Bernard Capes

“ I hold by you to convoy me into some harbour of refuge."
Acheson considered a moment.
"There are plenty enough of every sort," he said, "both right and left. It's a heterogeneous quarter. Mansions rub shoulders with dosshouses hereabouts. But we must strike a line and take our chance. Your first point is a lodging for the night. If it doesn't suit, you can look again to-morrow. Supposing we turn down here for an experiment. It's sure, by its looks, to reveal a harvest of lodging-cards as thick as blackberries. Shall we go?"
"O, anywhere!" said Gethin, in a depressed voice. ”

“ Gethin shook him off good-humouredly:
"Not a bit of it, my friend. You lost a rare chance of securing evidence at first-hand when you deserted me so basely that time. You're not a practical psychist, Acheson—too much of the tea-and-crumpet ghost-seer about you. You prefer to take your spirits on trust. ”

“ Gethin felt suddenly sick. He leaned back against the wall.
"I suppose I got muddled up in the fog," he said faintly, "and took refuge in this house, and went to sleep and had a dream."
"That was it, sir, no doubt," said the sergeant encouragingly.
"Untenanted, eh?" said Gethin.
"Avoided like," said the sergeant. "It's never got cured of its bad name."
"For fifteen years? Great God!"
He came away from the wall.
"I think I should like to get out of it—into the air," he said.
"There's your bag and umbrella," said the officer, "at the door of that room. Ain't you going to take them?" ”

“ He was as boneless as the other was compact and strong-ribbed. Friendship could not have offered a greater physical contrast. The handbag which Gethin carried with ease would have weighed Acheson to the earth. ”

“ Rain fell drearily; every buttress and lamp-post had its fibrous reflection underfoot, as if the pavement had grown transparent, revealing the deep roots of the things embedded in it. The heavy air floated with umbrellas, like a last swarming of antediluvian bats; labouring omnibuses were packed to suffocation ”

“ He was on his way then, like myself, to look for lodgings. Acheson"—he bent forward very earnestly, and touched his friend on the arm—"it was a wet November evening, like this."
He waited for the inevitable comment, a little surprised that his friend did not immediately respond, as expected. Acheson chewed the offered coincidence again, reflective; and his verdict once more was that it was untenable.
"If my studies teach me anything," he said, "it is the folly of jumping in such matters to hasty conclusions. A tempered scepticism is the first equipment of your rational psychist. ”

“ The light from the lamp fell full upon the corner house. It was one of a four-square terrace, as they had supposed. A shallow flight of steps led up to its door; the sill of its ground-floor window stood about level with the tops of the area-railings in front.
"'Lodgings for a single gentleman,'" said Gethin, "and a reassuring light behind the blind. It doesn't look too pretentious. Shall I try?"
"Lodgings!" said Acheson stupidly. "There?" ”

“ He was a small spare man, more callow than clean-shaved, with a sensitive neurotic face and a hungry expression. He looked older than his friend, though, as a matter of fact, the two were much of an age, young men of twenty-five or thereabouts. ”