“Why?”

“Lots of the chaps there use a different name. I expect it’s the same at your club.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” I said.

I paid the taxi. Atwater kicked open a green door and led me into the hall where a porter, behind the counter, was lunching off tea and sandwiches.

“I’ve been out of town,” said Atwater. “Just dropped in to pay my subscription. Anyone about?”

“Very quiet,” said the porter.

The room into which he led me was entirely empty. It was at once bar, lounge and dining room, but mostly bar, for which a kind of film-set had been erected, built far into the room, with oak rafters, a thatched roof, a wrought iron lantern and an inn-sign painted in mock heraldry with quartered bottles and tankards. “Please don’t take this wrong,” I said, “but I’m really interested to know what was the resemblance you saw between your club and the room where we talked in mine?”

“You can’t compare them really, can you? I just didn’t want to seem snooty. Jim!”

“Sir.” A head appeared above the bar. “Well, Mr. Norton, we haven’t seen you for a long time. I was just having my bit of dinner.”

“May I interrupt that important function and give my friend here something in the nature of a snorter.”—This was a new and greatly expanded version of Atwater the good scout—“Two of your specials, please, Jim.” To me, “Jim’s specials are famous.” To Jim, “This is one of my best pals, Mr. Plant.” To me, “There’s not much Jim doesn’t know about me.” To Jim, “Where’s the gang?”

“They don’t seem to come here like they did, Mr. Norton. There’s not the money about.”

“You’ve said it.” Jim put two cocktails on the bar before us. “I presume, Jim, that since this is Mr. Plant’s first time among us, in pursuance of the old Wimpole custom, these are on the house?”

Jim laughed rather anxiously. “Mr. Norton likes his joke.”

“Joke? Jim, you shame me before my friends. But never fear. I have found a rich backer; if we aren’t having this with you, you must have one with us.”

The barman poured himself out something from a bottle which he kept for the purpose on a shelf below the bar, and said, “First today,” as we toasted one another. Atwater said, “It’s one of the mysteries of the club what Jim keeps in that bottle of his.” I knew; it was what every barman kept, cold tea, but I thought it would spoil Atwater’s treat if I told him.

Jim’s “special” was strong and agreeable.

“Is it all right for me to order a round?” I asked.

“It’s more than all right. It’s perfect.”

Jim shook up another cocktail and refilled his own glass.

“D’you remember the time I drank twelve of your specials before dinner with Mr. Appleby?”

“I do, sir.”

“A tiny bit spifflicated that night, eh, Jim?”

“A tiny bit, sir.”

We had further rounds; Jim took cash for the drinks; three shillings a time. After the first round, when Atwater broke into his pound note, I paid. Every other time he said, “Chalk it up to the national debt,” or some similar reference to the fiction of our loan. Soon Jim and Atwater were deep in reminiscence of Atwater’s past.

After a time I found my thoughts wandering and went to telephone to Victoria Square. Roger answered. “It seems things are coming more or less normally,” he said.

“How is she?”

“I haven’t been in. The doctor’s here now, in a white coat like an umpire. He keeps saying I’m not to worry.”

“But is she in danger?”

“Of course she is, it’s a dangerous business.”

“But I mean, more than most people?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. They said everything was quite normal whatever that means.”

“I suppose it means she’s not in more danger than most people.”

“I suppose so.”

“Does it bore you my ringing up to ask?”

“No, not really. Where are you?”

“At a club called the Wimpole.”

“Never heard of it.”

“No. I’ll tell you about it later. Very interesting.”

“Good. Do tell me later.”

I returned to the bar. “I thought our old comrade had passed out on us,” said Atwater. “Been sick?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“You look a terrible colour, doesn’t he, Jim? Perhaps a special is what he needs. I was sick that night old Grainger sold his Bentley, sick as a dog.”…

When I had spent about thirty shillings Jim began to tire of his cold tea. “Why don’t you gentlemen sit down at a table and let me order you a nice grill?” he asked.

“All in good time, Jim, all in good time. Mr. Plant here would like one of your specials first just to give him an appetite, and I think rather than see an old pal drink alone, I’ll join him.”

Later, when we were very drunk, steaks appeared which neither of us remembered ordering. We ate them at the bar with, at Jim’s advice, great quantities of Worcester sauce. Our conversation, I think, was mainly about Appleby and the need of finding him. We rang up one or two people of that name, whom we found in the telephone book, but they disclaimed all knowledge of Jesuit treasure.

It must have been four o’clock in the afternoon when we left the Wimpole. Atwater was more drunk than I. Next day I remembered most of our conversation verbatim. In the mews I asked him: “Where are you living?”

“Digs. Awful hole. But it’s all right now I’ve got money—I can sleep on the embankment. Police won’t let you sleep on the embankment unless you’ve got money. Vagrancy. One law for the rich, one for the poor. Iniquitous system.”

“Why don’t you come and live with me. I’ve got a house in the country, plenty of room. Stay as long as you like. Die there.”

“Thanks, I will. Must go to the embankment first and pack.”

And we separated, for the time, he sauntering unsteadily along Wimpole Street, past the rows of brass plates, I driving in a taxi to my rooms in Ebury Street where I undressed, folded my clothes and went quietly to bed. I awoke, in the dark, hours later, in confusion as to where I was and how I had got there.

The telephone was ringing next door in my sitting room. It was Roger. He said that Lucy had had a son two hours ago; he had been ringing up relatives ever since; she was perfectly well; the first thing she had asked for when she came round from the chloroform was a cigarette. “I feel like going out and getting drunk,” said Roger. “Don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “No, I’m afraid not,” and returned to bed.

When I got drunk I could sleep it off and wake in tolerable health; Roger could not; in the past we had often discussed this alcoholic insomnia of his and found no remedy for it except temperance; after telephoning to me he had gone out with Basil; he looked a wreck next morning.

“It’s extraordinary,” he said. “I’ve got absolutely no feeling about this baby at all. I kept telling myself all these last months that when I actually saw it, all manner of deep-rooted, atavistic emotions would come surging up. I was all set for a deep spiritual experience. They brought the thing in and showed it to me, I looked at it and waited—and nothing at all happened. It was just like the first time one takes hashish—or being ‘confirmed’ at school.”

“I knew a man who had five children,” I said. “He felt just as you do until the fifth. Then he was suddenly overcome with love; he bought a thermometer and kept taking its temperature when the nurse was out of the room. I daresay it’s a habit, like hashish.”

“I don’t feel as if I had anything to do with it. It’s as though they showed me Lucy’s appendix or a tooth they’d pulled out of her.”

“What’s it like? I mean, it isn’t a freak or anything?”

“No, I’ve been into that; two arms, two legs, one head, white—just a baby. Of course, you can’t tell for some time if it’s sane or not. I believe the first sign is that it can’t take hold of things with its hands. Did you know that Lucy’s grandmother was shut up?”