At last, not for the first time during this interminable journey, he took from his breast pocket the unsigned telegram which was the cause of his being here, driving, oh! how slowly, along this fantastically empty thoroughfare, through the chill morning air, instead of lying sound asleep by Kate's side in his comfortable bed at home. "_Philip Dering is dead please come at once at once at once to eight Lady Rich Road._" Wingfield, steadying the slip of paper as it fluttered in his hand, looked down with frowning puzzled eyes at the pencilled words. The message had been set off just before midnight, and had reached his house, he supposed, an hour and a half later, for the persistent knocking at his front door had gone on for some time before he or his wife realised that the loud hammering sound concerned themselves. Even then it had been Kate who had at last roused herself and gone downstairs; Kate who had rushed up breathless, whispering as she thrust the orange envelope into his hand:--"Oh, James, what can it be? Thank God, all the children are safe at home!" No time had been lost. While he was dressing, his wife had made him a cup of tea, kind and solicitous for his comfort, but driving him nearly distracted by her eager, excited talk and aimless conjectures. It had seemed long before he found a derelict cab willing to drive him from Regent's Terrace to Bedford Park, but now--well, thank God, he was at last nearing the place where he would learn what had befallen the man who had been, next to his own elder boy, the creature he had loved best in his calm, phlegmatic life. Wingfield went on staring down at the mysterious and yet explicit message, of which the wording seemed to him so odd--in some ways recalling Dering's familiar trick of reiteration. Then suddenly he thought of Hinton, the artist for whom both he and his friend had had reason to feel so deep if wordless a contempt, and yet whom they had both tried, over and over again, to help and set on his feet. With a sudden revulsion of feeling, the lawyer folded up the telegram and put it back into his breast pocket--this mysterious, unsigned request for his immediate presence had obviously been despatched by Hinton, who might just as well have waited for morning. How stupid of him not to have realised this at once, the more so that No. 8, Lady Rich Road, was Hinton's address, not that of Dering. Quickly he raised his hand to the trap-door above his head; "Pull up at No. 8, not as I told you, at No. 9, Lady Rich Road," he shouted. * * * * *