I had bought that copy of the Roundabout myself, but I knew that that was in no sense the point. Without a word I handed it to Mr. Westbury. My second glass of beer was placed before me, and as I half turned to get a coin from my pocket I felt, positively felt, their eyes on me. I also felt their removal as I took up my change and resumed my former attitude. Westbury had taken the paper with a "Thank you, sir."

"Ah, it's open at the very page. Begin here, Tom," he said. "'If civil aviation is to develop——'"

And he passed the paper to one of his companions.

I had not the least intention of leaving. I was perfectly well aware that Westbury had not wanted that paper, but had wanted to see my face. He was not likely to recognize it as that of the younger novelist whose portrait appears publicly from time to time, since in order to maintain that humorous status I have for a dozen years refrained from having my photograph taken at all; but I knew enough of my man to be sure that little had escaped him during that half hour or so when he had occupied that position of privilege outside Esdaile's French window, and that he probably remembered every face of that breakfast-party—Mackwith's and my own among the rest. That was why I had no thought of leaving. He was hardly the kind of man I should have had much to say to in the ordinary course, but if he saw fit to challenge me, well and good. In fact, I hadn't very much choice in the matter. I had only to picture to myself what sort of glances would be exchanged among them were I suddenly to finish my beer and walk out and my remaining became almost a necessity. Nay, he had already challenged me when he had borrowed my paper. My only doubt was whether, in view of that whispered conversation and of the dimensions Rumor had now attained, they hadn't all challenged me.

The next moment Mr. Westbury had gone still farther. He had also chosen the ground on which our duel, if there was to be a duel, was to take place. The Public-house has its own punctilio. I wouldn't go the length of saying that you can't ask a stranger for a match without offering to buy him a drink in return, but such invitations are given on quite slight occasions. I was not surprised, therefore, when Mr. Westbury, catching my eye, acknowledged the loan of the paper by saying, "Will you have a drink, sir?"

So I had in a sense either to eat his salt or refuse it. I did not hesitate. Certainly that beer was salt enough.

"Thank you," I replied.

"And what is it, sir?"

"I'll have another glass of beer."

He ordered it. Then, "I think we've met before," he said.

The silence of the others was suddenly very noticeable. It was for all the world as if some referee had ordered, "Seconds out of the ring."

"I'm afraid I don't quite——" I began.

"Well, I won't say it got as far as an intro," he took me up, "but weren't you at a certain house in Lennox Street when an accident occurred the other day?"

"I was, but I wasn't aware——"

"Oh, I wasn't inside the house. But I was able to be of some little assistance outside," he replied. "A very curious affair, sir," he added tentatively.

"Rather a sad one," I replied.

There was a pause. "Chelsea's very much interested in that accident," he continued.

I answered that I didn't live in Chelsea.

Then suddenly he became almost amiable; but for all his amiability his eyes were like the hard-boiled eggs on the counter, only a trifle yellower.

"Well, that's two of you gentlemen I've met now," he said. "I haven't the pleasure of knowing your name, but the other gentleman was Mr. Mackwith."

There was a certain correctness about this opening that I had reluctantly to acknowledge. He may or may not have known my name—the chances were that he had already ascertained it—but I read his thought. A few minutes ago, possibly before he had become aware of my presence, he had spoken pretty freely of Mackwith; he was now obviously asking himself whether I had overheard this. In all probability I had, but in such cases the official attitude is the best. Had Mr. Westbury been an administrator I could have imagined him penning a minute: "This does not come within the knowledge of this Department."

"Yes," he continued after a pause, "I had the pleasure of sitting on a coroner's jury with Mr. Mackwith the other day."

"Really?"

"Yes, and strange as it may seem, in connection with this very accident we're speaking of."

"That's very interesting," I said genially. "I haven't seen Mr. Mackwith since the occurrence. What happened at the inquest on the unfortunate man?"

"The verdict was in the papers, sir. And my own views are in that paper my friend is reading. They're twice over, as a matter of fact, once in a letter of mine they printed and once in the editor's remarks on it."

