"Mr. Vivian!"
"Yes."
"The old astronomer must encounter him!" exclaimed Sir Tiglath, puffing furiously as he rolled about the room.
"Mr. Vivian will arrange it," Lady Enid said, with sparkling eyes, "at Mrs. Bridgeman"s. That"s a bargain. Come, Mr. Vivian!"
And almost before the Prophet knew what she was doing, she had maneuvered him out into Kensington Square, and was pioneering him swiftly towards the High street.
"We"ll take a hansom home," she said gaily, "and the man can drive as fast as ever he likes."
In half a minute the Prophet found himself in a hansom, bowling along towards Mayfair. The first words he said, when he was able to speak, were,--
"Why--Mr. Sagittarius--oh, why?"
Lady Enid smiled happily.
"It just struck me while I was talking to Sir Tiglath that I would introduce Mr. Sagittarius into the affair."
"Oh, why?"
"Why--because it seemed such an utterly silly thing to do," she answered. "Didn"t it?"
The Prophet was silent.
"Didn"t it?" she repeated. "A thing worthy of Miss Minerva."
It seemed to the Prophet just then as if Miss Minerva were going to wreck his life and prepare him accurately for a future in Bedlam.
"And besides you wouldn"t tell me who Mr. Sagittarius was," she added.
The Prophet began to realise that it is very dangerous indeed to deny the curiosity of a woman.
"What a mercy it is," Lady Enid continued lightly, "that Malkiel is a syndicate, instead of a man. If he wasn"t, and Sir Tiglath ever got to know him, he would try to murder him, and how foolish that would be!
It would be rather amusing, though, to see Sir Tiglath do a thoroughly foolish thing, wouldn"t it!"
The Prophet"s blood ran cold in the cab, as he began, for the first time, to see clearly into the elaborate mind of Miss Minerva, into the curiously deliberate complications of a definite and determined folly.
He perceived the danger that threatened the prophet who dwelt beside the Mouse, but he had recovered himself by this time sufficiently to meet craft with craft. And he therefore answered carelessly,--
"Yes, it is lucky that Malkiel"s a syndicate."
When they reached Hill street Lady Enid said,--
"I"m so much obliged to you, Mr. Vivian, for all you"ve done for Miss Minerva."
"Not at all."
"The next step is to introduce you to Mrs. Bridgeman, and you can introduce her to Mr. Sagittarius. Then I"ll introduce Sir Tiglath to her and she will introduce Mr. Sagittarius to him. It all works out so beautifully! Thank you a thousand times. You"ll hear from me. Probably I"ll give you your directions how to act to-morrow. Good-night."
The Prophet drove on to Berkeley Square, feeling that, between Mr. and Madame Sagittarius and Miss Minerva, he was being rapidly directed to his doom.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PROPHET IS INTERVIEWED BY TWO KIDS
Mr. Ferdinand met the Prophet in the hall.
"I have done as you directed, sir," he said respectfully.
"As I directed, Mr. Ferdinand? I was not aware that I ever directed anybody," replied the Prophet, suspecting irony.
"I understood you to say, sir, that if any more telegrams was to arrive, I was to burn them, sir."
"Telegrams! Good Heavens! You don"t mean to say that--"
"There has been some seventeen or eighteen, sir. I have burnt them, sir, to ashes, according to your orders."
"Quite right, Mr. Ferdinand," said the Prophet, putting his hand up to his hair, to feel if it were turning grey. "Quite right. How is--how, I say, is Mrs. Merillia?"
"Well, Master Hennessey, she"s not dead yet."
And Mr. Ferdinand, with a contorted countenance moved towards the servants" hall.
The Prophet stood quite still with his hat and coat on for several minutes. An amazing self-possession had come to him, the unnatural self-possession of despair. He felt quite calm, as the statue of a dead alderman feels on the embankment of its native city. Nothing seemed to matter at all. He might have been Marcus Aurelius--till a loud double knock came to the front door. Then he might have been any dangerous lunatic, ripe for a strait waistcoat. Mr. Ferdinand approached. The Prophet faced him.
"Kindly retire, Mr. Ferdinand," he said in a very quiet voice. "I will answer that knock."
Mr. Ferdinand retired rather rapidly. The knock was repeated. The Prophet opened the door. A telegraph boy, about two and a half feet high, stood outside upon the step.
"Telegram, sir," he said in a thin voice.
"Give it to me, my lad," replied the Prophet.
The small boy handed the telegram and turned to depart.
"Wait a moment, my lad," said the Prophet, very gently.
The small boy waited.
"Do you wish to be strangled, my lad?" asked the Prophet.
The small boy tried to recoil, but his terror rooted him firmly to the spot.
"Do all the other boys at the office wish to be strangled?" continued the Prophet. "Come, my lad, why don"t you answer me?"
"No, sir," whispered the small boy, pa.s.sing his little tongue over his pale lips.