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as he ran, dodging and twisting, it took another field in its stride, and when he turned to flee it was there before him. It was a double tower – twin towers – a tower and its mirror image, advancing with a swift and awful stealth from either side to crush him. He was pinned now between them, panting. He saw their smooth, yellow sides tapering up to heaven, and about their feet went a monstrous stir, like the quiver of a crouching cat. Then the low sky burst like a sluice and through the drench of the rain he leapt at a doorway in the foot of the tower before him and found himself climbing the familiar stair of Striding Folly. ‘My goloshes will be here,’ he said, with a passionate sense of relief. The lightning stabbed suddenly through a loop-hole and he saw a black crow lying dead upon the stairs. Then thunder . . . like the rolling of drums.
        The daily woman was hammering upon the door. ‘You have slept in,’ she said, ‘and no mistake.’
     

     
     
    Mr Mellilow, finishing his supper on the following Wednesday, rather hoped that Mr Creech would not come. He had thought a good deal during the week about the electric power scheme, and the more he thought about it, the less he liked it. He had discovered another thing which had increased his dislike. Sir Henry Hunter, who owned a good deal of land on the other side of the market town, had, it appeared, offered the Company a site more suitable than Striding in every way on extremely favourable terms. The choice of Striding seemed inexplicable, unless on the supposition that Creech had bribed the surveyor. Sir Henry voiced his suspicions without any mincing of words. He admitted, however, that he could prove nothing. ‘But he’s crooked,’ he said; ‘I have heard things about him in Town. Other things. Ugly rumours.’ Mr Mellilow suggested that the deal might not, after all, go through. ‘You’re an optimist,’ said Sir Henry. ‘Nothing stops a fellow like Creech. Except death. He’s a man with enemies . . .’ He broke off, adding, darkly, ‘Let’s hope he breaks his damned neck one of these days – and the sooner the better.’
        Mr Mellilow was uncomfortable. He did not like to hear about crooked transactions. Business men, he supposed, were like that; but if they were, he would rather not play games with them. It spoilt things, somehow. Better, perhaps, not to think too much about it. He took up the newspaper, determined to occupy his mind, while waiting for Creech, with that day’s chess problem. White to play and mate in three.
        He had just become pleasantly absorbed when a knock came at the door front. Creech? As early as eight o’clock? Surely not. And in any case, he would have come by the lawn and the french window. But who else would visit the cottage of an evening? Rather disconcerted, he rose to let the visitor in. But the man who stood on the threshold was a stranger.
        ‘Mr Mellilow?’
        ‘Yes, my name is Mellilow. What can I do for you?’
        (A motorist, he supposed, inquiring his way or wanting to borrow something.)
        ‘Ah! that is good. I have come to play chess with you.’
        ‘To play chess?’ repeated Mr Mellilow, astonished.
        ‘Yes; I am a commercial traveller. My car has broken down in the village. I have to stay at the inn and I ask the good Potts if there is anyone who can give me a game of chess to pass the evening. He tells me Mr Mellilow lives here and plays well. Indeed, I recognise the name. Have I not read Mellilow on Pawn-Play ? It is yours, no?’
        Rather flattered, Mr Mellilow admitted the authorship of this little work.
        ‘So. I congratulate you. And you will do me the favour to play with me, hey? Unless I intrude, or you have company.’
        ‘No.’ said Mr Mellilow. ‘I am more or less expecting a friend, but he won’t turn up till nine and perhaps he won’t come at all.’
        ‘If he come, I go,’ said the stranger. ‘It is very