“He hasn’t got one. Don’t you know the hideous story? He once had a spaniel called⸺” “I know,” I interrupted. “And he’s got another.” “Not he!” rejoined Gernham, with sledge-hammer certainty. “He’ll never have another. I understand the poor chap’s feelings. At the same time⸺” But here I interrupted again, and told Gernham the story of Vernon’s acquisition of the spaniel. He heard me with an amazement he did not try to conceal. “And you mean to say the dog’s in the house now?” he cried, when I had finished. “I suppose so, unless he’s got rid of it already.” Gernham sat quite still with his thin hands spread out on his knees staring at me hard. “This is extraordinary,” he said at last, with a sort of biting decision. “You mean that he didn’t mention the fact that he had a dog?” “I mean more than that. I mean that he concealed it from me.” “Concealed it?” “Certainly. I’ve got any amount of animals—dogs, cats, the whole show—and I’m always urging Kersteven to set up a happy family. We preach kindness, he and I. We ought to practise it actively as much as we can. But his feelings about his dead dog have always stood in the way. I’m perpetually trying to convert him to my view. I’ve been at it this week.” “And he said he hadn’t a dog?” “No. But he never said he had one. It’s much the same thing under the circumstances. I should never have thought Kersteven could be deceitful. I don’t like it. I—I hate it!” At this moment we were interrupted. Two of the other men came up and we had no more private talk that evening. When I was going away Gernham said— “Come and see me—will you? Here’s my card.” He gave it to me, shook my hand, and as I turned to go said— “You’ve spoilt my evening, I can tell you that.” I thought, “And you’ve spoilt mine,” but I did not say it. IX I went home that night wondering whether Vernon had got rid of the black spaniel. Perhaps he had found it impossible to reconcile it to its new quarters, and had sold it or given it back to the man with the fur cap. Or perhaps it was still in the house. If that were so, it was very strange, very unlike Vernon to have concealed the fact from Arthur Gernham. But, in either case, he had been deceitful, deliberately deceitful, with a friend, and a friend whom he greatly admired and respected. This incident of my meeting with Gernham deepened my sense of fear, of mystery. My instinct—I now felt sure of it—was right. Some strange under side of Vernon’s character was active at this moment. I knew him only in part; much of him I did not know. A stranger now seemed to confront me in the night, a stranger by whose feet crouched something black and terrified. What was this stranger’s purpose? What could it be?