"Geoff Fleming!--Why, surely he"s in Ceylon by now."
"Not a bit of it. A minute ago he was in that chair talking to me."
"Bloxham!" Mr. Philpotts" air of surprise became distinctly more p.r.o.nounced, a fact which Mr. Bloxham apparently resented.
"What are you looking at me like that for pray? I tell you I was glancing through the _Field_, when I felt someone touch me on the shoulder. I looked round--there was Fleming standing just behind me.
"Geoff." I cried, "I thought you were on the other side of the world--what are you doing here?" "I"ve come to have a peep at you," he said. He drew a chair up close to mine--this chair--and sat in it. I turned round to reach for a match on the table, it scarcely took me a second, but when I looked his way again hanged if he weren"t gone."
Mr. Philpotts continued his selection of a paper--in a manner which was rather marked.
"Which way did he go?"
"Didn"t you meet him as you came in?"
"I did not--I met no one. What"s the matter now?"
The question was inspired by the fact that a fresh volley of expletives came from Mr. Bloxham"s lips. That gentleman was standing with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, his legs wide open, and his eyes and mouth almost as wide open as his legs.
"Hang me," he exclaimed, when, as it appeared, he had temporarily come to the end of his stock of adjectives, "if I don"t believe he"s boned my purse."
"Boned your purse!" Mr. Philpotts laid a not altogether flattering emphasis upon the "boned!" "Bloxham! What do you mean?"
Mr. Bloxham did not immediately explain. He dropped into the chair behind him. His hands were still in his trouser pockets, his legs were stretched out in front of him, and on his face there was not only an expression of amazement, but also of the most unequivocal bewilderment.
He was staring at the vacant air as if he were trying his hardest to read some riddle.
"This is a queer start, upon my word, Philpotts," he spoke in what, for him, were tones of unwonted earnestness. "When I was reaching for the matches on the table, what made me turn round so suddenly was because I thought I felt someone tugging at my purse--it was in the pocket next to Fleming. As I told you, when I did turn round Fleming was gone--and, by Jove, it looks as though my purse went with him."
"Have you lost your purse?--is that what you mean?"
"I"ll swear that it was in my pocket five minutes ago, and that it"s not there now; that"s what I mean."
Mr. Philpotts looked at Mr. Bloxham as if, although he was too polite to say so, he could not make him out at all. He resumed his selection of a paper.
"One is liable to make mistakes about one"s purse; perhaps you"ll find it when you get home."
Mr. Bloxham sat in silence for some moments. Then, rising, he shook himself as a dog does when he quits the water.
"I say, Philpotts, don"t ladle out this yarn of mine to the other fellows, there"s a good chap. As you say, one is apt to get into a muddle about one"s purse, and I dare say I shall come across it when I get home. And perhaps I"m not very well this afternoon; I am feeling out of sorts, and that"s a fact. I think I"ll just toddle home and take a seidlitz, or a pill, or something. Ta ta!"
When Mr. Philpotts was left alone he smiled to himself, that superior smile which we are apt to smile when conscious that a man has been making a conspicuous a.s.s of himself on lines which may be his, but which, we thank Providence, are emphatically not ours. With not one, but half a dozen papers in his hand, he seated himself in the chair which Mr. Bloxham had recently relinquished. Retaining a single paper, he placed the rest on the small round table on his left--the table on which wore the matches for which Mr. Bloxham declared he had reached.
Taking out his case, he selected a cigar almost with the same care which he had shewn in selecting his literature, smiling to himself all the time that superior smile. Lighting the cigar he had chosen with a match from the table, he settled himself at his ease to read.
Scarcely had he done so than he was conscious of a hand laid gently on his shoulder from behind.
"What! back again?"
"Hullo, Phil!"
He had taken it for granted, without troubling to look round, that Mr.
Bloxham had returned, and that it was he who touched him on the shoulder. But the voice which replied to him, so far from being Mr.
Bloxham"s was one the mere sound of which caused him not only to lose his bearing of indifference but to spring from his seat with the agility almost of a jack-in-the-box. When he saw who it was had touched him on the shoulder, he stared.
