it.'

'But--'

'I have just sealed up the flat--doors, windows, ventilators,
everything.'

'Mr. Polycarp, this is impossible.'

'Not at all. It is done.'

'But the reason?'

'I know no more than yourself. As executor, I have carried out the
terms of the will. I thought that you, as landlord, were entitled to the
information which I have given you.'

'As landlord,' said Hugo, 'I object. And I shall demand entrance.'

'On what ground?'

'Under the clause which in all tenancy agreements gives the landlord the
right to enter at reasonable times in order to inspect the condition of
the premises,' Hugo answered defiantly to the lawyer.

'I had considered that. But I shall dispute the right. You may bring an
action. What then? No court will give you leave to force an entrance. An
Englishman's furnished flat, just as much as his house, is his castle. I
could certainly keep you out for a year.'

'And may I ask why you are so anxious to keep me out, Mr. Polycarp?'

'I am anxious merely to fulfil my duties. May I ask why you are so
anxious to get in? Why do you want to thwart the wishes of a dead man?'

'I could not permit that mystery to remain for a whole year in the very
middle of my block of flats.'

_'What mystery?'_ Polycarp suavely inquired.

During this brief conversation all Hugo's suspicions had hurriedly
returned, and he had examined them anew and more favourably. Polycarp?
Was it not curious that Polycarp should be acting for both Ravengar and
Tudor?... Darcy? Were there not very strange features in the behaviour
of this English doctor who preferred to practise in Paris?... And the
haemorrhage? And, lastly, this monstrous, unaccountable, inexplicable
shutting-up of the flat?

He felt already that those empty rooms, dark, silent, sealed, guarding
in some recess he knew not what dreadful secret, were getting on his
nerves. And was he to suffer for a year?

'Come, Mr. Hugo,' said Polycarp; 'I may count on your goodwill?'

'I don't know,' Hugo replied--'I don't know.'

PART II THE PHONOGRAPH

CHAPTER XI

SALE

Strange sights are to be seen in London.

At five minutes to nine a.m. on the first day of the year seven vast
crowds stood before the seven principal entrances to Hugo's; seven
crowds of immortal souls enclosed in the bodies of women. They meant to
begin the year well by an honest attempt to get something for nothing.
It was a cold, dank, raw, and formidable morning; Hugo