“Right! Thanks. I’ll have to change a cheque. Tell the driver to go first to 77, Potiphar Street, Chelsea. Then I’ll want him to take me on somewhere afterwards. I’ll let him know where later.”
It was a blustering night. Winter raged on the heels of autumn. News-posters fluttered; shop signs swung violently to and fro; pavements were thronged with people hurrying to escape from a wind bristling with the menace of icy rain. The lights of Piccadilly shone hard and clear with a steely fixity.
Rendell put his feet up on the little seat opposite, then lit a cigarette. He was acting instinctively, and surrendered himself to the luxury of this knowledge. In all the major crises of his life—and he had encountered several—instinct, not reason, had prompted his actions. Then, as now, he had had no programme. An inner impulse was in command and he obeyed its orders.
Regarded rationally, his decision to go to 77, Potiphar Street was ridiculous. It would lead nowhere—and would solve nothing. He would ask some servant how Trent was, and then he would have to decide where to go and what to do. It was a trick to evade a problem which had long baffled him. To inquire about a man he did not know and had never seen! Nothing could emerge from such a futile expedition.
But although Rendell allowed these strictures to drift through his mind, he did not react to them. Three facts of deeper significance were operative in him. A book of Trent’s had impressed him more than any he had read for years. Last night he had dined with Marsden only to learn something about its author. And, now, he had discovered that, while they had been discussing him, Trent had been taken seriously ill. And he—Rendell—had happened to see a paragraph in the paper which gave not only the fact of Trent’s illness, but also his address.
Somehow, though illogically enough, this sequence seemed an indication to Rendell that Trent was destined to enter his life.
As the taxi spun along Sloane Street, Rendell remembered that he had been to Chelsea only twice previously—and that ten years separated him from his last visit. He had no memories of the place, consequently, when the taxi turned into the King’s Road, he looked out of the window with some curiosity.
Before they had proceeded many yards, however, the driver slowed up, pushed back the glass trap, and inquired:
“You said Potiphar Street, didn’t you?”
“Yes—77.”
“Don’t happen to know which side it is, I suppose?”
“Haven’t an earthly.”
“Ah well, never mind, well find it,” the man replied, with that large tolerance concerning time and space which characterises taxi-drivers, but which is seldom possessed by their fares.
At the Town Hall the taxi stopped and the driver indulged in a series of speculations and questions with a youth whose face resembled a map of vacancy. After which, he cross-examined a street vendor, who gave a lengthy list of the streets with which he was familiar, ending with the announcement that, if there were a Potiphar Street in Chelsea, he would very much like to know where it was. Finally, at Rendell’s command, the driver—most reluctantly—asked a policeman, who supplied the information instantly.
“I knew it was somewhere down there,” he said contemptuously to Rendell, with an attempt to recover professional prestige. A minute or two later they turned down a street, along which trams were crashing, then to the left down the Embankment. Rendell caught a glimpse of an old church, but almost immediately another turn to the left brought them into Potiphar Street.
It was a narrow street and his glimpse of the houses was not invigorating. They belonged to the later Victorian age, and seemed mutely to protest against their survival. At the end of the street, and facing it, stood a tall house with a flight of steep steps leading to the front door.
The taxi drew up with a jerk of finality.
“Here you are!” the driver exclaimed, as if he had materialised the house to gratify an eccentric whim of Rendell’s. “Here you are. Number 77.”
“Good!”
Rendell got out, then said:
“Wait, will you? I don’t suppose I’ll be long.”
The driver fumbled for his pipe.
“Right you are, sir.”
Rendell ran up the steps, then gave three resonant blows with the knocker.
A minute passed, during which he regretted having knocked so vigorously. He had forgotten that the house held a man who was seriously ill. But when another minute had passed, the necessity for knocking again presented itself. Rendell raised the knocker and gave three timorous taps which evoked no response. After a suitable interval, he knocked again, then—later—again. Nothing! Finally he became exasperated. “After all, I might be the doctor for all they know,” he muttered to himself, then seizing the knocker he gave a series of resounding blows.
A minute later the door was opened by a man, but as the hall was dimly lit, Rendell could not see him distinctly. He was about to inquire concerning Trent, when the man said irritably: