gh fields and lines of villas and terraces and then
slums and mean streets, and it took me pretty nearly two hours. All
the while my restlessness was growing worse. I felt that great things,
tremendous things, were happening or about to happen, and I, who was
the cog-wheel of the whole business, was out of it. Royer would be
landing at Dover, Sir Walter would be making plans with the few people
in England who were in the secret, and somewhere in the darkness the
Black Stone would be working. I felt the sense of danger and impending
calamity, and I had the curious feeling, too, that I alone could avert
it, alone could grapple with it. But I was out of the game now. How
could it be otherwise? It was not likely that Cabinet Ministers and
Admiralty Lords and Generals would admit me to their councils.

I actually began to wish that I could run up against one of my three
enemies. That would lead to developments. I felt that I wanted
enormously to have a vulgar scrap with those gentry, where I could hit
out and flatten something. I was rapidly getting into a very bad
temper.

I didn't feel like going back to my flat. That had to be faced some
time, but as I still had sufficient money I thought I would put it off
till next morning, and go to a hotel for the night.

My irritation lasted through dinner, which I had at a restaurant in
Jermyn Street. I was no longer hungry, and let several courses pass
untasted. I drank the best part of a bottle of Burgundy, but it did
nothing to cheer me. An abominable restlessness had taken possession
of me. Here was I, a very ordinary fellow, with no particular brains,
and yet I was convinced that somehow I was needed to help this business
through--that without me it would all go to blazes. I told myself it
was sheer silly conceit, that four or five of the cleverest people
living, with all the might of the British Empire at their back, had the
job in hand. Yet I couldn't be convinced. It seemed as if a voice
kept speaking in my ear, telling me to be up and doing, or I would
never sleep again.

The upshot was that about half-past nine I made up my mind to go to
Queen Anne's Gate. Very likely I would not be admitted, but it would
ease my conscience to try.

I walked down Jermyn Street, and at the corner of Duke Street passed a
group of young men. They were in evening dress, had been dining
somewhere, and were going on to a music-hall. One of them was Mr
Marmaduke Jopley.