"I fear, Mrs Olliffe, that your imagination has run just a trifle wild.
Arnold died a natural death, and the doctor gave a certificate to that
effect."
"I'll never believe it," she declared. "If there had not been foul
play, the whereabouts of his great wealth would be known. He was a
friend, a great friend, of mine, Mr Kemball, so please forgive me for
speaking quite frankly."
"You are, of course, welcome to your own opinions, but I, who know the
facts so well, and who was present at his death, am able to state with
authority that his end was due to natural causes."
"It is curious that he should have trusted you--a perfect stranger," she
said, with coolness. "You did not explain the nature of your trust."
"It was upon that very point, Mrs Olliffe, that I called to see you
to-day," I said. "Mr Arnold gave me a letter addressed to a certain
Mr Alfred Dawnay, and--"
"To Alfred Dawnay!" she gasped, starting to her feet as all the colour
faded from her face. "He wrote to him?" she cried. "Then--"
She stopped short, and with one hand clutching her breast, she grasped
the edge of the table with the other, for she swayed, and would have
fallen.
I saw that what I had told her revealed to her something of which she
had never dreamed--something which upset all her previous calculations.
"Tell me, Mr Kemball," she exclaimed at last, in a hard, strained
voice, scarce above a whisper, "tell me--what did he write?"
"Ah! I do not know. I was merely the bearer of the letter."
"You have no idea what Arnold told that man--what he revealed to him?"
"I have no knowledge of anything further than that, after Arnold's
death, I opened a packet, and found the letter addressed to Dawnay."
"To Dawnay! His worst enemy and his--"
"Was Dawnay an enemy?" I asked. "I took him, of course, to be the dead
man's friend and confidant."
The woman laughed bitterly as she stood there before me with deep-knit
brows, her mouth hard, and a determined look upon her cunning
countenance.
"Poor fool, he believed Dawnay to be his friend. Ah! what fatal folly
to have written to him--to have placed trust in him. And yet, is not
this my vengeance--after all these years?" She laughed hysterically.
"Is this man Dawnay such a very undesirable person?" I asked quietly.
"Undesirable!" she cried, with flashing eyes. "If Arnold had known but
half the truth, he would never have reposed confidence in him."
"But the letter may not, after all, have been one of friendship," I
suggested.
"It was. I can see through it now. Ah! why did I not know a week or
two ago! How very differently I would then have acted," she murmured in
a tone of blank despair. Her face was deadly pale and her lips were
trembling.
"Was Dawnay aware of Arnold's identity?" I asked. It was upon the tip
of my tongue to speak of the mysterious cylinder of bronze, but I
hesitated, recollecting that this woman was not a person to be trusted.
"How can I tell?" she said hoarsely. "Yet, from facts that have
recently come to my knowledge, I now realise how Arnold must have
foolishly disclosed the secret to his worst enemy."
"What secret?" I demanded anxiously.
But she was distrustful and evasive.
"An amazing secret which, it is said, if revealed to the public, would
cause the whole world to stand aghast," replied the woman, in a low,
hollow voice.
Strange! Arnold, I recollected, had himself referred to the precious
contents of that ancient cylinder in almost exactly the same terms!
What could that secret be?