He floundered--until Fate helped him. And the instant Fate helped him,
the warning and presentiment he had dismissed as fanciful, became real
again. He hesitated. Caution acted. He would think twice before taking
steps to form acquaintance. "Better not," thought whispered. "Better
leave them alone, this queer couple. They're after things that won't do
you any good." This idea of mischief, almost of danger, in their
purposes was oddly insistent; for what could possibly convey it? But,
while he hesitated, Fate, who sent the warning, pushed him at the same
time into the circle of their lives: at first tentatively--he might
still have escaped; but soon urgently--curiosity led him inexorably
towards the end.




IV


It was so simple a manoeuvre by which Fate began the innocent game. The
woman left a couple of books behind her on the table one night, and
Henriot, after a moment's hesitation, took them out after her. He knew
the titles--_The House of the Master_, and _The House of the Hidden
Places_, both singular interpretations of the Pyramids that once had
held his own mind spellbound. Their ideas had been since disproved, if
he remembered rightly, yet the titles were a clue--a clue to that
imaginative part of his mind that was so busy constructing theories and
had found its stride. Loose sheets of paper, covered with notes in a
minute handwriting, lay between the pages; but these, of course, he did
not read, noticing only that they were written round designs of various
kinds--intricate designs.