"Ah, then you're Mr. Westbury!" I exclaimed with feigned surprise. "I was reading both your letter and the article just now. I congratulate you. I see you're in touch with both sides."

Mr. Westbury looked at me with mistrust. "What both sides?" he asked.

"With both the men who came down that morning," I replied. "You were at the inquest on one of them, and you very properly call for an inquiry into the other man's conduct."

"I do!" he said so vindictively that he might almost have been spitting the two words into one of the sawdust-filled spittoons. "I do more than call, Mr.——" he glared.

"Oh? But how can you do more?" I asked politely. "There are certain prescribed forms in such cases, and if inquiry on those lines turns out to be satisfactory I should have said there was nothing more to be done?"

"Ah! If!" said Westbury, with the greatest intensity of meaning.

There was a palm in a copper pot behind him, and above his head a picture of a huntsman holding up a fox over the baying pack preparatory to drinking Somebody's Whisky. My eyes wandered reflectively to these objects for a moment; then I took a further step. It seemed to me too late to draw back now.

"But—well, since we are discussing this I wish you could be a little plainer," I said. "You say all Chelsea's interested in this Case, and I don't live in Chelsea. Why is Chelsea so interested?"

He replied promptly enough. "Because, sir, of certain things that don't appear on the surface of which I happen to have some knowledge."

"May I ask what things?"

He echoed me.

"And may I ask you something, and that is whether you happen to be aware that the police searched certain premises the other morning?"

"Do you mean the morning of the accident?"

"I do not mean the morning of the accident. I'm speaking of last Friday morning, at six o'clock, before anybody was about."

I considered a moment. Then, "But why not?" I replied. "Is there anything unusual about that? Surely when an accident takes place the police are the proper people to investigate it?"

I thought he would have jumped out of his chair with vehemence.

"Ah!" he cried. "Now you're talking! That's more like! The proper people? So they are; you stick to that! And now I'll ask you this: If that's so, why keep things back from them? Why this hushing up? Answer me that. Or bring some of your friends to answer it. That's all I have to say!"

And he flung himself back in his chair and continued to mutter softly.

It was evident that his choler against Mackwith had risen again. What had passed between the two men was no less plain. If Mackwith was right in his estimate of this fellow, air-raid nights spent in cellars are not the best of training for duties so unpleasant as those a coroner's inquest sometimes involves. Billy, on the other hand, did his bit in a Field Company and is tempered metal throughout. In any contest of wills between two such men there was no doubt which would be the victor. It had hardly occurred to Billy that there was a contest. Innocently and unconsciously, he had ridden roughshod over Westbury, and, if Westbury's mutterings meant anything, was to suffer for it.

"But," I said presently, "I'm afraid I don't understand even yet. It seems to me you're bringing a charge against somebody of interfering in a very serious matter. If anybody has interfered I agree with you that it's a public scandal and ought to be exposed. But I can't believe I've understood you properly."

He did not reply.

"And not only that," I continued, "but, if you'll forgive my saying so, you're neither bringing a charge nor leaving it alone."

Here, for the first time, a third person put in an aside.

"Tell him about that, Harry," a voice whispered.

(And, feeling pretty sure that I could guess what "That" was, I thought, "Now for that wearisome bullet story all over again!")

"I need hardly say," I went on, "that if you have any such charge to make there's not a single person who was there who won't gladly help you."

("Tell him about that, Harry," the voice whispered again.)

Then it was that Mr. Westbury "went back on" that eager group of mutes who had so scrupulously kept the ring for us. I saw their faces fall as, with a little jerk of his head to me, he rose. Whatever the "That" was they wished him to tell me, they apparently were not to be present at the telling. Looking back on the scene, I don't think he had any particular motive in this except more "gin-and-glory"; he would tell them all about it, with embellishments, afterwards. He passed down the bar and held the swing door open for me to precede him; then the door gave a "woff woff" as he followed me out.