However, we went, and at a little after eight o'clock rang the bell we had rung under such very different circumstances at breakfast-time that morning. The parachute still waved in the mulberry, and a few policemen were unobtrusively hanging about the street. Two of these did not move very far from the gate. I supposed that in view of pending inquiries it was important that the parachute should not be touched.

We waited so long for an answer after ringing the bell that I had almost concluded there was nobody at home. We were, in fact, on the point of turning away when Esdaile himself opened the door.

Poor devil! I learned presently that he had had callers enough that afternoon to make him wish to disconnect his bell altogether—interested parties of all sorts, a dozen of them at least. He had as a matter of fact removed his telephone receiver from the hook. He said its ringing had nearly driven him mad.

But even all this did not explain his weariness as he stood holding the door open in the still bright light of the perfect evening. My first glance at him made me wonder whether something even more untoward than that morning's sudden drama had happened. Before, his manner, baffling as it had been, had at least had a sort of hectic brilliancy, an artificial excitement that had buoyed him up and kept him going. Now it was as unlike that as possible. He was spiritless and played out. He no longer seemed to wish to keep everything and everybody at arm's-length. Indeed, we had his reason almost before he had closed the door behind us.

"Of course, you've heard who it is?" he said to Hubbard in a dull voice.

"No. Who?"

"Chummy Smith."

Only the fanlight over the door let in the last of the day, but it did not need light to reveal how the name Esdaile had spoken affected Hubbard. To me this name conveyed nothing for the moment. I heard Hubbard's indraught of breath.

"You don't say so! Good God! Which? The dead one?"

"No. The other. I happened to ring up the hospital to ask how he was going on and learned that way. That was before I took that infernal receiver off. Come in. I'm all alone."

"Your people got away, then?"

"Yes," said Esdaile. And I fancied I heard him grunt, "Thank God!"

"Who's the other chap?" Hubbard asked as we walked along the passage.

"Fellow called Maxwell. Never heard of him. Did you?"

"No."

"Well, come in. It's the devil, isn't it?"

I suppose it is the devil when one of your particular friends comes down like this on your roof; but it struck me even then that it would have been still more devilish if he had been killed in doing so. Yet not only had their friend Chummy not been killed, but, according to Rooke's account earlier in the day, he was in a fair way for recovery. Hence I didn't quite see the reason for Esdaile's utter dejection. I should have understood it better had their friend been, not Smith, but the dead man Maxwell.

You see, I had totally forgotten one pretty little incident of that morning's breakfast. Perhaps you have forgotten it too. Remember, then, that Philip had pared an apple for Joan Merrow, had told her to see what initial the paring made on the floor, and had shaped his own guess with his lips—"C for Ch"—as he had hidden his bit of paper under his napkin.

Philip pushed up chairs for us and pottered about in search of whisky and glasses. Then, having set out a tray, he dropped heavily into a chair. For a time none of us spoke, and then I asked if Rooke was out.

"Yes. He's taken Audrey Cunningham home," Philip replied with marked brevity, and the silence fell on us again.

If Hubbard had really come for the purpose of seeing Esdaile's cellar I could see that all thought of this had now passed from his mind. The first thing to do was to cheer Esdaile up. After all, Chummy was alive and doing well. The news when Esdaile had rung up the hospital that afternoon had been reassuring. It might be some little time before he was out and about again, but certainly the occasion did not seem one for gloom. I therefore kept silence while Hubbard pointed all this out.

And as Esdaile's spirits seemed to revive a little and things began to seem not quite so hopeless after all, I began to rummage in my memory for recollection of this Chummy Smith of theirs. I remembered now that I had at any rate heard his name. And I confess that I am a little curious, not to say jealous, about some of these intensive War friendships. It interests me to note which of them survive the quieter and more persistent pressure on the lower levels, and which fail to do so. Not every one of them succeeds. It is one thing to wait in a Mess for the overdue chum, trying not to look too often at the full glass of gin-and-bitters that by this time he ought to have come in and claimed, and quite another to meet that chum a year or two later and, as you ask him what he will have, to know that you are making the swift mental note, "Ah, that's him in mufti!"

But this rubicon had been safely crossed in the case of Chummy Smith. I began to piece together odd things I had heard. Philip, meeting him in Coventry Street six months before, had stopped, spoken, and had presently brought him home to a scratch supper. A fortnight later Chummy had dropped in again unannounced. Thereafter he had continued to come at fairly frequent intervals. He and myself had never happened to call at the same moment, that was all.

"Who do you say he's flying for now?" Hubbard asked presently.

"The Aiglon Company. He's a goodish bunch of shares in it, I believe. Knows his job, too. Ever see him zoom?"

He described Smith's performance of this terrifying maneuver, with the fire of the Lewis gun reserved till the last twenty yards, then the fiery bridge-clearing rafale, and the upshooting like a rocket as he cleared the rail by a yard.

"Yes, he's a dashed good youngster," Hubbard agreed. "Thank the Lord he's all right."

But Esdaile only leaned his head wearily on one hand and sat gazing moodily at his whisky-and-soda.

Then it was that the probable reason for all this depression flashed upon me. Then it was, in that moment, that I remembered that apple-paring, Joan's adorable little schoolgirl's outbreak, and her tucking away of that piece of paper into her breast. Philip Esdaile was thirty-nine, young Smith twenty-four; that is a difference of fifteen years; but a young man of twenty-four could be quite devoted to Methuselah himself if there was a young woman anywhere about. Those frequent calls after that meeting in Coventry Street simply meant that Philip's leg had been pulled. Chummy Smith was no doubt very fond of Philip, but he was even fonder of Philip's wife's help and companion.

And Joan had seen the crash.

No wonder Philip thanked God that she didn't know who it was she had seen come down.