“Anything else?” I asked.
“Your father called yesterday, sir. He thought you were back. I think
he has written to you.”
“Any other callers?” I asked, as he helped me off with my coat.
“Only the blind young gentleman, sir.”
“Blind young gentleman!” I exclaimed, surprised. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know his name, sir. But he continually calls to know when you
will be back. He says he knows you, sir.”
“What kind of a man is he?”
“Oh, he’s a young gentleman who wears black glasses. But, poor fellow,
he’s stone blind. He finds his way up all right, but I always have to
lead him down the stairs and out into the street, till he finds the
curb, and taps along it with his stick.”
“I wonder who he is,” I remarked aloud to myself.
“I don’t know, sir. I thought you knew him. He gave me that
impression,” Bruce replied. “Will you be at home to him the next time
he calls?”
I pondered. The fact that the caller was sightless reminded me of my
mysterious and inexplicable escape from the sentence of blindness
passed on me by that girl criminal, Lisely Hatten, in Camberwell.
“I will see him if he comes again,” I replied. And then, seating
myself at my old bureau which I well remembered--for, indeed, all my
belongings now became as familiar to me as though I had never been
absent or lost an hour of my life--I turned my attention to the
accumulation of letters. Many of them were tradesmen’s bills.
One was a rather heavy account for wine supplied a year before, and as
I seldom drink wine, it surprised me. Possibly my friends had drunk
the three dozen of champagne. I certainly had not. With it was an
account for expensive cigars, and, as I had never smoked anything but
cigarettes in my life, I knew that I had not been the consumer of such
luxuries.
“Bruce!” I called to my man. “How long have you been with me now?”
“Nine months next Thursday, sir. By the way, sir, I hear that Bolland
hasn’t got anything to do since you discharged him for dishonesty.”
Dishonesty! So I had found out Bolland as a thief, and surely here was
good testimony that he had ordered things on my account, and had
probably disposed of them in secret.
“If a man is dishonest he must be punished,” I said abruptly. Bruce
then asked whether I intended to dine at home. I answered negatively
and he returned to his pantry.
The first private letter I opened was in a handwriting now familiar to
me, and signed, “Your ever affectionate wife, Illona.”
Illona! My wife. The woman on whom I had never set eyes.
Dated from Lausanne a fortnight before, it had been addressed to
“Lionel Hipwell, Esq., King’s Foreign Service Messenger, care of His
Britannic Majesty’s Embassy, Madrid,” and then it had been sent back
to Sackville Street.
“My Adored Husband,” wrote the mysterious Illona. “Do, I beg of you,
take the greatest care of yourself. Every hour I fear for your safety.
You know their secret, and there is a desperate plot against you, I
know. Always go armed and never relax vigilance when you travel.
Beware of a trap, and if you meet a blind man, be careful to avoid
him. Come back to me at the earliest moment you can. I await you,
darling. Do not delay. Every hour that passes increases my anxiety
regarding your dear self.”
I re-read the strange warning. “Beware of a trap, and if you meet a
blind man, be careful to avoid him.”
Was he the blind stranger who so persistently called? And the trap?
Was my strange mission at the request of the Little Countess the trap
of which my unknown wife warned me?