The Tower of Oblivion Part 9

And her restlessness communicated itself to me. I too felt that in talking to Madge Aird the previous evening, in reading that wretched book all night, in not having told Miss Oliphant straight away what I had to say, I had lost precious time. Some step ought to have been taken quicker--immediately----

"d.a.m.n!" I said as another extended arm stopped us; and Julia Oliphant sank back, biting her lip.

Then an endless wait at the corner of Charing Cross Road....

But even that taxi-drive had to come to an end.

"It's just near here, isn't it?" she asked, her hand on the door; and I sprang out. It would be quicker to walk the last few yards. These few yards, however, nearly cost Miss Oliphant her life, for I only just succeeded in dragging her out of the way of a newsboy's bicycle that darted like a minnow from behind a heavy dray. We stood at Rose's door.

I pressed the b.u.t.ton of his bell, which was the third of a little vertical row of four; but even as I did so I noticed something unusual about its appearance. The little bra.s.s slip that bore his name had gone.

I was unable to say whether it had been there on the previous evening, as he himself had admitted me, but gone it was now, and from certain indications it seemed not to have been unscrewed, but wrenched off. My heart sank, but I was careful to conceal from Miss Oliphant the foreboding I felt.

"He may be out," I muttered. "I'll ring for the housekeeper."

To fetch Mrs Hyems up from her bas.e.m.e.nt took more time, but at last she appeared, and a look of mingled perplexity and relief came into the eyes that met mine.

"Mr Rose?" I said.

"Aren't you the gentleman as came last night, sir?" she said. "Didn't he go out with you? I heard you come down; about eleven o'clock it would be; and he didn't seem to be not a minute after you----"

"Hasn't he been back since?"

"I can't make it out, sir. He hasn't been to bed, and there was a note for me on his table this morning. Paid all up he has, but not a word about his milk nor his washing nor his letters nor when he's coming back. And he left his door open, which that isn't his way. Perhaps you'd like to come up, sir?"

We followed her up the stairs. His door still stood wide open, and as far as I could see his room was exactly as I had left it last night. The medicine-ball still lay where it had rolled on the floor, the cushions of the sofa still bore the imprint of his body. I turned to the caretaker.

"You say he's paid you, Mrs Hyems?"

"To the end of the week, sir, except for his washing and ceterer."

"And he's left no address?"

"No more than I tell you, sir."

"Then," I said briskly, "I should just tidy his room and close his door.

He'll probably be back to-night. If he isn't let me know. Here's my address."

But as I said it I seemed to see again those marks where his name-plate had been. Derry always carried, suspended in his trousers-pocket by a little swivelled thong, one of those fearsome-looking compendium knives that consist of half a dozen tools in one. The plate had not been unscrewed; what he had done had been to thrust one of these blades behind it and to rip it bodily from its bed. I pictured it all only too clearly. Myself carefully watched out of the way--a cheque hurriedly written--a gulp of whisky perhaps and the call of the streets--a dash downstairs with his door left open behind him--a minute's feverish work over the plate.... He had left his books, his papers, his furniture, his medicine-ball. But his name he had taken away, and I did not think that those rooms in Cambridge Circus would see Derwent Rose's face any more.

PART II

THE STERN CHASE

I

_Lost_: A man with a bra.s.s name-plate in his pocket, probably bent in wrenching. Personal appearance difficult to describe, because something has happened to him that does not happen to the generality of people. When last seen appeared to be about thirty-five, but may look younger. Was wearing dark blue suit and shirt with torn neckband.

_Missing_: Derwent Rose, novelist, late of 120 _bis_, Cambridge Circus, W.C. Age forty-five, tall and very strongly built, eyes grey-blue, hair chestnut-brown, strikingly handsome features. In possession of money, as his banking account was closed the morning after his disappearance. Served with Second Battalion Royal Firthshire Fusiliers. Is thought not to have left the country.

_For Disposal_: Quant.i.ty of black oak furniture, comprising Jacobean oval table with beaded edge (copy), six upright chairs, tallboy, chest; also large bra.s.s bedstead, drawers, two pairs heavy damask curtains, crockery, plate, etc., etc. Also several thousand volumes, including small collection medical works, and others Curious and Miscellaneous. The whole may be viewed at 120 _bis_, Cambridge Circus, W.C. Apply Caretaker.

