Tales of Men and Ghosts. Edith Wharton

to go—“District Attorney be hanged; see a doctor, see a doctor!” he had cried; and so, with an exaggerated laugh, had pulled on his coat and departed.

      Granice turned back into the library. It had never occurred to him that Ascham would not believe his story. For three hours he had explained, elucidated, patiently and painfully gone over every detail—but without once breaking down the iron incredulity of the lawyer’s eye.

      At first Ascham had feigned to be convinced—but that, as Granice now perceived, was simply to get him to expose himself, to entrap him into contradictions. And when the attempt failed, when Granice triumphantly met and refuted each disconcerting question, the lawyer dropped the mask suddenly, and said with a good-humoured laugh: “By Jove, Granice you’ll write a successful play yet. The way you’ve worked this all out is a marvel.”

      Granice swung about furiously—that last sneer about the play inflamed him. Was all the world in a conspiracy to deride his failure?

      “I did it, I did it,” he muttered sullenly, his rage spending itself against the impenetrable surface of the other’s mockery; and Ascham answered with a smile: “Ever read any of those books on hallucination? I’ve got a fairly good medico-legal library. I could send you one or two if you like …”

      Left alone, Granice cowered down in the chair before his writing-table. He understood that Ascham thought him off his head.

      “Good God—what if they all think me crazy?”

      The horror of it broke out over him in a cold sweat—he sat there and shook, his eyes hidden in his icy hands. But gradually, as he began to rehearse his story for the thousandth time, he saw again how incontrovertible it was, and felt sure that any criminal lawyer would believe him.

      “That’s the trouble—Ascham’s not a criminal lawyer. And then he’s a friend. What a fool I was to talk to a friend! Even if he did believe me, he’d never let me see it—his instinct would be to cover the whole thing up … But in that case—if he did believe me—he might think it a kindness to get me shut up in an asylum …” Granice began to tremble again. “Good heaven! If he should bring in an expert—one of those damned alienists! Ascham and Pettilow can do anything—their word always goes. If Ascham drops a hint that I’d better be shut up, I’ll be in a strait-jacket by to-morrow! And he’d do it from the kindest motives—be quite right to do it if he thinks I’m a murderer!”

      The vision froze him to his chair. He pressed his fists to his bursting temples and tried to think. For the first time he hoped that Ascham had not believed his story.

      “But he did—he did! I can see it now—I noticed what a queer eye he cocked at me. Good God, what shall I do—what shall I do?”

      He started up and looked at the clock. Half-past one. What if Ascham should think the case urgent, rout out an alienist, and come back with him? Granice jumped to his feet, and his sudden gesture brushed the morning paper from the table. Mechanically he stooped to pick it up, and the movement started a new train of association.

      He sat down again, and reached for the telephone book in the rack by his chair.

      “Give me three-o-ten … yes.”

      The new idea in his mind had revived his flagging energy. He would act—act at once. It was only by thus planning ahead, committing himself to some unavoidable line of conduct, that he could pull himself through the meaningless days. Each time he reached a fresh decision it was like coming out of a foggy weltering sea into a calm harbour with lights. One of the queerest phases of his long agony was the intense relief produced by these momentary lulls.

      “That the office of the Investigator? Yes? Give me Mr. Denver, please … Hallo, Denver … Yes, Hubert Granice. … Just caught you? Going straight home? Can I come and see you … yes, now … have a talk? It’s rather urgent … yes, might give you some first-rate ‘copy.’ … All right!” He hung up the receiver with a laugh. It had been a happy thought to call up the editor of the Investigator—Robert Denver was the very man he needed …

      Granice put out the lights in the library—it was odd how the automatic gestures persisted!—went into the hall, put on his hat and overcoat, and let himself out of the flat. In the hall, a sleepy elevator boy blinked at him and then dropped his head on his folded arms. Granice passed out into the street. At the corner of Fifth Avenue he hailed a crawling cab, and called out an up-town address. The long thoroughfare stretched before him, dim and deserted, like an ancient avenue of tombs. But from Denver’s house a friendly beam fell on the pavement; and as Granice sprang from his cab the editor’s electric turned the corner.

      The two men grasped hands, and Denver, feeling for his latch-key, ushered Granice into the brightly-lit hall.

      “Disturb me? Not a bit. You might have, at ten to-morrow morning … but this is my liveliest hour … you know my habits of old.”

      Granice had known Robert Denver for fifteen years—watched his rise through all the stages of journalism to the Olympian pinnacle of the Investigator’s editorial office. In the thick-set man with grizzling hair there were few traces left of the hungry-eyed young reporter who, on his way home in the small hours, used to “bob in” on Granice, while the latter sat grinding at his plays. Denver had to pass Granice’s flat on the way to his own, and it became a habit, if he saw a light in the window, and Granice’s shadow against the blind, to go in, smoke a pipe, and discuss the universe.

      “Well—this is like old times—a good old habit reversed.” The editor smote his visitor genially on the shoulder. “Reminds me of the nights when I used to rout you out … How’s the play, by the way? There is a play, I suppose? It’s as safe to ask you that as to say to some men: ‘How’s the baby?’ ”

      Denver laughed good-naturedly, and Granice thought how thick and heavy he had grown. It was evident, even to Granice’s tortured nerves, that the words had not been uttered in malice—and the fact gave him a new measure of his insignificance. Denver did not even know that he had been a failure! The fact hurt more than Ascham’s irony.

      “Come in—come in.” The editor led the way into a small cheerful room, where there were cigars and decanters. He pushed an arm-chair toward his visitor, and dropped into another with a comfortable groan.

      “Now, then—help yourself. And let’s hear all about it.”

      He beamed at Granice over his pipe-bowl, and the latter, lighting his cigar, said to himself: “Success makes men comfortable, but it makes them stupid.”

      Then he turned, and began: “Denver, I want to tell you—”

      The clock ticked rhythmically on the mantel-piece. The room was gradually filled with drifting blue layers of smoke, and through them the editor’s face came and went like the moon through a moving sky. Once the hour struck—then the rhythmical ticking began again. The atmosphere grew denser and heavier, and beads of perspiration began to roll from Granice’s forehead.

      “Do you mind if I open the window?”

      “No. It is stuffy in here. Wait—I’ll do it myself.” Denver pushed down the upper sash, and returned to his chair. “Well—go on,” he said, filling another pipe. His composure exasperated Granice.

      “There’s no use in my going on if you don’t believe me.”

      The editor remained unmoved. “Who says I don’t believe you? And how can I tell till you’ve finished?”

      Granice went on, ashamed of his outburst. “It was simple enough, as you’ll see. From the day the old man said to me, ‘Those Italians would murder you for a quarter,’ I dropped everything and just worked at my scheme. It struck me at once that I must find a way of getting to Wrenfield and back in a night—and that led to the idea of a motor. A motor—that never occurred to you? You wonder where I got the money, I suppose. Well, I had a thousand or so put by, and I nosed around till I found what I wanted—a second-hand racer. I knew how to drive a car, and I