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Page 10
"Captain," I began, "I am very sorry to intrude--" It wasn't the
thing to say, of course, but I was fussed. "However, I happen to
be a neighbor of yours, and I have here a letter of introduction
from your cousin, Archibald Enwright. I met him in Interlaken and
we became very good friends."
"Indeed!" said the captain.
He held out his hand for the letter, as though it were evidence at
a court-martial. I passed it over, wishing I hadn't come. He read
it through. It was a long letter, considering its nature. While I
waited, standing by his desk--he hadn't asked me to sit down--I
looked about the room. It was much like my own study, only I think
a little dustier. Being on the third floor it was farther from the
garden, consequently Walters reached there seldom.
The captain turned back and began to read the letter again. This
was decidedly embarrassing. Glancing down, I happened to see on
his desk an odd knife, which I fancy he had brought from India.
The blade was of steel, dangerously sharp, the hilt of gold, carved
to represent some heathen figure.
Then the captain looked up from Archie's letter and his cold gaze
fell full upon me.
"My dear fellow," he said, "to the best of my knowledge, I have no
cousin named Archibald Enwright."
A pleasant situation, you must admit! It's bad enough when you come
to them with a letter from their mother, but here was I in this
Englishman's rooms, boldly flaunting in his face a warm note of
commendation from a cousin who did not exist!
"I owe you an apology," I said. I tried to be as haughty as he,
and fell short by about two miles. "I brought the letter in
good faith."
"No doubt of that," he answered.
"Evidently it was given me by some adventurer for purposes of his
own," I went on; "though I am at a loss to guess what they could
have been."
"I'm frightfully sorry--really," said he. But he said it with the
London inflection, which plainly implies: "I'm nothing of the sort."
A painful pause. I felt that he ought to give me back the letter;
but he made no move to do so. And, of course, I didn't ask for it.
"Ah--er--good night," said I and hurried toward the door.
"Good night," he answered, and I left him standing there with
Archie's accursed letter in his hand.
That is the story of how I came to this house in Adelphi Terrace.
There is mystery in it, you must admit, my lady. Once or twice
since that uncomfortable call I have passed the captain on the
stairs; but the halls are very dark, and for that I am grateful.
I hear him often above me; in fact, I hear him as I write this.
Who was Archie? What was the idea? I wonder.
Ah, well, I have my garden, and for that I am indebted to Archie
the garrulous. It is nearly midnight now. The roar of London has
died away to a fretful murmur, and somehow across this baking
town a breeze has found its way. It whispers over the green grass,
in the ivy that climbs my wall, in the soft murky folds of my
curtains. Whispers--what?
Whispers, perhaps, the dreams that go with this, the first of my
letters to you. They are dreams that even I dare not whisper yet.
And so--good night.
THE STRAWBERRY MAN.
CHAPTER III
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