Panic never did good. He must face it, and see. He
refused even to hurry, calmly collected the papers wanted for the day,
and attended to a letter or two, before he set out in a taxi-cab to
Fitzroy Street.
Waiting outside there in the grey morning for his ring to be answered,
he looked the very picture of a man who knew his mind, a man of
resolution. But it needed all his will-power to ask without tremor: "Mr.
Darrant in?" to hear without sign of any kind the answer: "He's not up
yet, sir."
"Never mind; I'll go in and see him. Mr. Keith Darrant."
On his way to Laurence's bedroom, in the midst of utter relief, he had
the self-possession to think: 'This arrest is the best thing that could
have happened. It'll keep their noses on a wrong scent till Larry's got
away. The girl must be sent off too, but not with him.' Panic had ended
in quite hardening his resolution. He entered the bedroom with a feeling
of disgust. The fellow was lying there, his bare arms crossed behind his
tousled head, staring at the ceiling, and smoking one of many cigarettes
whose ends littered a chair beside him, whose sickly reek tainted the
air. That pale face, with its jutting cheek-bones and chin, its hollow
cheeks and blue eyes far sunk back--what a wreck of goodness!
He looked up at Keith through the haze of smoke and said quietly: "Well,
brother, what's the sentence? 'Transportation for life, and then to be
fined forty pounds?'"
The flippancy revolted Keith.
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