Fenn was up first. Many years' experience of being tackled at fullspeed on the football field had taught him how to fall. The stranger,whose football days, if he had ever had any, were long past, had gonedown with a crash, and remained on the pavement, motionless. Fenn wasconscious of an ignoble impulse to fly without stopping to chat aboutthe matter. Then he was seized with a gruesome fear that he hadinjured the man seriously, which vanished when the stranger sat up.

　　His first words were hardly of the sort that one would listen to fromchoice. His first printable expression, which did not escape him untilhe had been speaking some time, was in the nature of an officialbulletin.

　　"You've broken my neck," said he.

　　Fenn renewed his apologies and explanations.

　　"Your watch!" cried the man in a high, cracked voice. "Don't standthere talking about your watch, but help me up. What do I care aboutyour watch? Why don't you look where you are going to? Now then, nowthen, don't hoist me as if I were a hod of bricks. That's right. Nowhelp me indoors, and go away."Fenn supported him while he walked lamely into the house. He wasrelieved to find that there was nothing more the matter with him thana shaking and a few bruises.

　　"Door on the left," said the injured one.

　　Fenn led him down the passage and into a small sitting-room. The gaswas lit, and as he turned it up he saw that the stranger was a manwell advanced in years. He had grey hair that was almost white. Hisface was not a pleasant one. It was a mass of lines and wrinkles fromwhich a physiognomist would have deduced uncomplimentary conclusionsas to his character. Fenn had little skill in that way, but he feltthat for some reason he disliked the man, whose eyes, which were smalland extraordinarily bright, gave rather an eerie look to his face.

　　"Go away, go away," he kept repeating savagely from his post on theshabby sofa on which Fenn had deposited him.

　　"But are you all right? Can't I get you something?" asked theEckletonian.

　　"Go away, go away," repeated the man.

　　Conversation on these lines could never be really attractive. Fennturned to go. As he closed the door and began to feel his way alongthe dark passage, he heard the key turn in the lock behind him. Theman could not, he felt, have been very badly hurt if he were able toget across the room so quickly. The thought relieved him somewhat.

　　Nobody likes to have the maiming even of the most complete stranger onhis mind. The sensation of relief lasted possibly three seconds. Thenit flashed upon him that in the excitement of the late interview hehad forgotten his cap. That damaging piece of evidence lay on thetable in the sitting-room, and between him and it was a locked door.

　　He groped his way back, and knocked. No sound came from the room.