t he
meant to carry his point--by brute force if necessary.

But not yet. "I'm not asking you to give up a mere copy of verses. The
Sonnets are unique--even for Rickman; and for one solitary lady to
insist on suppressing them--well, you know, it's a large order."

This time she indeed showed some signs of animation. "How do you know
they are unique? Did he show you them?"

"No, he did not. I found them among his papers when he was in
hospital."

"In hospital?" She sat up and looked at him steadily and without
emotion.

"Yes; I had to overhaul his things--we thought he was dying--and the
Sonnets--"

"Never mind the Sonnets now, please. Tell me about his illness. What
was it?"

Again that air of imperious proprietorship! "Enteric," he said
bluntly, "and some other things."

"Where was he before they took him to the hospital?"

"He was--if you want to know--in a garret in a back street off
Tottenham Court Road."

"What was he doing there?"

"To the best of my belief, he was starving. Do you find the room too
close?"

"No, no. Go on."

Maddox went on. He was enjoying the sensation he was creating. He went
on happily, piling up the agony. Since she would have it he was not
reticent of detail. He related the story of the Rankins' dinner. He
described with diabolically graphic touches the garret in Howland
Street. "We thought he'd been drinking, you know, and all the time he
was starving."

"He was starving--" she repeated slowly to herself.

"He was not doing it because he was a poet. It seems he had to pay
some debt, or thought he had. The poor chap talked about it when he
was delirious. Oh--let _me_ open that window."

"Thank you. You say he was delirious. Were you with him then?"

Maddox leapt to his conclusion. Miss Lucia Harden had something to
conceal. He gathered it from her sudden change of attitude, from her
interrogation, from her faintness and from the throbbing terror in her
voice. _That_ was why she desired the suppression of the Sonnets.

"Were you with him?" she repeated.

"No. God forgive me!"

"Nobody was with him--before they took him to the hospital?"

"Nobody, my dear lady, whom you would call anybody. He owes his life
to the charity of a drunken prostitute."

She was woman, the eternal, predestined enemy of Rickman's genius.
Therefore he had determined not to spare her, but to smite her with
words like sledge-hammers.

And to judge by the look of her he had succeeded. She