A sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur
coat and hat and went out into the hall. There
he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of the policeman
on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the
bull’s-eye reflected in the window. He
waited and held his breath.
After a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped
out, shutting the door very gently behind him.
Then he began ringing the bell. In about five
minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking
very drowsy.
“I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis,”
he said, stepping in; “but I had forgotten my
latch-key. What time is it?”
“Ten minutes past two, sir,” answered
the man, looking at the clock and blinking.
“Ten minutes past two? How horribly late!
You must wake me at nine to-morrow. I have some
work to do.”
“All right, sir.”
“Did any one call this evening?”
“Mr. Hallward, sir. He stayed here till
eleven, and then he went away to catch his train.”
“Oh! I am sorry I didn’t see him.
Did he leave any message?”
“No, sir, except that he would write to you
from Paris, if he did not find you at the club.”
“That will do, Francis. Don’t forget
to call me at nine to-morrow.”
“No, sir.”
The man shambled down the passage in his slippers.
Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table
and passed into the library. For a quarter of
an hour he walked up and down the room, biting his
lip and thinking. Then he took down the Blue
Book from one of the shelves and began to turn over
the leaves. “Alan Campbell, 152, Hertford
Street, Mayfair.” Yes; that was the man
he wanted.
At nine o’clock the next morning his servant
came in with a cup of chocolate on a tray and opened
the shutters. Dorian was sleeping quite peacefully,
lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his
cheek. He looked like a boy who had been tired
out with play, or study.
The man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before
he woke, and as he opened his eyes a faint smile passed
across his lips, as though he had been lost in some
delightful dream. Yet he had not dreamed at
all. His night had been untroubled by any images
of pleasure or of pain. But youth smiles without
any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms.
He turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began
to sip his chocolate. The mellow November sun
came streaming into the room. The sky was bright,
and there was a genial warmth in the air. It
was almost like a morning in May.
Gradually the events of the preceding night crept
with silent, blood-stained feet into his brain and
reconstructed themselves there with terrible distinctness.
He winced at the memory of all that he had suffered,
and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing
for Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he
sat in the chair came back to him, and he grew cold
with passion. The dead man was still sitting
there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible
that was! Such hideous things were for the darkness,
not for the day.