"Fleming! Then Bloxham was right, after all. May I ask what brings you here?"
The man at whom he was looking was tall and well-built, in age about five and thirty. There were black cavities beneath his eyes; the man"s whole face was redolent, to a trained perception, of something which was, at least, slightly unsavoury. He was dressed from head to foot in white duck--a somewhat singular costume for Pall Mall, even on a summer afternoon.
Before Mr. Philpotts" gaze, his own eyes sank. Murmuring something which was almost inaudible, he moved to the chair next to the one which Mr. Philpotts had been occupying, the chair of which Mr. Bloxham had spoken.
As he seated himself, Mr. Philpotts eyed him in a fashion which was certainly not too friendly.
"What did you mean by disappearing just now in that extraordinary manner, frightening Bloxham half out of his wits? Where did you get to?"
The new comer was stroking his heavy moustache with a hand which, for a man of his size and build, was unusually small and white. He spoke in a lazy, almost inaudible, drawl.
"I just popped outside."
"Just popped outside! I must have been coming in just when you went out. I saw nothing of you; you"ve put Bloxham into a pretty state of mind."
Re-seating himself, Mr. Philpotts turned to put the paper he was holding on to the little table. "I don"t want to make myself a brute, but it strikes me that your presence here at all requires explanation.
When several fellows club together to give another fellow a fresh start on the other side of the world----"
Mr. Philpotts stopped short. Having settled the paper on the table to his perfect satisfaction, he turned round again towards the man he was addressing--and as he did so he ceased to address him, and that for the sufficiently simple reason that he was not there to address--the man had gone! The chair at Mr. Philpotts" side was empty; without a sign or a sound its occupant had vanished, it would almost seem, into s.p.a.ce.
CHAPTER II
Under the really remarkable circ.u.mstances of the case, Mr. Philpotts preserved his composure to a singular degree. He looked round the room; there was no one there. He again fixedly regarded the chair at his side; there could be no doubt that it was empty. To make quite sure, he pa.s.sed his hand two or three times over the seat; it met with not the slightest opposition. Where could the man have got to? Mr. Philpotts had not, consciously, heard the slightest sound; there had not been time for him to have reached the door. Mr. Philpotts knocked the ash off his cigar. He stood up. He paced leisurely two or three times up and down the room.
"If Bloxham is ill, I am not. I was never better in my life. And the man who tells me that I have been the victim of an optical delusion is talking of what he knows nothing. I am prepared to swear that it was Geoffrey Fleming who touched me on the shoulder; that he spoke to me; and that he seated himself upon that chair. Where he came from, or where he has gone to, are other questions entirely." He critically examined his finger nails.
"If those Psychical Research people have an address in town, I think I"ll have a talk with them. I suppose it"s three or four minutes since the man vanished. What"s the time now? Whatever has become of my watch?"
"He might well ask--it had gone, both watch and chain--vanished, with Mr. Fleming, into air. Mr. Philpotts stared at his waistcoat, too astonished for speech. Then he gave a little gasp.
"This comes of playing Didymus! The brute has stolen it! I must apologise to Bloxham. As he himself said, this is a queer start, upon my honour! Now, if you like, I do feel a little out of sorts; this sort of thing is enough to make one. Before I go, I think I"ll have a drop of brandy."
As he was hesitating, the smoking-room door opened to admit Frank Osborne. Mr. Osborne nodded to Mr. Philpotts as he crossed the room.
"You"re not looking quite yourself, Philpotts."
Mr. Philpotts seemed to regard the observation almost in the light of an impertinence.
"Am I not? I was not aware that there was anything in my appearance to call for remark." Smiling, Mr. Osborne seated himself in the chair which the other had not long ago vacated. Mr. Philpotts regarded him attentively. "You"re not looking quite yourself, either."
The smile vanished from Mr. Osborne"s face.
"I"m not feeling myself!--I"m not! I"m worried about Geoff Fleming."