He did. His face did so before ever he spoke. In a moment I knew that something had happened about that wedding—certainly that it had been put off, possibly worse. Still without speaking he showed me in.

He was lunching, or rather making a combination meal of lunch and breakfast in one. A single glance round the room told me a good deal about the state of mind of its occupant. I have been hard-up myself, and know these symptoms of negligence of body, mind and surroundings. He was fully dressed, but he wore yesterday's collar and his boots had not been cleaned. His bed was unmade, his furniture undusted, his floor unswept. He seemed to have got up late, to have wondered what after all there was to get up for, and not to care much whether he stayed up or went back to bed. It was all extraordinary unlike his former orderliness and neatness and precision, and I made up my mind that there were several things I intended to say to him before I left him.

"Well, how are you?" he asked perfunctorily. "Have some cocoa. I'll wash another cup."

"No, thanks. You carry on with your breakfast. I've just been round to see Esdaile. Is he away?"

"Went off on Tuesday," Rooke replied.

"Where, to Yorkshire?"

"Yes. Took that fellow with him—you know—the flying fellow."

"But why aren't you at the studio?"

He answered evasively. "Oh—I chucked that idea."

"But listen to me. You were to have got married, weren't you?"

"Oh—Audrey chucked that," he replied, pushing his cup away.

"Chucked it altogether, do you mean?"

"Looks like it," he grunted. "Let's talk about something else."

But, looking round the untidy room again I wondered whether it would not be better for him to talk about precisely that. Even an active smart was preferable to sloth and helplessness of that kind, and there is something very lovable about Monty at his best.

"No, no," I said. "Much better get it off your chest. And look here, my friend, you haven't shaved this morning. That sort of thing doesn't help. Talk about something else? No, let's talk about this. Where is Mrs. Cunningham?"

"I think Buxton this week. Haven't looked at the Era. She's on tour if you must know."

"But why? Why are things—like this? Surely there's a reason?"

"Oh, she said she just couldn't stick it," he answered with an off-handed but tremulous little laugh.

"Stick what?"

"Everything."

I knew what he meant by "everything." He meant, simply, this confounded Case. Now, it appeared, it had power to break off an engagement and to bring Rooke down to dirty table-cloths, unmade beds and marmalade out of the grocer's pot.

"Look here, Monty," I began, touching his sleeve, "we've been friends for quite a number of years now——"

"Oh, don't," he interrupted me petulantly. "Leave a fellow alone."

"No, I'm not going to leave you alone like this. I want you to tell me why you left the studio, and why Mrs. Cunningham's gone off on tour, and a number of other things."

Well, it took time, but bit by bit he yielded. In sullen, resentful sentences he began to talk.

"What do I mean by everything?" he said. "Well, I mean everything. Nothing's gone right. Nothing at all. Everybody's fed up to the back teeth, Esdaile too. And all that stupid business last week just about put the tin hat on it."

"Do you mean that photograph in the papers?"

"Yes, and those idiotic crowds, and all their senseless talk. Who wants a streetful of fools gaping at his windows for two or three days on end like that? Then they started pulling his leg at the Club. So he just waited till this chap Smith was fit to be moved and then cleared out. I don't blame him."

"Yes, I can understand Esdaile's being annoyed; but that's over now, and I don't quite see why you should leave and come back here."

"Well, Audrey wasn't going there anyway," he answered. "She'd had enough of it. Got it into her head there was something uncanny about the place, and so there is. Too much mystery altogether. That was Esdaile. He keeps you on the jump the whole time."

"What do you mean by keeping you on the jump?"

"All sorts of ways. There's that cellar of his for one thing; he was never in the same mind about that for half an hour together. We were going to take a cupboard or something down there one day; it was his own suggestion; but he twisted and wriggled and tried to cry off till I was about at the end of my patience. You'd have thought he wouldn't have us down there at any price. And then suddenly he turned round and said we could go down if we liked. Idiotic I call it."

"Did you go down?"

"Yes. And there was nothing whatever to make all that fuss about as far as I could see. I admit I'd wondered once or twice whether there was anything queer, but I went into every corner and there was absolutely nothing to see."

"You're thinking of that other morning when he was down there all that time?"

"Yes. I can't make head or tail of that yet, but I can't see it's anything to do with the cellar. And just listen to this. After making all that fuss he came up again and didn't even bother to take the key out of the door. It was there when I came away. One day he nearly jumps down your throat when you ask him for the key, and the next thing he goes and leaves it in the door! I'm sure he did it on purpose too. It was just like saying, 'Go and live down there if you like.' Well, I wasn't going to be messed about like that. I'm not going nosing round other fellows' places. I'm not a policeman. So I cleared out. Would you have stopped after that?"

Again his voice shook a little, and I could guess at the meaning behind his words. He meant, Would I have continued in a house the offer of which had promised so much happiness that one moment's happening had turned to discord and misunderstanding? I cannot say that I should.