Harry was leaving next morning with the two women, being unable to induce Lady Oxted to stop another day, and in consequence he sat up late that night after they had gone to bed, looking over the details of the expense of putting in the electric light. The cheapest plan, it appeared, would be to utilize the power supplied by the fall of water from the lake, for this would save the cost of engines to drive the dynamos. In this case it would be necessary to build the house for them over the sluice; but this, so wrote the engineer, would not interfere with the landscape, for the roof would only just be seen above the belt of trees. Or, if Lord Vail did not mind a little extra expense, a tasteful erection might be made, which, instead of diminishing, would positively add to the beauty of the view from the house. Then followed a horrific sketch of Gothic style.

Harry\'s thoughts were disposed to go wandering that night, and he gave but a veiled and fugitive attention to the figures. The lake suggested other things to him brighter than all the thirty-two-power lamps of this electric light. The[Pg 178] latter, it appeared, could be in the house by September, but the other was in the house now. In any case there should be no horrors, ornamental or otherwise, over the sluice; and he turned to the second estimate, which included engines, with a great determination to think of nothing else.

The scene of this distracted vigil was his uncle\'s sitting room, where all the papers were to hand. Mr. Francis had sat up with him for half an hour or so, but Harry had then persuaded him to go to bed, for all the evening he had appeared somewhat tired and worried. Then from the next door there came, for some half hour, the faint sounds of brushings and splashings, that private orchestra of bedtime, and after that the house was still.

Harry settled down again to his work, and before long his mind was made up. He would have, he saw, to screw and pinch a little, but on no account should anything, Gothic or not, spoil the lower end of the lake; then pouring himself out some whisky and soda, he took a last cigarette.

The table where he worked was fully occupied, but orderly. A row of reference books—Bradshaw, The Peerage, Whitaker\'s Almanac, and others—stood in a green morocco case to the left of the inkstand; to the right, in a silver frame, a large photograph of himself. Among other books, he was amused to see a Zadkiel\'s Almanac, and he drew it from its place and turned idly over a leaf or two. There was a cross in red ink[Pg 179] opposite the date of January 3d, on which day, so said this irresponsible seer, a discovery of gold would be made. Harry thought vaguely for a moment of South Africa and the Klondike, then suddenly gave a little gasp of surprise. That had been the day on which he had found the Luck.

The coincidence was strange, but stranger was the fact that his uncle, who had so often remonstrated with him on his half-laughing, half-serious notice of the coincidences which had followed its discovery, should have a Zadkiel at all; strangest that he should have noted this date. Then suddenly a wave of superstitious fear came over him, and he shut Zadkiel hastily up, for fear of seeing other dates marked. Two minutes later he was already laughing at himself, though he did not reopen Zadkiel, and as he took his candle to go to bed his eye fell on a red morocco "Where is it?" which lay on the table. He knew that there was some address he wanted to verify, but it was a few minutes before he had turned to G. There was the name "Dr. Godfrey, 32 Wimpole Street," and on each side of it minute inverted commas. He looked at it in some astonishment, for he would have been ready to swear that his uncle had told him 32 Half Moon Street.

He went straight to his room, however, without wasting conjecture or surmise over this, undressed and blew out his candle. Outside, a great moon was swung high in heaven, no leaf trembled on the trees, but through the summer night the songs of many nightingales bubbled liquidly.

[Pg 180]

A few nights afterward he and Geoffrey were sitting alone in the house in Cavendish Square. Harry had been full of figures, wondering what was the least sum on which this London house could be made decently habitable. One room wanted a fresh paper, distemper was essential to another, most required fresh carpets, and stamped leather was imperatively indicated for the hall. Geoffrey listened with quiet amusement, for Harry was talking with such pellucid transparency that it was difficult not to smile. Then the question of electric light at Vail was touched upon, and suddenly he stopped, rose, and beat the ashes of his pipe out into the grate.

"By the way, Geoff," he said, "supposing you looked out the name of a man whom you did not know, and had only once heard of, in a \'Where is it?\' belonging to a friend, and found the name in inverted commas, what inference, if any, would you draw? No, it is not a riddle; purely a matter of curiosity."

Geoffrey yawned.

"Even Sherlock Holmes would not infer there," he said; "and even his friend Watson could not fail in such a perfectly certain conclusion."

"What conclusion?"

"Wait a moment; let us be an obtuse detective. Is the person from whom you have heard the name the same as the person to whom the \'Where is it?\' belongs? Lord, I give points to Watson!"

[Pg 181]

"It happens that it is so. Does that influence your conclusion?"

"It only makes it even surer; no, it can\'t do that, but it leaves it as sure as it was. Of course, the name in the \'Where is it?\' is not the man\'s real name; not the name he goes by, anyhow."

