some
unknown world, about which he had neither read nor dreamed.

The sound of footsteps came as an immense relief. A man came round the
corner, smoking a cigarette and humming softly to himself. The presence
of another human being seemed suddenly to bring Tavernake's feet back
upon the earth. He moved toward the pavement and addressed the newcomer.

"Can you tell me how to get inside that house?" he asked quickly.

The man removed the cigarette from his mouth and stared at his
questioner.

"I should ring the bell," he replied, "but surely it's unoccupied? What
do you want to get in there for?"

"Less than a minute ago," Tavernake told him, "I was walking here with
a friend. A man came up behind us and tried deliberately to stab him.
He bolted afterwards through that door, my friend followed him, the door
was closed in my face."

The newcomer was a youngish man, a musician, who had just come from
a concert and was on his way to the club at the end of the street.
Probably, had he been a journalist, his curiosity would have been
greater than his incredulity. As it was, however, he gazed at Tavernake,
for a moment, blankly.

"Look here," he said, "this doesn't sound a very likely story of yours,
you know."

"I don't care whether it's likely or not," Tavernake answered hotly;
"it's true! The knife's somewhere in the road there--it fell up against
the railings."

They crossed the road together and searched. There were no signs of the
weapon. Tavernake peered over the railings.

"When my friend struck the other man and twisted him over," he
explained, "the knife seemed to fly up into the air; it might even have
reached the gardens."

His companion turned slowly away.

"Well, it's no use looking down there for it," he remarked. "We might
try the door, if you like."

They leaned their weight against it, hammered at the panels, and waited.
The door was fast closed and no reply came. The musician shrugged his
shoulders and prepared to depart, after one more glance at Tavernake,
half suspicious, half questioning.

"If you think it worth while," he said, "you had better fetch the
police, perhaps. If you take my advice, though, I think I should go home
and forget all about it."

He passed on, leaving Tavernake speechless. The idea that people might
not believe his story had never seriously occurred to him. Yet all of a
sudden he began to doubt it himself. He stepped back into the road and
looked up at the windo