“No,” he said determinedly, so that he seemed to bay like a dog from his chest, “certainly not. If I am to cure him, I must have him under my own close personal attention. There’s nothing to be done but to wait.” He rose upon the points of his toes, and then brought his heels sharply down upon the floor. “You understand, we know nothing yet. Your friend doesn’t speak a word. He’s no doubt aware that he’s watched. He has a companion whom I have personally instructed, and who will report to me. Get him to take as much exercise as he can. Keep him fairly quiet, but have him in the room when cheerful people are about. I will drop in at every moment of the day that I can spare.” He paused to glare at Robert Grimshaw. “I’m a very busy man, but I’ll pay special attention to your friend’s case. I will try to be always in and out of Mr. Leicester’s house. More I can’t do.” Backed up as he was by Katya Lascarides’ suggestion that Sir William was a good man, Grimshaw felt an intense satisfaction--even a gratitude--to Sir William; and whilst he slipped his five-pound note carefully wrapped round five shillings under the specialist’s paper-weight, which was made of one huge aqua-marine, he uttered a formal speech of thanks. “Mind,” Sir William shouted at him as he reached the door, “I don’t promise you a cure. I’m not one of those quacks. But you know my position, and you know my reputation. I work from ascertained facts, not from theories. If it were possible to communicate with your friend--if he’d speak, or if it were possible to manipulate him--we might get at something. If, for instance, we could get him to stand with his heels together, his hands at his sides, and his eyes shut; but we can’t get him to speak, and he doesn’t listen when he’s spoken to. There’s nothing to do but wait until he does.” A period of strain, enhanced by the continual droppings in of Sir William Wells, ensued for the house in Curzon Street, and nothing happened, save that they all became personally acquainted with Sir William’s idiosyncrasies. They discovered that he had a singular prejudice against the eating of fish; that he was exceedingly insolent to the servants; that he read the _Daily Telegraph_; that he liked the singing of Scotch comedians, and considered all ballet-dancers to be physically abnormal. They also had the perpetual company of a gentle and black-haired youth called Held. This young man, with a singular slimness and taciturnity, had been put in by Sir William as if he were a bailiff in possession of Dudley Leicester. Dudley Leicester never spoke, the young man hardly ever; but he was exceedingly nice in his table manners, and eventually Pauline made the discovery at dinner that he very much disliked cats, and was a Christian Scientist. And with these additions the household continued its way.