It was probably some moments before the occupants of the billiard-room realised what had happened; it was certainly some little time before they even dimly perceived what the advent of the new-comer must mean.

It was George Payne's turn to play; he was just about to make his stroke when the door had opened. Leaning over the table, his cue in position, he stared at the man who had just come in at the door. The other players, each with his cue in his hand, stared too.

Noel Draycott was something to stare at. He seemed to have grown thinner since they had seen him last; he looked as if he had been ill. There was a recently healed scar on his forehead, another right across his left cheek. His hair had been cut very close to his head, a strip of plaster came from the back to the front. The fact was unmistakable that he must have been pretty considerably in the wars. He had on a dinner-jacket. In his right hand was an ebony cane with a crook handle, on which he seemed to lean as if in need of its support.

He stood looking round the room as if searching for individual faces. His eyes rested first on one and then on another with a glance as of pleased recognition. When they reached Dodwell they rested on him rather longer than on any of the others, with, this time, something in them which was hardly pleasure.

It was he who broke the silence which had followed his appearance with a question:

"Playing snooker? Don't let me interrupt you. Go on playing. You look as though you had got an easy one. How's the family--all all right?"

As he came farther into the room they broke into speech; they came crowding round him.

"Noel, old man!" exclaimed Clifford, "is this a little game which you've been playing? To spring a surprise on us like this when we were all thinking---- Why, on my word, I was very nearly on the point of going into mourning. I'd sooner see you--I don't know that there is anything I'd rather see."

A hearty chorus of welcome greeted him from all sides.

"Draycott," declared Major Reith, "you may laugh at me, but as I look at you I hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels. Do you know that when last I saw you I would have been willing to swear before a jury of medical men that you were dead? My dear, dear man, if you only knew how glad I am to see you--what a weight you are lifting off my mind. You're sure you're not a ghost?"

Draycott's smile was a little pale and wan, as if the major's suggestion was hardly as much of a joke as he would have liked it to be.

"I've always understood that ghosts are unsubstantial things. If you'll have a prod at me with your cue, you'll find that I'm solid enough; only go easy--I'm not yet as firm on my pins as I mean to be soon."

"But, my dear fellow, where on earth have you been hiding all this time? Do you know that all the papers are full of what they call the mysterious disappearance of Captain Draycott? All sorts of theories have been started, but none of them has ever come to anything. People were beginning to wonder if you had been snatched up by a flying machine, and carried above the clouds; and now you drop in in this unexpected fashion as if we'd only seen you half an hour ago! Do you realise the fact that you'll have to give a realistic account of what you've been up to, and why you've been keeping the readers of the halfpenny papers all gaping with wonder?"

"As it happens, I do recognise that some sort of explanation is required; and it is to give it, after a fashion, that I've come. Captain Dodwell, may I trouble you not to leave the room?"

Anthony Dodwell had not been among those who had crowded round to bid the new-comer welcome. His demeanour had been singular. The major had spoken of Draycott as a possible ghost. Captain Dodwell was regarding him not only as if he were an actual ghost, but almost, as it seemed, with the unreasonable terror with which people are supposed to regard spectral visitants in tales and legends. At the sound of Draycott's voice he had started as if someone had struck him a heavy blow; when, turning, he saw him standing in the flesh, he gazed at him as if he were the most horrible sight he had ever seen. So far from showing any inclination to join the others in their cries of welcome, he had drawn himself farther and farther away from the object of so much attention, until, having at last reached the neighbourhood of the door, he seemed inclined to take himself through it.

It was this disposition which Noel Draycott's words were intended to check. Their immediate result was to divert general attention to Captain Dodwell. To judge from the look which came upon the different men's faces, the peculiarity of his bearing seemed to occasion them almost as much surprise as Draycott's original unexpected appearance. There was no cooler person in the regiment than Anthony Dodwell. In a community in which sangfroid had been raised to the dignity of a fetish, his calmness had become a byword. That you could never take Anthony Dodwell by surprise; that under no conceivable conditions would he ever turn a hair; that he would continue wholly at his ease under all sorts of unpromising conditions; that he would meet difficulty, danger, death, with a smile--these were axioms among those who knew him.

How far removed from fact these judgments of his friends were, it needed at that moment only one glance at Anthony Dodwell to show. Something, stirring him to the very sources of his being, had upset his equilibrium so entirely that it almost seemed to them as if they looked upon a stranger. When Draycott uttered his quietly spoken request that he would not leave the room, he stood for a second motionless; then, as he glanced at the speaker over his shoulder, they could see that his face had been transfigured by some violent emotion which was beyond their comprehension. It was with an effort which was obvious to all of them that at last he managed to speak.

"Why shouldn't I leave the room?"

It was an instant or two before Draycott, looking steadily at him, answered question with question.

"Do you require me to tell you?"

There was something in the quietly uttered words which made Dodwell wince as if they had pricked him. He seemed in doubt how to treat the challenge which they conveyed; that they did convey a challenge was plain; his reply, when it came, was both sullen and undignified.

