'And may I ask why you are so anxious to keep me out, Mr. Polycarp?'

'I am anxious merely to fulfil my duties. May I ask why you are so
anxious to get in? Why do you want to thwart the wishes of a dead man?'

'I could not permit that mystery to remain for a whole year in the very
middle of my block of flats.'

_'What mystery?'_ Polycarp suavely inquired.

During this brief conversation all Hugo's suspicions had hurriedly
returned, and he had examined them anew and more favourably. Polycarp?
Was it not curious that Polycarp should be acting for both Ravengar and
Tudor?... Darcy? Were there not very strange features in the behaviour
of this English doctor who preferred to practise in Paris?... And the
hæmorrhage? And, lastly, this monstrous, unaccountable, inexplicable
shutting-up of the flat?

He felt already that those empty rooms, dark, silent, sealed, guarding
in some recess he knew not what dreadful secret, were getting on his
nerves. And was he to suffer for a year?

'Come, Mr. Hugo,' said Polycarp; 'I may count on your goodwill?'

'I don't know,' Hugo replied--'I don't know.'




PART II THE PHONOGRAPH