the main thing, Mrs. Pender," he said, encouragingly, noticing
her hesitation.
"--is that he thinks we are not alone in the house. That's the chief
thing."
"Tell me more facts--just facts."
"It began last summer when I came back from Ireland; he had been

here alone for six weeks, and I thought him looking tired and
queer--ragged and scattered about the face, if you know what I mean,
and his manner worn out. He said he had been writing hard, but his
inspiration had somehow failed him, and he was dissatisfied with his
work. His sense of humour was leaving him, or changing into
something else, he said. There was something in the house, he declared,
that"--she emphasised the words--"prevented his feeling funny."
"Something in the house that prevented his feeling funny," repeated the
doctor. "Ah, now we're getting to the heart of it!"
"Yes," she resumed vaguely, "that's what he kept saying."
"And what was it he did that you thought strange?" he asked
sympathetically. "Be brief, or he may be here before you finish."
"Very small things, but significant it seemed to me. He changed his
workroom from the library, as we call it, to the sitting-room. He said all
his characters became wrong and terrible in the library; they altered, so
that he felt like writing tragedies--vile, debased tragedies, the tragedies
of broken souls. But now he says the same of the sitting-room, and he's
gone back to the library."
"Ah!"
"You see, there's so little I can tell you," she went on, with increasing
speed and countless gestures. "I mean it's only very small things he
does and says that are queer. What frightens me is that he assumes
there is some one else in the house all the time--some one I never see.
He does not actually say so,