Chapter 12

⁠​​​‌​​​​‌​‌‌‌‌​​​‌​‌​​​​‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​‌‌‌​​​‌‌‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​​​​​⁠It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.

He was walking home about eleven o’clock from Lord Henry’s, where he had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy. At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of his grey u