Megbie's voice came to him. It sounded thin and muffled, just like the voice of a mechanical toy.
What is it? What is it? What are you trying to say to me about poor Guy Rathbone?
And then, as if it had seen that Megbie was trying to speak to it, but it could not hear his words, the figure of Eustace Charliewood wrung its hands, with a gesture which was inexpressibly dreadful, unutterably painful to see.
Megbie started up. He stepped forward. "Oh, don't, don't!" he said. As he spoke he dropped the cigarette-case, which, up to the present he had clutched in a hot wet hand. It fell with a clatter against the fender--that at any rate was a real noise!
In a moment the mopping, mourning, weeping phantom was gone.
The room was exactly as it had been before, still, warm, brilliantly-lit. And Donald Megbie stood upon the hearth-rug dazed and motionless, while a huge and icy hand seemed to creep round his heart and clutch it with lean, cold fingers.
Donald Megbie stood perfectly motionless for nearly a minute.
Then he knelt down and prayed fervently for help and guidance. At moments such as this men pray.
Much comforted and refreshed he rose from his knees, and went to one of the windows that looked out over the Thames.
He pulled aside the heavy green curtain, and saw that a clear colourless light immediately began to flow and flood into the room.
It was not yet dawn, but that mysterious hour which immediately presages the dawn had come.
The river was like a livid streak of pewter, the leafless plane-trees of the embankment seemed like delicate tracery of iron in the faint half-light. London was sleeping still.
The writer felt very calm and quiet as he turned away from the window and moved towards his bedroom.
The fire was nearly dead, but he saw the silver cigarette-case upon the rug and picked it up. He went to bed with the case under his pillow, and this is what he dreamed--
He saw Guy Rathbone in a position of extreme peril and danger. The circumstances were not defined, what the actual peril might be was not revealed. But Megbie knew that Rathbone was communicating with his brain while he slept. Rathbone was living somewhere. He was captive in the hands of enemies, he was trying to "get through" to the brain of some one who could help him.
The journalist only slept for a few short hours. He rose refreshed in body and with an unalterable conviction in his mind. The events of the last night were real. No chance or illusion had sent the vision and the dream, and the innocent-looking cigarette-case that lay upon the table, and which had come into his hands so strangely, was the pivot upon which strange events had turned.
The little silver thing was surrounded by as black and impenetrable a mystery as ever a man had trodden into unawares.
And in the broad daylight, when all that was fantastic and unreal was banished from thought, Megbie knew quite well towards whom his thoughts tended, on what remarkable and inscrutable personality his dreadful suspicions had begun to focus themselves.
He sat down and wrote his article till lunch-time. It was the best thing he had ever done, he felt, as he gathered the loose sheets together, and thrust a paper-clip through the corners.
He rose and was about to ring for his man--who had returned at breakfast-time--when the door opened and the man himself came in.
"Miss Marjorie Poole would like to see you, sir, if you are disengaged,"
he said.
Donald Megbie's face grew quite white with surprise.
Once more he felt the mysterious quickenings of the night before.
"Ask Miss Poole to come in," he said.
CHAPTER XVII
MARJORIE AND DONALD MEGBIE
The valet showed Marjorie Poole into Donald Megbie's study.
She wore a coat and skirt of dark green Harris Tweed with leather collar and cuffs, and a simple sailor hat.
Megbie, who had never met Miss Poole in the country, but only knew her in London and during the season, had never seen her dressed like this before. He had always admired her beauty, the admirable poise of her manner, the evidences of intellectuality she gave.
At the moment of her entry the journalist thought her more beautiful than ever, dressed as if for covert-side or purple-painted moor. And his quick brain realized in a moment that she was dressed thus in an unconscious attempt to escape observation, to be incognito, as it were.
But why had she come to see him? She was in trouble, her face showed that--it was extraordinary, altogether unprecedented.
Megbie showed nothing of the thoughts which were animating him, either in his face or manner. He shook hands as if he had just met Miss Poole in Bond Street.
"Do sit down," he said, "I think you'll find that chair a comfortable one."
Marjorie sat down. "Of course, Mr. Megbie," she said, "you will think it very strange that I should come here alone; when I tell you why, you will think it stranger still. And I don't want any one to know that I have been here. I shall tell mother, of course, when I get back."
Megbie bowed and said nothing. It was the most tactful thing to do.
"I feel you will not misunderstand my motives," the girl went on, "when I explain myself. In certain cases, and among certain persons, conventions are bourgeois. We don't know each other very well, Mr.
Megbie, though we have sometimes had some interesting talks together.
But in a sense I know you better than you know me. You see, I have read your books and other writings. In common with the rest of the world I can gather something of your temper of mind, and of your outlook upon life."
Megbie once more inclined his head. He wondered furiously what all this might mean. At the moment he was absolutely in the dark. He stretched out his hand towards a tin of cigarettes that stood on a bracket by the side of the fireplace, and then withdrew it suddenly, remembering who was present.
"Oh, do smoke," she said, instantly interpreting the movement. "Now let me just tell you exactly why I am here, why I _had_ to come here. Of all the men I know, you are the most likely to understand. You have made a study of psychical affairs, of what the man in the street calls 'spooks'--you know about dreams."
At that Megbie started forward, every muscle in his body becoming rigid and tense, his hands gripping the knobs of his chair arms.
"Of course!" he said, in a voice that rippled with excitement. "Go on, please. I might have known your coming here this morning is all part of the wonderful and uncanny experiences I had last night. You've come about Guy Rathbone!"
It was the girl's turn to start. Fear came creeping into eyes which were not wont to show fear, the proud mouth grew tremulous.
Marjorie stretched out her hands--little hands in tan-coloured gloves.
"Ah!" she cried, in a voice that had become shrill and full of pain, "then it is true! Things have happened to you too! Mr. Megbie, you and I have become entangled in some dark and dreadful thing. I dare not think what it may be. _But Guy is not dead._"
Megbie answered her in the same words.
"No," he said, "Guy Rathbone is not dead." His voice had sunk several tones. It tolled like a bell.
"Miss Poole," he went on, "tell me, tell me at once what happened to you last night."
With a great effort of control, Marjorie began her story.