some
strange anxiety, with his forehead damp and shining, his spectacles
aslant on his nose and the heavy folds of his frock-coat shaken with a
sudden impetuosity.

"How do you know?" I repeated, shaking my fist in the air. "How do you
know he isn't going to die?"

Sarakoff fingered his beard in silence, but his eyes shone with a quiet
certainty. To the man from Birmingham it must have seemed suddenly
strange that we should behave in this manner. His mind was sharpened to
perceive things. Yesterday, had he been present at a similar scene, he
would probably have sat dully, finding nothing curious in my passionate
attitude and the calm, almost insolent, inscrutability of Sarakoff. He
forgot his turquoise finger nails, and stared, open-mouthed.

"Ain't going to die?" he said. "What do yer mean?"

"Simply that you aren't going to die," was Sarakoff's soft answer.

"Yer mean, not die of the Blue Disease?"

"Not die at all."

"Garn! Not die at all." He looked at me. "What's he mean, Mister?" He
looked almost surprised with himself at catching the drift of Sarakoff's
sentence. Inwardly he felt something insistent and imperious, forcing
him to grasp words, to blunder into new meanings. Some new force was
alive in him and he was carried on by it in spite of himself. He felt
strung up to a pitch of nervous irritation. He got up from his chair and
came forward, pointing at Sarakoff. "What's this?" he demanded. "Why
don't you speak out? Yer cawn't hide it from me." He stopped. His brain,
working at unwonted speed, had discovered a fresh suspicion. "Look 'ere,
you two know something about this blue disease." He came a step closer,
and looking cunningly in my face, said: "That's why you offered me a
five-pound note, ain't it?"

I avoided the scrutiny of the sparrow-egg blue orbs close before me.

"I offered you the money because I wished to examine you," I said
shortly. "Here it is. You can go now."

I took a note from a safe in the corner of the room, and held it out.
The man took it, felt its crispness and stowed it away in a secure
pocket. His thoughts were temporarily diverted by the prospect of an
immediate future with plenty of money, and he picked up his hat and went
to the door. But his turquoise finger nails lying against the rusty
black of the hat brought him back to his suspicions. He paused and
turned.

"My name's Wain," he said. "I'm telling you, in case you might 'ear of
me again. 'Erbert Wain. I know what