“Doctor, you’re not angry?” he asked.

The doctor made no reply.

“You know I warned you,” Valentine went on.  “You brought this thing on yourself.”

“Yes,” said Levillier.

But Julian interposed.

“No Valentine,” he exclaimed.  “For, of course, it is all a trick of yours.  You didn’t want to sing.  We made you.  This is your revenge, eh?  I didn’t know you had it in you to be so—­so beastly and cantankerous.”

Valentine shook his head.

“It’s no trick.  It’s simply as I said.  My talent for music is dead.  You have been listening to the voice of its corpse.”

Dr. Levillier looked up at length.

“You really mean that?” he said, and there was an awakening within him of his normal ready interest in all things.

“I mean it absolutely.”

“That is the only event in which I can forgive the torture you have been inflicting upon me.”

“That is the true event.”

“But it’s not possible,” Julian said.  “It’s not conceivable.  Surely, doctor, you would not say—­”

The doctor interrupted him.

“I cannot believe that Cresswell would deliberately commit an outrage upon me,” he said.  “And it would be an outrage to sing like that to a tired man.  Weeks of work would not fatigue me as I am fatigued by Cresswell’s music.”

Julian was silent and looked uneasy.  Valentine repeated again: 

“I couldn’t help it.  I am sorry.”

Doctor Levillier ignored the remark.  His professional interest was beginning to be aroused.  For the first time he felt convinced that some very peculiar and bizarre change was dawning over the youth he knew so well.  He wanted to watch it grow or fade, to analyze it, to study it, to be aware of its exact nature.  But he did not want to put either Valentine or Julian upon the alert.  So he spoke lightly as he said: 

“But I shall soon get the better of my fatigue, even without the usual medicine.  Cresswell, take my advice, give your music a rest.  Lock your piano again for a while.  It will be better.”

Valentine shut down the lid on the instant, and turned the little key in the lock.

“Adieu to my companion of many lonely hours!” he said with a half whimsical pensiveness.  Then, as if in joke, he held out his hand with the key in it, to the doctor.

“Will you take charge of this hostage?” he asked.

“Yes,” the doctor replied.

Quite gravely he took the key and put it into his pocket.

And so it was that silence fell round the Saint of Victoria Street.

CHAPTER III

THE FLIGHT OF THE BATS