The Sixth Sense

DON

for you when the ste

ck, beyond Hong

ll it that

y, and I've known you all my life!"-

ties in earnest, and conveyed myself and

ad finished keeping me waiting. "Apparently we've got to meet the res

reshed my memory with a second readin

he cries off at the last minute (it's just like him), you'll have to manage on your own account, with occasional h

m?" Gladys aske

hen he had for the moment forgotten that he was in the East and

t was the sort of thing that might have happened to any one." He is now a highly respected member of the House of Lords, occupying an important public position. I should long ago have forgotten the w

ike now?" I

a top

neration defines wit

gest-hearted man I have ever met: slow of speech, slow of thought, slow of perception. I am afraid you might starve at his side without his noticing it; when once he had seen your plight he would give you his last crust and go hungry himself. He was brave and just as few men have the courage to be; you trusted and followed him implicitly; with greater quicknes

Philip's letter

ou hear him speak before you see him, you will recognise him by his exquisite taste in recondite epithets. He will hail you with a Greek quotation, convict you of inaccuracy and ignorance on five different matters of common knowledge in as many minutes, and finally give you up a

the end of the Rawnsley dossier. She did not know hi

see a little deeper than he did. Nigel went through life handicapped by an insatiable ambition and an abnormal self-consciousness. Without charm of manner or strength of personality, he must have been from earliest schooldays one of those who-like the Jews-trample that they be not trampled on. He became overbearing for fear of being insignificant, corrected your facts

will give him no time for his ponderous grappling. Nigel's great natural gifts will carry him to the front when he has learnt a little more humanity; and humanity will come as he loses his dread of ridicule. At present the youngest parliamentary hand can brush aside his weighty facts and figures by a simple ill-natured witticis

e remembers to employ it. You will find him thin and short, with a lean, expressionless face, grey eyes, and black hair. He can play any musical instrument from a sackbut to a Jew's

olish; or the collector's gate, where he will be losing his ticket and discovering it in the inspector's back hair. He is a skilled conjuror, and may produce a bowl of gold fish from your hat at any moment. On second thou

d replacing the letter in my pocket, as our t

egan to assemble her belongings from different c

entis, shook hands with Philip and plunged

d history of Rawnsley's early years. It was entitled "L'Avénement de Nigel," and the series began with the first cabinet council hastily summoned to be informed of the birth-I noticed that the ministers were arrayed in the conventional robes of the Magi-it concluded with the first meeting of electors addressed by the budding s

I recognized her as Sylvia Roden. I should have liked to enjoy a long rude stare, but my attention was distracted by the changed demeanour of my fellow travellers. Gartside advanced with the air M

court, a smile of challenge hovered round her small, straight mouth, as though she were conscious of the homage paid her, and claimed it as a right; behind the smile there lurked-or so I fancied-a suggestion of weariness as with one whom mere adoration leaves disillusioned. Her manner was a baffling blend of frankness and reserve. The camaraderie of her greeting reminded me she was one g

her with a formula I decided that her veins must be filled with radium. Possibly the description conveys nothing to other people; it exactly expresses the feeling that her mobile face, quick movements of body and pa

inly were, devastatin

aimed, catching Gladys by the han

ated my presen

id glance, and then held out a hand.

en younger

ge," Cullin

science," I

e to leave Engla

I knew Culling would outbid me. Instead, we gathered silently round the car and watched Philip attempting with much s

did I come down by this train, and why did you come to meet us, Sylvia? We're tw

o go as luggage," objected Culling who had vet

come, Pat,"

omething that's not good enough for Lord

seized with

re to walk?" he

r wet fields in thin shoes," his sister

und and taught me that Sylvia was s

d in an aside to her, "if

and I set out at an easy, swinging pace through the town and across t

I remarked as we go

as?" sh

cus flowed near at hand, but it was the sluggi

d a stile imposed a temporary check. Sylvia moun

be friends?" sh

erely h

de now, while there's still time to g

ng rather well,

he head. "If we're going to be friends, you must promise never to make rema

is weak," I

little promi

d. "But I always b

na and Pharpar, as you call them. You know you're rea

tly true and I have suffered much mental disquiet on the subject. So far a

etty speeches." She jumped down from the stile and stood facing me, with her cle

e, as any man would; but her foot

it may have contained, and she laid her hand almost humbly on my arm-"please don't behave as if you were. I hate it, and hate it,

hand to seal

imed with sudden penitence. "I was afraid

s expected of

nds. You'll find I'm worth it,"

w that the mo

won

every speech day at which he was presented with a prize. The tradition was carried on at Oxford, and had only come to an end when Philip entered public life and won his way into the House of Commons. Their confidences had then grown gradually less frequent, and Sylvia, whose one cry-like Kundry's-had ever been, "Let me serve," found herself without the opportunity of service. The Roden household, when I first entered it, was curiously unsympathetic; she was without an ally; there was much a

her eyebrows at the name. "Oh, well," I went on, "if we'r

. "Sylvia Forstead Morning

d after Lady Fo

d you kn

who had chanced to own the land on which Renton came afterwards to be built. Most

