id="id00273">"Pwomise," called back Leonie from her Nannie's arms as she opened the door to them and lifted the tired happy child from the taxi.

But she didn't because she never went.

CHAPTER VIII

  "And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
  Against the use of nature. Present fears
  Are less than horrible imaginings."—Shakespeare.

Big Ben announced the approaching hour of midnight, throwing the sonorous notes to the soft spring wind which wafted them up to Harley Street.

Save for the light thrown by the dancing flames of a log fire, and the orange disc made on the desk by the light of a heavily shaded lamp, the room was dark; the silence broken only by the occasional crackle of the wood fire and the faint rustle as Sir Jonathan turned a page.

"Notes" was written in letters of brass across the thick book heavily bound in leather, and of which the small key to the massive Bramah lock was kept in a pocket especially made in every waistcoat Sir Jonathan possessed.

Slowly he read through the page he had just written, crossing a t, dotting an i, adding or scratching out a word of the writing which was in no way more legible than that of any other surgeon; and when he had read he ran his hand through the mass of snow-white hair, sighed, and pushed the book further back on to the desk.

It is an eerie sound that of someone speaking aloud to himself, and still more eerie when it occurs in the middle of the night when the only part of the speaker to be clearly seen is the strong white hands moving in the orange disc thrown on the desk by the heavily shaded lamp.

And it is a strange habit this talking aloud of the solitary soul.

Mad?

Not a bit.

Dumb in the babel and din of chaotic midday, unresponsive to the uncongenial matter around, it will talk on subjects gay and grave, and even laugh with the silent sympathetic shades of midnight.

Nevertheless it is mighty eerie to hear it unawares.

For the twentieth time the famous specialist picked up a letter and read it from beginning to end.

"Strange, Jim, old fellow," said he as he laid it down, "strange how I think of you to-night. Seeing your little one, I suppose. But somehow to-night more than ever I feel the blank you made in my life when you left. How you'd have loved the kiddie, Jim. Strange wee soul with a shadow already on her life—a big black shadow, Jim, which I—I am going——!"

He turned his head and looked over his shoulder.

"Ugh!" he said, as he turned back to the desk and drew the book towards him.

"Leonie Hetth—age seven—walks in her sleep and dreams—dreams are evidently of India—things that walk softly and purr—a small light—and wet red which may mean blood—green eyes and a black woman who—who——"

Once more he ran his hand through his hair, but time irritably, then shook his head from side to side rubbed his hand across his eyes.

"I've been sitting up too late these last few nights over that opium case. Don't seem to be able to collect or hold my thoughts. Jim, old fellow, I wonder what made you leave Leonie in the care of that damn silly, shallow woman, and I wonder how you could ever have produced anything so highly strung and temperamental as your little daughter. I sup——"

He stopped quite suddenly and rose, standing with his head bent forward.

There was not a sound!

Feeling for the arm of his chair with his face still turned to the curtained window he sank back, only to spring upright with a bound.

Noiselessly, swiftly he crossed to the window, and pulling back the curtain an inch or two peered out into the small garden with its one tree and border of shrubs.

There was no sound and nothing moved.

"Strange!" he muttered, "I could have sworn some-one knocked."

He jerked back the curtains so that they rasped on the brass rod, letting in the almost blinding glare of the full moon which drew a nimbus from the silvery head and threw shadows which danced and gibbered by the aid of the log fire over the walls and ceiling, and in and out of the open safe.

He turned, but stopped abruptly when half-way across the room, standing stock still with his back to the window.

There was a faint distinct tapping as though slender fingers were beating a ghastly, distant drum.

It stopped—it continued—it stopped.

Then fell one little solitary rap like a drop of water falling on a metal plate, and it died away into silence.

And Sir Jonathan threw up his fine old head and laughed.

"Surely I've got India on the brain to-night, and as surely I want a good long holiday," he said, as he sat down at his desk and picked up his pen. "And I must remember to tell the gardener to clip that tree to-morrow. How Jan will laugh when I tell him that I was absolutely scared by a branch rubbing against the window."

For five long minutes he sat frowning down at the pen in his hand. Three times he commenced to write, and three times he stopped; twice he lit a cigarette and let it go out, and deeper grew the lines between the brows and round the mouth, until he shivered and turned quickly in his chair.

"That felt just like a sea-fog creeping up behind; stupid to keep the window open even in spring," he said as he picked up a log from a basket by his side and threw it deftly into the wide-open grate, leant sideways to separate two brass ornaments on a table which had jangled one against the other, and sighing turned restlessly in his chair.

"Confound those great market lorries," he muttered, looking round the room with its cabinets and shelves filled with the strange and weird, beautiful and unsightly curios he had brought back from every corner of the globe. "They shake the house enough to bring it down about one's ears."

The moon was slowly shifting as he leant back and settled himself comfortably in the high leather chair; the room was getting darker and there had fallen that intense almost palpable stillness which envelops most great cities after midnight, and against which his thoughts stood out like steel points upon a velvet curtain.

Clear and sharp as steel they shot indeed, this way and that through his mind; but hold them he could not, analyse or arrange them he could not, neither would his hand move towards the pen a few inches from the finger-tips.

"God!" he suddenly thundered, striking the arm of the chair with his fist. "The answer is just there on the tip of my tongue—before my very eyes—within reach of my fingers, and yet I cannot grasp it—ah! why! could it possibly be——"

He rose as he spoke and crossed to a massive bookcase packed to overflowing with books, switched on a light hanging near, opened the glass door and ran his hand lovingly over the leather volumes.

Then he very gently laid his hand on his left shoulder and turned with a smile lighting up his face, which abruptly went blank in astonishment.

"Upon my word," he said, "whatever made me think that Jan had come in and had put his hand upon my shoulder. Old fool that I am to-night."

For a moment he stood looking into the shadowy corners, then turned again to the case, ran his finger along a row of books until he came to one with the title "India," pulled it out and opened it under the light.

The book