Sir John had confessed to possessing nerves, and to few men the situation would have been an inviting one. Still, there was only one possible thing to do, and he closed the door again, noticing, as he did so, that the action locked it. As he stood there a moment before returning to the bedroom and its tranquil occupant lying in his rigid, unbreathing sleep, a slight but continuous sound caught his ear. It was the most closely comparable (to attempt to define it) with the whirring of a clock as the flying pinion is released before it strikes. Or it might be that the doctor's simile prompted the comparison. It was not loud, but the room beyond seemed very, very still. It was not a time to temporise with the emotions. Hampden stepped into the next room and stood listening. He judged--nay, he was sure--that the sound came from the bedroom, but it was not repeated. Instead, something very different happened, something that was either terrifying or natural, according to the conditions that provoked it. Quite without warning there came a voice from the next room, a full, level, healthy voice, even strong, and speaking in the ordinary manner of conversation. "Will you please tell Mr Tubes that I am waiting here to see him?" CHAPTER XI MAN BETWEEN TWO MASTERS There was something in the situation that was more than gruesome, something that was peculiarly unnerving. In his anticipation of this moment as he had sat almost by the bedside, Hampden had conjectured that the dying man would perhaps lift a hand or move his head uneasily with the first instinct of returning consciousness. A sigh, a groan, might escape him, incoherent words follow, then broken but rational expressions of his suffering, and entreaties that something might be done to ease the pain. Or perhaps, after realising his position, he would nerve himself to betray no unmanly weakness, and, in the words of the significant old phrase, "turning his face to the wall," endure in stoical silence to the end. It would be painful, perhaps acutely distressing, but it would not be unnatural. There had been no groan, no sigh or broken words, no indication of weakness or suffering behind that half-closed door, nothing but the curious clock-like sound that had gone before the voice. And that voice! It was as full and strong, as vibrant and as ordinary as his own could ever be. Standing in the middle of the living-room Sir John could not deceive himself. It came from the other room where a minute before he had left the dying--yes, the almost dead--man lying with stark outline on the bed. There was no alternative: it was from those pallid lips that the words had come, it was by that still, inanimate man that they were spoken.