In the small, white-ceilinged apartment his height
became more than ever noticeable, also the squareness of his
shoulders and the lean vigour of his frame. He handled his gun
for a moment and laid it down; glanced at the card stuck in the
cheap looking glass, which announced that David Grice let lodgings
and conducted shooting parties; turned with a shiver from the
contemplation of two atrocious oleographs, a church calendar
pinned upon the wall, and a battered map of the neighbourhood,
back to the table at which he had been seated. He selected a
cigarette and lit it. Presently he began to talk to himself, a
habit which had grown upon him during the latter years of a life
whose secret had entailed a certain amount of solitude.
"Perhaps," he murmured, "I am psychic. Nevertheless, I am
convinced that something is happening, something not far away."
He stood for a while, listening intently, the cigarette burning
away between his fingers. Then, stooping a little, he passed out
into the narrow passage and opened the door into the kitchen
behind, from which the woman who came to minister to their wants
had some time ago departed. Everything was in order here and
spotlessly neat. He climbed the narrow staircase, looked in at
Furley's room and his own, and at the third apartment, in which
had been rigged up a temporary bath. The result was
unilluminating. He turned and descended the stairs.
"Either," he went on, with a very slight frown, "I am not psychic,
or whatever may be happening is happening out of doors.
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