He got rid of his wife. That was the first move in the game--anyhow.
He did not want to think about her now; she would be dealt with again
later on. At present he wished to concentrate all his attention on the
other one.
He took a bed for himself in a humbler and cheaper house farther west,
a little nearer to the house of his enemy; and almost all that day he
spent in thinking how and where he should obtain the meeting he longed
for. He understood at once that it would be hopeless to attempt such
an interview at Grosvenor Place. In imagination he saw himself
escorted by servants to that tank-like room at the back of the
mansion--the room where the man had treated him as dirt, where his
first instinct of distrust had been aroused, where all those
photographs of girls had subtly suggested the questioning doubts that
led him on to suspicion and discovery. The man would come again to
this room, with his tired eyes and baggy cheeks and drooping lip;
would stare contemptuously; and at the first words of abuse, he would
ring a bell, call for servants, call for the police, and have the
visitor ignominiously turned out. "Policeman, this ruffian has been
threatening me. He is an ill-conditioned dog that I've been
systematically kind to, and he now seems to have taken leave of his
senses and accuses me of injuring him.
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