"If I want to go I shall go, and you shan't stop me."

Draycott's rejoinder was so curt as to be contemptuous.

"You know better than that."

"Why should I know better? I have taught you one lesson already. Shall I teach you another? I'll be hanged if I'll stay in a room in which you are."

"Dodwell!"

The sharp utterance of his name conveyed both a command and a threat, as the other seemed to perceive. He had made a half-movement towards the door, and had already stretched out his hand to open it--the tone in which Draycott pronounced his name seemed all at once to check him.

"Are you speaking to me," he demanded with what was almost a snarl, "or to a dog? Hang your impudence! Do you suppose I'm going to allow you to dictate to me whether I am to go or stay?"

Ignoring the speaker, Noel Draycott turned to the others.

"Will you men be so good as to see that Captain Dodwell doesn't leave the room until I've given the explanation which I am going to give? I am not very fit at present; in fact, it's against the doctor's orders that I'm here at all; but, as matters were going, I felt I had to come. If I were fit, I shouldn't trouble you; I should make it my own particular business to see that Captain Dodwell didn't leave the room until I'd finished; as it is, I'm afraid I must."

Clifford voiced the general feeling by the question which he put.

"Why do you want to go, Dodwell--what's up?"

Anthony Dodwell made an unsuccessful effort to treat the speaker with the air of insolence which they knew so well.

"Really, Mr. Clifford, I have yet to learn that I am to be called to account for my goings and comings by you."

"All the same, there's no reason why you shouldn't answer my question. Here's Noel come back out of the grave, as it were. It's pretty plain that he's been in the wars, and you know well enough what a pother there's been; especially when he asks you, why can't you stop and hear whatever he has to say?"

"Because I'd sooner go. If that doesn't appear to be a sufficient reason, I'm sorry."

"One moment, Captain Dodwell, if you please."

The interpolation came from Major Reith. Dodwell already had the door partly open.

"Well, major, what can I do for you--with your one moment?"

"To begin with, you can shut that door."

Striding forward with unexpected rapidity, the major, wresting the door from his grasp, shut it sharply.

"Reith! Do you imagine that I am going to take my orders, in such a manner, from you?"

"Only the other day you were throwing out some very uncomfortable hints about Draycott here; I'm not going to recur to them now, but you know very well what they were, but here is Draycott to answer for himself. In view of those hints which you threw out, I'm going to make it my business to see that you stay and hear what his answer is."

Confronted by the major, Anthony Dodwell drew himself up; there had been something hang-dog in his attitude just now. "By force?" he asked.

"Yes, if necessary, by force. You were one of those who resorted to force on an occasion which it is not necessary for me to recall to your memory, and in this very room. I may tell you that there is something in your attitude which makes me wonder if, in this business, you have not been guilty of conduct which is not altogether to your credit. If I am wrong, the fault is yours; I can conceive of no creditable reason why it should be necessary to resort to force to compel you to listen, in the very remarkable circumstances, to what Noel Draycott has to say."

"I may tell you, Dodwell, that I quite agree with Reith."

This remark came from Payne; it was more than echoed by Jackie Tickell. Mr. Tickell went bursting towards the pair at the door, still with his cue in his hand; he trailed it after him as if unconscious that he still had it.

"Considering how you've been throwing out hints about my taking advantage of Draycott's absence to doubt if Syd Beaton cheated as you say he did, it seems jolly rummy now Draycott has turned up to give me the dressing-down which only half an hour ago you seemed to think I needed, that instead of calling on him to do it, you want to what looks like take to your heels and run."

Dodwell looked at him very much as a bad-tempered big dog is apt to regard a courageous little one.

"If you're not very careful I shall whip you, Jackie Tickell; I don't intend to stand more than a certain amount of impertinence, even from an ass."

Instead of showing signs of trepidation, the little man seemed to grow more heated.

"We'll see what you will or won't do when we've heard what Draycott has to say. Until he has said it, you'll do nothing; you won't even run away. Draycott, do you remember that poker business? I've been thinking a lot about it since; I'd have had a jaw with you about it if you'd been here----"

Noel Draycott cut him short.

"That's all right, Tickell, you can have all the jaw with me you like a little later on, if you want to talk to me at all after what I am going to say; but in the meanwhile, if you don't mind, I'd rather get off my chest what's on it, in my own way."

Major Reith was standing with his back to the door. In front of him on one side was Anthony Dodwell, on the other Jackie Tickell.

"Hullo!" he suddenly exclaimed, "there's someone outside who wants to come in; who's there?"

The door had been opened by someone without sufficiently far to come into contact with his broad back, which acted as an effectual buffer.

As he moved it was open wide enough to admit one of the orderlies of the evening, Private Henry Barnes.

"Well, Barnes," inquired the major, "what is it you want?"

"If you please, sir--a lady."

Holding the door open at its widest the orderly ushered in--Miss Forster.