"Mr. Rolston," I said, "I engage you from this moment as a member of my
regular staff. Your salary to begin with will be ten pounds a week, and
of course your expenses that you may incur in the course of your work.
Do you accept these terms?"
Poor Bill Rolston! I mustn't give away the man who afterwards became my
most faithful friend and most daring companion in hours of frightful
peril, and a series of incredible adventures. Still, if he _did_ burst
into tears that's nothing against him, for I didn't realize till
sometime afterwards that he was half starved and at the very end of his
tether.
He pulled himself together in a moment or two, took a cup of tea and let
me cross-question him. What he told me in the next half-hour I cannot
set down here. It will appear in its proper place, but it is enough to
say that in the whole of my experience I never listened to a more
mysterious and more enthralling recital.
I think that from that moment I realized that my fate was to be in some
way linked with the three towers on Richmond Hill, and the sense of
excitement which had been with me all the afternoon, grew till it was
almost unbearable.
"Now, first of all," I said, when he had told me everything, "you are
not to breathe a word of this to any human soul without my permission.
While you have been absent I have already been taking steps, the nature
of which I shall not tell you at present. Meanwhile, lock up everything
in your heart."