"So it seemed possible to me."

"Then you were wrong. There is no question of possibility. It is dealing with absolute certainties. Now satisfy my curiosity. I have not much, but I have some."

"Bit by bit," said Harry. "Have you ever heard of a Dr. Godfrey, heart specialist, I take it, who lives at 32 Wimpole Street?"

"Never. But Wimpole Street is just round the corner. I imagine he will have a plate on his door. I thought your heart was in a parlous state."

"Oh, don\'t be funny," said Harry, "but come along."

Geoffrey got up.

"Shall I have to hold your hand?" he asked.

"No; I am not going to consult him. Indeed, there is no mystery about the whole matter. Simply Dr. Godfrey is my uncle\'s doctor, and he consulted him the other day about his heart. I happened to look out the doctor\'s address in his \'Where is it?\' and found the name in inverted commas. Oh! by the way, there is a red book by you. Look out 32 Half Moon Street. Does Dr. Godfrey live there?"

Geoffrey turned up the street.

[Pg 182]

"Certainly not," he said. "But why?"

"Nothing," said Harry, unwilling to mention the different address. "Come, Geoff."

They were there in less than a couple of minutes: Harry had not even put on a hat for the traversing of so few paving stones. An incandescent gas lamp stood just opposite the door, and both number and plate were plainly visible. On the plate in large square capitals was "Dr. G. Armytage."

They read it in silence, and turned home again. Geoffrey had pursed up his lips for a whistle, but refrained.

"We spell it Armytage, and pronounce it Godfrey," he said at length. "Sometimes we even spell it Godfrey. Or perhaps G. stands for Godfrey. Not that it makes any difference."

Harry laughed, but he was both puzzled and a little troubled. Then the remembrance of the evening when he had seen the strange and distasteful man—Dr. Armytage it must now be supposed—driving away from the house, came to his mind. How excellent and kindly on that occasion had been the reasons for which his uncle had desired that the visit should remain unknown to Harry! And after that lesson, should not the pupil give him credit for some motive, unguessable even as that had been, but equally thoughtful? He had given him a wrong name and a wrong address; in his own reference book that same wrong name, but with inverted commas, appeared. Harry, being human and of discreet[Pg 183] years, did not relish being misled in this manner, but he told himself there might be admirable reason for it, which he could not conjecture. He had intended, it is true, to see Dr. Godfrey privately, so as to get his first-hand opinion on his uncle\'s condition; but he was not at all sure that he would ring Dr. Armytage\'s door-bell.

Lady Oxted, a few days after this, fell a victim to influenza, and after a decent interval, Geoffrey, who for the remainder of the summer had let his own rooms in Orchard Street and lived with Harry, called on the parts of both to ask how she was, was admitted, and taken upstairs to her sitting room. Her voice was very hoarse, a temperature thermometer lay on the table by her, and he felt himself a very foolhardy young man.

"It is no use your being afraid of it," said that lady to him by way of greeting, "because on the one hand the certain way to get it is to be afraid of it, and on the other you have to stop and talk to me. I have seen no one all day; not even Bob, as I don\'t want fresh cases in the house, and of course I haven\'t allowed Evie near me. Oh, I am reeking of infection: make up your mind to that."

"But I don\'t matter," said Geoffrey.

"Not the least scrap. Really, it is too provoking getting it again. I believe every doctor in Wimpole Street has seen me through at least one attack. I shall begin on Cavendish Square soon. Now talk."

[Pg 184]

The thought of Dr. Armytage and the strange confusion of names and addresses had often been present in Geoffrey\'s mind since he and Harry had made that short and inconclusive expedition to number 32 Wimpole Street, and here, perhaps, was an opportunity for adding a brick to that vague structure that was in outline only in his mind.

"Have you tried Dr. Godfrey?" he asked.

"I never heard of him. Otherwise I should have tried him. Where does he live?"

"It is not quite certain," said Geoffrey; "personally I believe at 32 Wimpole Street."

"Is this supposed to be bright and engaging conversation?" asked Lady Oxted, "which will interest the depressed influenza patient?"

"It may interest you in time," said Geoffrey. "To continue, have you ever heard of a Dr. G. Armytage, heart specialist, of 32 Wimpole Street?"

The effect of this was instantaneous. Lady Oxted sat up on her sofa, and her shawl whisked the temperature thermometer to the ground, smashing the ball.

"Yes, of course I have," she said; "so have you, I imagine. Or perhaps you were not born. How detestably young, young men are!"

"They get over it," said Geoffrey.

"Yes, and become middle-aged, which is worse. Now tell me all you know, ............