A man-servant admitted Mr. Carlyle and took his card – his private card, with the bare request for an interview that would not detain Mr. Carrados for ten minutes. Luck still favoured him; Mr. Carrados was at home and would see him at once. The servant, the hall through which they passed, and the room into which he was shown, all contributed something to the deductions which the quietly observant gentleman, was half unconsciously recording.
‘Mr. Carlyle,’ announced the servant.
The room was a library or study. The only occupant, a man of about Carlyle’s own age, had been using a typewriter up to the moment of his visitor’s entrance. He now turned and stood up with an expression of formal courtesy.
‘It’s very good of you to see me at this hour,’ apologised Mr. Carlyle.
The conventional expression of Mr. Carrados’s face changed a little.
‘Surely my man has got your name wrong?’ he explained. ‘Isn’t it Louis Calling?’
Mr. Carlyle stopped short and his agreeable smile gave place to a sudden flash of anger or annoyance.
‘No sir,’ he replied stiffly. ‘My name is on the card which you have before you.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr. Carrados, with perfect good-humour. ‘I hadn’t seen it. But I used to know a Calling some years ago – at St. Michael’s.’
‘St. Michael’s!’ Mr. Carlyle’s features underwent another change, no less instant and sweeping than before. ‘St. Michael’s! Wynn Carrados? Good heavens! it isn’t Max Wynn – old “Winning” Wynn’?
‘A little older and a little fatter – yes,’ replied Carrados. ‘I have changed my name you see.’
‘Extraordinary thing meeting like this,’ said his visitor, dropping into a chair and staring hard at Mr. Carrados. ‘I have changed more than my name. How did you recognize me?’
‘The voice,’ replied Carrados. ‘It took me back to that little smoke-dried attic den of yours where we–’
‘My God!’ exclaimed Carlyle bitterly, ‘don’t remind me of what we were going to do in those days.’ He looked round the well-furnished, handsome room and recalled the other signs of wealth that he had noticed. ‘At all events, you seem fairly comfortable, Wynn.’
‘I am alternately envied and pitied,’ replied Carrados, with a placid tolerance of circumstance that seemed characteristic of him. ‘Still, as you say, I am fairly comfortable.’
‘Envied, I can understand. But why are you pitied?’
‘Because I am blind,’ was the tranquil reply.
‘Blind!’ exclaimed Mr. Carlyle, using his own eyes superlatively. ‘Do you mean – literally blind?’
‘Literally… I was riding along a bridle-path through a wood about a dozen years ago with a friend. He was in front. At one point a twig sprang back – you know how easily a thing like that happens. It just flicked my eye – nothing to think twice about.’
‘And that blinded you?’
‘Yes, ultimately. It’s called amaurosis.’
‘I can scarcely believe it. You seem so sure and self-reliant. Your eyes are full of expression – only a little quieter than they used to be. I believe you were typing when I came… Aren’t you having me?’
‘You miss the dog and the stick?’ smiled Carrados. ‘No; it’s a fact.’
‘What an awful affliction for you, Max. You were always such an impulsive, reckless sort of fellow – never quiet. You must miss such a fearful lot.’
‘Has anyone else recognized you?’ asked Carrados quietly.
‘Ah, that was the voice, you said,’ replied Carlyle.
‘Yes; but other people heard the voice as well. Only I had no blundering, self-confident eyes to be hoodwinked.’
‘That’s a rum way of putting it,’ said Carlyle. ‘Are your ears never hoodwinked, may I ask?’
‘Not now. Nor my fingers. Nor any of my other senses that have to look out for themselves.’
‘Well, well,’ murmured Mr. Carlyle, cut short in his sympathetic emotions. ‘I’m glad you take it so well. Of course, if you find it an advantage to be blind, old man–’ He stopped and reddened. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he concluded stiffly.
‘Not an advantage, perhaps,’ replied the other thoughtfully. ‘Still it has compensations that one might not think of. A new world to explore, new experiences, new powers awakening; strange new perceptions; life in the fourth dimension. But why do you beg my pardon, Louis?’
‘I am an ex-solicitor, struck off in connexion with the falsifying of a trust account, Mr. Carrados,’ replied Carlyle, rising.
‘Sit down, Louis,’ said Carrados suavely. His face, even his incredibly living eyes, beamed placid good-nature. ‘The chair on which you will sit, the roof above you, all the comfortable surroundings to which you have so amiably alluded, are the direct result of falsifying a trust account. But do I call you ‘Mr. Carlyle’ in consequence? Certainly not, Louis.’
‘I did not falsify the account,’ cried Carlyle hotly. He sat down however, and added more quietly: ‘But why do I tell you all this? I have never spoken of it before.’
‘Blindness invites confidence,’ replied Carrados. ‘We are out of the running – human rivalry ceases to exist. Besides, why shouldn’t you? In my case the account was falsified.’
‘Of course that’s all bunkum, Max’ commented Carlyle. ‘Still, I appreciate your motive.’
‘Practically everything I possess was left to me by an American cousin, on the condition that I took the name of Carrados. He made his fortune by an ingenious conspiracy of doctoring the crop reports and unloading favourably in consequence. And I need hardly remind you that the receiver is equally guilty with the thief.’
‘But twice as safe. I know something of that, Max… Have you any idea what my business is?’
‘You shall tell me,’ replied Carrados.
‘I run a private inquiry agency. When I lost my profession I had to do something for a living. This occurred. I dropped my name, changed my appearance and opened an office. I knew the legal side down to the ground and I got a retired Scotland Yard man to organize the outside work.’
‘Excellent!’ cried Carrados. ‘Do you unearth many murders?’
‘No,’ admitted Mr. Carlyle; ‘our business lies mostly on the conventional lines among divorce and defalcation.’
‘That’s a pity,’ remarked Carrados. ‘Do you know, Louis, I always had a secret ambition to be a detective myself. I have even thought lately that I might still be able to do something at it if the chance came my way. That makes you smile?’
‘Well, certainly, the idea–’
‘Yes, the idea of a blind detective – the blind tracking the alert–’
‘Of course, as you say, certain facilities are no doubt quickened,’ Mr. Carlyle hastened to add considerately, ‘but, seriously, with the exception of an artist, I don’t suppose there is any man who is more utterly dependent on his eyes.’
Whatever opinion Carrados might have held privately, his genial exterior did not betray a shadow of dissent. For a full minute he continued to smoke as though he derived an actual visual enjoyment from the blue sprays that travelled and dispersed across the room. He had already placed before his visitor a box containing cigars of a brand which that gentleman keenly appreciated but generally regarded as unattainable, and the matter-of-fact ease and certainty with which the blind man had brought the box and put it before him had sent a questioning flicker through Carlyle’s mind.
‘You used to be rather fond of art yourself, Louis,’ he remarked presently.