So the announcements might have run had there been any; but there were none. I saw to that. The police are excellent people, but I considered this a little out of their line and did not call them in. As for the furniture and effects, they remained for the present where they were, I paying his rent and putting his key into my pocket. As for Derwent Rose, novelist, aged forty-five, it might be months before anybody missed him, and it would be supposed that he had gone into retirement to write a book. As for the man with the torn neckband and the bra.s.s name-plate in his pocket, a prudent person would be a little careful how he tried to identify him. You see what I mean. Julia Oliphant and myself were in a cla.s.s apart; we should know him on sight, since we knew what had happened to him and what we might expect. But n.o.body else knew, n.o.body in the whole wide world. Therefore they would be wise to look at him twice before accosting him. n.o.body wants to be certified and locked up, and that was what might conceivably happen if anybody insisted too much on resemblance or ident.i.ty in the case of a man who was obviously fifteen or twenty years younger than he could be proved to be. Much safer to call the fancied resemblance a coincidence and let it go at that.

Therefore--exit Derwent Rose, novelist, aged forty-five.

And enter in his stead--who?

Exactly. That was the whole point. He had not entered. He was somewhere on Life's stage, but behind, or in the wings, or up in the flies, or down underneath the traps. He was his own understudy, but whatever lines he spoke, whatever gestures he made, happened "off." The call-boy ran hither and thither calling his name, but in vain. Oblivion had taken him. It had taken him so completely that he needed to dress no part, to alter himself with no make-up. He was as free to walk about in the limelight as you or I. Freer--far freer----

For where was the birth certificate of this man who had lost ten years in a few months and for all anybody knew might now have lost another ten--twelve--twenty? Of what use was his _dossier_ in the Military Records Office? Of what value was his name on the register, his will if he had made one, his signed contracts, his insurance policy? Of what validity was the photograph on his pa.s.sport, or who could call him into Court as a witness? What clergyman or Justice of the Peace could certify that he had known him for a number of years? What musty and mendacious file in Somerset House dare produce a record to show that a man who was obviously so many years younger had been born in the year 1875? Free, this Apollo for beauty and Ajax for strength? As far as doc.u.ments were concerned he was more than free. He had side-stepped them all, and was the only completely free man alive.

But he was not free from Julia Oliphant and myself, for we knew all about it. His own brother he might fool, had he had one; he might delude the nurse who had rocked him as a child were she still alive; but us he could not deceive. With us his unimaginable alibi would not serve nor his unique anonymity go down. If he wished to know us, he could come up to us (but to us only) with a proffered hand and an ordinary "How do you do." But if he did not wish to know us he had us to fear. We knew his secret.

But n.o.body else--n.o.body in the whole round world else.

II

That, in its essence, and speaking very roughly, was the position; but it is worth examining a little more particularly. I will leave aside for the moment such questions as why we wanted to find him, whether we ought to try to find him, whether, if a man chose to expunge his ident.i.ty like that he had not a perfect right to do so. I will a.s.sume that he was to be sought and found. On that a.s.sumption I reasoned as follows:

Here--somewhere--was a man of unknown age and uncertain personal appearance. When last seen he was, and looked, thirty-five, but he may now be, and look, any age up to, or rather down to, sixteen. That depended entirely on the rate of those backward jerks of which he himself had failed to find the ratio. But where begin to look for him?

At what Charing Cross or Clapham Junction, where all the world pa.s.ses sooner or later, wait for him? What tube station watch? Round what street corner lurk? Examine it, I say, a little more closely.

And take first his two scales of time. As a matter of incontrovertible fact he was living in the year 1920. In the year 1920 a big and handsome and athletic man was living a daily life, presumably somewhere in London. But for him that year was 1910, and continually, day by day and hour by hour, he must be struggling to reconcile those two periods.

It could make no difference that he knew that he was living in both years simultaneously. A hundred times a day he might say to himself, "I quite understand; this is both 1910 and 1920; I've got them perfectly clear and separate in my head." But the hundred-and-first time would catch him tripping. He would stumble over some sudden and unexpected trifle. Let me make this clear by means of a small incident that happened to myself. Not long ago I walked into Charbonnel's for a cup of tea, and was pa.s.sing through the shop on the ground floor and about to mount the stairs when I was politely fetched back. I was told, with a smile that might have been given to a man just returned from Auckland or Mesopotamia, that the upper room had been closed for some time. I had not been in Charbonnel's since the early days of the war, and was looking, in 1920, for a Charbonnel's that had ceased to exist.

So Derwent Rose, however much he was on his guard, would once in a while find himself looking for something that no longer existed.

