"Come across to my study and have a smoke. You're not in a great hurry
to get back to town. Perhaps you'll play a game of tennis presently?"
I followed him through the pretty pergola of roses, back into the
house, and when I had seated myself in the big old arm-chair, he gave
me an excellent cigar.
"Do you know, Mr. Biddulph," he said after we had been smoking some
minutes, "I'm extremely glad to have this opportunity of a chat with
you. I called at Wilton Street, because I wished to see you."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, for several reasons," was his slow, earnest reply. His face
looked thinner, more serious. Somehow I had taken a great fancy to
him, for though a clergyman, he struck me as a broad-minded man of the
world. He was keen-eyed, thoughtful and earnest, yet at the same time
full of that genuine, hearty bonhomie so seldom, alas! found in
religious men. The good fellowship of a leader appeals to men more
than anything else, and yet somehow it seems always more apparent in
the Roman Catholic priest than in the Protestant clergyman.
"The reason I called to-day was because I thought you might wish to
speak to me," I said.
He rose and closed the French windows. Then, re-seating himself, he
removed his old briar pipe from his lips, and, bending towards me in
his chair, said very earnestly--
"I wonder whether I might presume to say something to you strictly in
private, Mr. Biddulph? I know that I ought not to interfere in your
private affairs--yet, as a minister of religion, I perhaps am a
slightly privileged person in that respect. At least you will, I
trust, believe in my impartiality."
"Most certainly I do, Mr. Shuttleworth," I replied, somewhat surprised
at his manner.
"Well, you recollect our conversation on the last occasion you were
here?" he said. "You remember what I told you?"
"I remember that we spoke of Miss Sylvia," I exclaimed, "and that you
refused to satisfy my curiosity."
"I refused, because I am not permitted," was his calm rejoinder.
"Since I saw you," I said, "a dastardly attempt has been made upon my
life. I was enticed to an untenanted house in Bayswater, and after a
cheque for a thousand pounds had been obtained from me by a trick, I
narrowly escaped death by a devilish device. My grave, I afterwards
found, was already prepared."
"Is this a fact!" he gasped.
"It is. I was rescued--by Sylvia herself."
He was silent, drawing hard at his pipe, deep in thought.
"The names of the two men who made the dastardly attempt upon me were
Reckitt and Forbes--friends of Sylvia Pennington," I went on.