mothers is commend

she asked with

on life. I wondered to what extent Sylvia was being troubled in anticipation, but the wonder was

n, but stopped as she ca

all about Mr. Aint

come," I re

usually does accept invitations and not turn u

e invitation," I said

hy

ed my sh

s, I su

e shy

ust as

ow him. Wha

ot easy. "Medium height," I ventured at last, "fair hair, rather a white face; curious, rather haunting

ke a degen

ed. "Be kind to him, Sylvia. Life's a lo

she repeated. "It's s

tally, what a number of th

hates and bad tempers. And I hat

hy

d myself," she answered, "

hority was made up in prestige. On no single day of her life of fifty years did she forget that she was a Rutlandshire Mornington. I fear I have little respect for Morningtons-or any other pre-Conquest families-whether they come from Rutlandshire or any other part of the globe. Such inborn reverence as I in common wit

w hangs in the library of Cadogan Square-rescued the conversation from controversial destruction. In lieu of politics we had to arrange for the arrival of our last two guests; Aintree had wired that he was coming by a later train, and Rawnsley's sister Mavis had to be brough

we were smoking a cheroot in the Dutch Garden. "I've known him from a bit of a boy that high, and now-God knows-it's in a

now what an

sing mood,"

ve him destroyed," s

omes to hold no other business-a splendid engine for work or fighting, but too idle almost to make a start, too little concentrated ever to keep the wheel moving, a man of short cuts

orning shut his thumb in the front door of his flat, and while we dragged the depths of Waterloo for his body, he had been

promise," he r

giving

vague perplexity, and relapsed i

ackground of white and mauve rhododendrons; white, grey, and purple lilac squandered their wealth in riotous display, while the Golden Rain flashed in the evening sun, a

om, Rawnsley and Gartside were stretched in wicker chairs watching

th Sense," Gartside cal

ying it," said Rawnsley, in a tone that indicated it matter

tted the animal's neck, and Martel raced away to the far end of the orchard. "That dog's as blind as my boot, b

yards' distance he swerved as though a whip had struck him, and passed i

. "He's got a sense of distance. If

nounced. "If you were blind, you'd find

gh," said

, and a number of sensitive surfaces. If you want a sixth sense, you must have a sixth perceive orga

satisfied with th

always tell when there

eeing it?" Rawnsle

at in the sideboard once when he was coming to dine wi

-sense," Raw

n foretell a change in the

ence, you can trace it to the influence of a changed atmosphere on a sens

aph lying on his face piling the fal

sense of futur

pot a Derby winner?" asked Culling

ourself," I defined. "Wha

hed me with pati

o breakfast with

of mixin' your drinks

r a friend's dead. 'Ah!' you say, 'I knew something was

lentiful!"

ack and nothing happens?

meaning yet m

premonition of somet

insta

e across a case in the Troad where I fell in with a young Greek who had been wasting for months with some permanent, indefinable fever. One morning I found him sitting dressed in his libr

seemed still in perfect health and full possession of his faculties, but repeated his assertion that he would pass away at eight. I told him not to be morbid. At ten minutes

r. The mind becomes obsessed by that idea until the body is literally done to death. It's no more premonition than if I say I'm going to dine to-night between eight and nine. I've an idea I shall, I shall do my best to mak

id the Seraph from the grass. Possibly I was the

he course of dressing I had a visit from hi

him, when I had done my bad best. "Authors

gh by the time I've

able Child cau

ight of pure reason. To write an entirely imaginative work would be-as the poet said of love-"the devil." An autobio

ek in advance?" the Seraph asked

I suggested, again in t

ychology of expect

u would," I a

f my premonition on

rm does

d, and closed

ow in a week's t

ded to start without her. Nothing of that dinner survives in my memory, from which I infer that cooking and conversation were unrelievedly medi

rting you

e that I thought

en opening of the door made him jump almost out of his chair. I saw the footm

ed up at last,

r could only say that she had returned twent

ght Mavis?" a

n only

till holding the handle of the door, she made a picture I shall not easily forget. A study in black and white it was, with the dark hair and eyes thrown into relief by her pale face and light dress.... I must have stared unceremoniously, but my stare w

minute. Mavis hasn't come, Mr. Rawnsley. Your mother didn't know why she was staying on in town; she ought to have been down last night or first thing this morning. She h

the tone that tries to be sympathetic and

y direction, catching sight

flashing smile that I once in poetical mood likened to a white rose bursting into flo

plained; strong emotion on the one, po

anded when the explanation was ende

n packed off to bed with mustard plasters and black currant tea. Life abruptly ceased to have any interest for Philip. I stood about till my host

e light in the library shone like a Polyphemus eye out of the face of the darkened house. I pressed for no confidences, knowing that at the fitting

ner of the terrace and found two detectives from Scotland Yard screened by the angle of the house. Since the beginning of the militant outrages, no cabinet minister had been allowe

w on his way to bed. Had he been less pre-occupied, he would have seen somethin

ant with short skirt, bare arms and hair braided in two long plaits. It was not a good likeness, because no portrait could do justice to a face that owed its fa

it is true, but dropped off again immediately-almost before I had time t