Those moments of security seemed hours as I sat there with the pistol
turned upon me.
Truly his was a strange greeting.
At length, however, daylight showed again as we commenced to descend the
incline towards Newton Abbot, yet I saw that his hand--practised, no
doubt, with a weapon by the manner he had whipped it forth--was still
uplifted against me.
"Really, sir, you have no cause for alarm," I assured him, with a laugh.
"I could not approach; you openly, so I adopted the ruse of travelling
with you in order to speak. You came to Totnes to-day in order to meet
me, did you not?"
"No, I certainly did not," he said, the expression upon his countenance
showing him to be much puzzled by my words.
"Then perhaps you came to meet Mr Melvill Arnold?" I suggested.
"And why do you wish to know that, pray?" he asked, in the refined voice
of a gentleman, still regarding me with antagonism. His small, closely
set eyes peered forth at me with a ferret-like expression, while about
his clean-shaven mouth was a curious hardness as his hand still held the
weapon pointed in my direction.
"Because you are wearing the signs--the scarlet tie, the carnation, and
I see that you carry the ebony walking-stick," was my cool reply. I was
trying to prevent myself from flinching before that grim, business-like
weapon of his.
"And what if I am? What business is it of yours?" he asked resentfully,
and in evident alarm.
"My business is with you if your name is Alfred Dawnay," I said. "Mr
Melvill Arnold is, I regret to say, dead, and--"
"Dead!" he gasped, lowering his weapon and staring at me, the colour
dying from his face. "Arnold dead! Is this the truth--are you quite
certain?"
"The unfortunate gentleman died in my presence."
"Where? Abroad, I suppose?"
"No; in a small hotel off the Strand," was my reply.
The news I had imparted to him seemed to hold him amazed and stupefied.
"Poor Arnold! Dead!" he repeated blankly to himself, sitting with both
hands upon his knees--for he had flung the pistol upon the cushion.
"Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, raising his eyes to mine.
"Forgive me for receiving you in this antagonistic manner, sir, but--but
you don't know what Mr Arnold's death means to me. It means everything
to me--all that--" But his lips closed with a snap without concluding
his sentence.
"A few moments before he died he gave me this letter, with instructions
to meet you at Totnes to-day," and I handed him the dead man's missive.
Eagerly, with trembling fingers, he broke open the black seals; but the
letter was in a second envelope, also carefully sealed with black wax.
This he also tore open, and breathlessly read the closely scribbled
lines which it contained--the message from the dead.
He bit his full red lips, his cheeks went ashen pale, and his nostrils
dilated.
"I--I wish to thank you for carrying out Arnold's injunctions," he
managed to gasp. "I went to Totnes for the purpose of meeting him, for
he had made the appointment with me three months ago. Yet it seemed
that he must have had some presentiment that he could not keep it
himself, or he would not have suggested me wearing a red tie, a
carnation, and carrying this old-fashioned ebony stick which he gave me
long ago."
Briefly I recounted my meeting with him when he came on board at Naples,
his sudden illness, and its fatal termination in the Strand hotel.
"Ah, yes," sighed the man Dawnay--the man whom I was to help, but not to
trust. "Poor Arnold was a great traveller--ever on the move; but for
years he knew that he had a weak heart."
I was about to make further inquiry regarding the man who had so
strangely left me a legacy, but Dawnay suddenly exclaimed--
"You and I must not be seen together, Mr Kemball--for I notice by this
letter that that is your name."
"Where can I meet you again?" I inquired; for I recollected the dead
man's words that my strange companion might be in sore need of a friend.
"I hardly know," was his hasty answer, as he replaced his pistol in his
pocket. "I am closely watched. Probably you saw the man--a fellow in a
straw hat."
"Yes--and the old woman."
"Ah! then you are observant, Mr Kemball," he exclaimed, with a slight
grin. "Yes, I am in danger--grave danger at this moment; and how to
escape I know not."
"Escape from what?"
"From arrest."
"Is that young-looking man a police-officer?" I asked, much surprised.
"Yes; he's older than he looks. I ought never to have dared to go to
Totnes."
"Why not Totnes?" I asked.
"I was lying low--for a certain reason, Mr Kemball. All of us have to
wash in dirty water sometimes, you know," he smiled grimly. "You are an
honest man, no doubt--I too was, once."
"And now the police are in search of you--eh?"