t. Before dawn the pane had been replaced in the
drawing-room window, and the side-door secured.

PART III

THE TOMB

CHAPTER XX

'ARE YOU THERE?'

The next morning Hugo's dreams seemed to be concerned chiefly with a
telephone, and the telephone-bell of his dreams made the dreams so noisy
that even while asleep he knew that his rest was being outrageously
disturbed. He tried to change the subject of his fantastic visions, but
he could not, and the telephone-bell rang nearly all the time. This was
the more annoying in that he had taken elaborate precautions to secure
perfect repose. Perfect repose was what he needed after quitting Tudor's
flat. He felt that he had stood as much as a man can expect himself to
stand. In the vault, and again in the flat, his life had been in danger;
he had suffered the ignominy of the ruined sale; he had come to grips
with Ravengar, and let Ravengar go free; he had listened to the amazing
recital of the phonograph. Moreover, between the interview with Ravengar
and the burglary of the flat he had summoned his Council of Ten, or,
rather, his Council of Nine (Bentley being absent, dead), had addressed
all his employes, had separated three traitorous shopwalkers, ten
traitorous cashiers, and forty-two traitorous servers from the main
body, and sent them packing, had arranged for the rehabilitation of Lady
Brice (_nee_ Kentucky-Webster), had appointed a new guardian to the Safe
Deposit, had got on the track of the stolen stoles, and had approved
special advertisements for every daily paper in London.

And, finally and supremely, he had experienced the greatest stroke of
joy, ecstatic and bewildering joy, of his whole existence--the news that
Camilla lived. It was this tremendous feeling of joy, and not by any
means his complex and variegated worries, that might have prevented him
from obtaining the sleep which Nature demanded.

On reaching the dome at 2 a.m., he had taken four tabloids, each
containing 0.324 gramme of trional, and had drunk the glass of hot milk
which Simon always left him in case he should want it. And he had
written on a sheet of paper the words: 'I am not to be disturbed before
10 a.m., no matter what happens; but call me at ten.--H.'; and had put
the sheet of paper on Simon's door-mat. And then he had stumbled into
bed, and abandoned himself to sleep--not without reluctance, for he did
not care to lose, even for a few hours, the fine consciousness of th