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Page 60
You may imagine that I had plenty to think of from the time
that I left Brook Street until I set out to meet Lord Linchmere at
Paddington. The whole fantastic business kept arranging and
rearranging itself in kaleidoscopic forms inside my brain, until I
had thought out a dozen explanations, each of them more grotesquely
improbable than the last. And yet I felt that the truth must be
something grotesquely improbable also. At last I gave up all
attempts at finding a solution, and contented myself with exactly
carrying out the instructions which I had received. With a hand
valise, specimen-case, and a loaded cane, I was waiting at the
Paddington bookstall when Lord Linchmere arrived. He was an even
smaller man than I had thought--frail and peaky, with a manner
which was more nervous than it had been in the morning. He wore a
long, thick travelling ulster, and I observed that he carried a
heavy blackthorn cudgel in his hand.
"I have the tickets," said he, leading the way up the platform.
"This is our train. I have engaged a carriage, for I am
particularly anxious to impress one or two things upon you while we
travel down."
And yet all that he had to impress upon me might have been said
in a sentence, for it was that I was to remember that I was there
as a protection to himself, and that I was not on any consideration
to leave him for an instant. This he repeated again and again as
our journey drew to a close, with an insistence which showed that
his nerves were thoroughly shaken.
"Yes," he said at last, in answer to my looks rather than to my
words, "I AM nervous, Dr. Hamilton. I have always been a timid
man, and my timidity depends upon my frail physical health. But my
soul is firm, and I can bring myself up to face a danger which a
less-nervous man might shrink from. What I am doing now is done
from no compulsion, but entirely from a sense of duty, and yet it
is, beyond doubt, a desperate risk. If things should go wrong, I
will have some claims to the title of martyr."
This eternal reading of riddles was too much for me. I felt
that I must put a term to it.
"I think it would very much better, sir, if you were to trust
me entirely," said I. "It is impossible for me to act effectively,
when I do not know what are the objects which we have in view, or
even where we are going."
"Oh, as to where we are going, there need be no mystery about
that," said he; "we are going to Delamere Court, the residence of
Sir Thomas Rossiter, with whose work you are so conversant. As to
the exact object of our visit, I do not know that at this stage of
the proceedings anything would be gained, Dr. Hamilton, by taking
you into my complete confidence. I may tell you that we are
acting--I say `we,' because my sister, Lady Rossiter, takes the
same view as myself--with the one object of preventing anything in
the nature of a family scandal. That being so, you can understand
that I am loath to give any explanations which are not absolutely
necessary. It would be a different matter, Dr. Hamilton, if I were
asking your advice. As matters stand, it is only your active
help which I need, and I will indicate to you from time to time how
you can best give it."
There was nothing more to be said, and a poor man can put up
with a good deal for twenty pounds a day, but I felt none the less
that Lord Linchmere was acting rather scurvily towards me. He
wished to convert me into a passive tool, like the blackthorn in
his hand. With his sensitive disposition I could imagine, however,
that scandal would be abhorrent to him, and I realized that he
would not take me into his confidence until no other course was
open to him. I must trust to my own eyes and ears to solve the
mystery, but I had every confidence that I should not trust to them
in vain.
Delamere Court lies a good five miles from Pangbourne Station,
and we drove for that distance in an open fly. Lord Linchmere sat
in deep thought during the time, and he never opened his mouth
until we were close to our destination. When he did speak it was
to give me a piece of information which surprised me.
"Perhaps you are not aware," said he, "that I am a medical man
like yourself?"
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