Next, there was the question of money--common money, and how much of it he had got. Obviously, and supposing he was to be found, it was no good looking for him in places where he could not possibly afford to be. He would be found in a cheaper place or a more expensive one according to the state of his purse. I had no means of knowing how much money he had withdrawn from the bank. I had never known much about his finances except that sometimes he had been hard-up, at others comparatively "flush," but that he had never, as far as I knew, borrowed. Thus the vulgarest of all considerations had an important bearing on our very first step: Where to look for him?

Next there was to be considered a combination of these things--the factor of money-plus-time. Say he had drawn one hundred pounds or five hundred pounds from the bank--for all I knew it might have been either, or more, or less. Well, we all know that a sum that was sufficient for a man in 1910 does not go very far in 1920. There has been a war.... So was he haunting expensive places, having (as might have been said of anybody but him) "a short life and a gay one," or would he be found spinning out his Bradburys as long as possible on a modester scale? Nay, was he even living on his capital at all? Was it not possible that he had found employment of some kind? If so, of what kind? They ask few questions about ident.i.ty at the dock-gates; was that it, and was he to be looked for in a workman's early-morning tram? Or had he, a man without a shred of paper to be his warranty, managed to talk somebody into something bigger, and was he one of these ephemeral Business Bubbles, lording it for a few months in somebody else's car and floating the higher because of the hotness of the air inside him? I did not think, by the way, that either of these last two things was very likely; but nothing was more impossible than anything else, and I am merely trying to show the size of the haystack in which we must hunt for our needle.

The merest glance at the problem made it plain that the only starting point was his last actually-known age--thirty-five. All else was the blindest guesswork. And it was equally plain that the best likelihood of finding him lay in the chance that he would more or less repeat (or seek to repeat) his former experiences at that age. Past a.s.sociations might pull him, he might frequent some places rather than others, some persons or cla.s.s of persons rather than others. The question was, could his life at thirty-five be so reconstructed that this hope should not be too slender? That was my idea, and I began to ransack my memory in search of indications that might further it.

But almost from the start I despaired. Sketched thus airily the thing had a deluding look of logic and simplicity; but the first contact with actuality scattered all to the winds again. For example, I have hinted at an echo of an earlier wildness that had for some reason or other overtaken him again at thirty-five; but when I came to examine it I found that I knew almost nothing at all about it. He had always had the decency to keep these things very much to himself. I had not the vaguest idea of who his companions had been, what his haunts. Added to this was the difficulty that I was approaching the question in reverse. He had slept since I had last seen him, and, sleeping, had presumably once more slipped back. But how far back? He might be (so to speak) at the crest of the wave, farther back still at the beginning of it, or even past it altogether--no longer the man of _An Ape in h.e.l.l_, but him of _The Vicarage of Bray_. It was even not impossible that he was sixteen and dead.... So all that I could do was to nail myself firmly down to thirty-five and as much of him at that time as I could remember or ascertain.

And instantly the question loomed up largely: "What about Julia Oliphant? Hadn't she better be left out of this, at any rate for the present?"

Now my position in the world practically forces the conventional att.i.tude on me. All things considered, I think I should adopt that att.i.tude in any case, for I have only to look at any other one and my hesitation doesn't last long. But at the same time I do go to lectures on such subjects as Relative and Absolute Age, and in other things, as I have explained, I liked at that time to keep in step and abreast. I have even made an attempt to understand the mystery that is called the Thermionic Valve.

But neither valve nor age theory is newer or stranger to me than the change that seems to have come over the s.e.x-relationship during these last years. I trust that on the whole I manage to maintain a happy medium--it is the d.i.c.kens of a thing to have sprung on one latish in life--but I only know that I myself, old-fashioned as I am, sometimes find myself discussing with the nicest women, and as freely as I should discuss them with a man, the--may I say the "rummest" subjects? And as for Julia Oliphant's att.i.tude to all this newness, I will only say that while she might have been ten years behind Madge Aird in matters of dress, she was not ten minutes behind her in anything else.

But discussions "in the air" with her were one thing, but discussions of an actual Derwent Rose at thirty-five quite another. "Oh, I know perfectly well the sort of thing it _might_ have been, so don't let that worry you," she had said, and for once, just once, I had had to be precise. But once was enough. Call it the old fossil in me if you will, but it makes a very great difference when a woman has said, as simply as Julia had spoken, "Of course; all my life; not that he ever gave me a thought, but that doesn't matter."