"A call of private urgency!" I replied. "The fact is, Venner, you can do me a favour, if you will. A very dear friend of mine must get away from England before morning on a matter of life and death, and he needs more money in cash than I have by me in the house. If you'll be so good as to let me have three hundred pounds immediately, I shall post you a cheque within the next hour."
We were standing confronting each other in the hall beneath a low turned swinging gas jet. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
"Will three hundred do?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you!"
"Then excuse me for a moment."
I waited in breathless suspense, but he returned almost immediately, carrying a bag of gold and notes from which he counted three hundred pounds into my hand—you may be sure—into my left hand. I kept my right behind me.
I curtly thanked him, begged him to excuse me, and hastily withdrew. But he stood at the door and watched me enter the cab.
I was therefore obliged to give the cabby Sir William Dagmar's address. "Back to Curzon Street!" I called out. As soon as we had turned the first corner, however, I redirected the driver to Victoria Station, and during the journey I set to work to alter my appearance as much as lay in my power. I tore off my false eyebrows, and with my kerchief I vigorously rubbed the paint from my cheeks and brow. A mirror set in an angle of the hansom showed me, by the light of a match, a blotchy nondescript face that nevertheless could not be mistaken for my master's. Better satisfied, I began to reflect on my position, and to my intense gratification I found that I was no longer the slave of fear. Arrived at the station, I discharged the cab and made inquiries for the trains to the south. I found that I should have to wait a great while. I therefore selected a dark corner and gave myself up to thought. In ten minutes I was wondering what on earth I had ever been afraid of—and calling myself moreover by very nasty names. Even if Mr. Cavanagh were dead, and I began to doubt if my perturbed examination of his body had given me the truth, who could accuse me of his death? Again, if he lived, he would infallibly, on his recovery, still believe me a detective. He had not remotely guessed at my identity. Oh! the fool I had been! But what next? Were I to fly to France, I should give myself away! My master would search my room and discover my make-up box and various disguises. Were I to stay it would probably never enter his mind to suspect me! Ai! Ai! With patience, boldness, and a little luck, I might even yet convert the defeat I had sustained that night into a triumph. I felt the blood bound in my veins. Waiting for no more I sprang to my feet and hurried from the station. Ten minutes later I noiselessly inserted my latch-key into Sir William Dagmar's door, and gently as any burglar stepped into the house. The place was profoundly still. I hung up my master's coat and hat in the hall and crept upstairs. At Sir William's bedroom door I stopped, and stooping pressed my ear to the key-hole. I distinctly heard him breathing. He was a heavy sleeper, and his respirations were deep and somewhat laboured. I passed on with a smile of purest joy. Upon my dressing table stood my make-up box and a profusion of wigs, beards and moustaches. The sight gave me pause. "It is wise to be bold!" I thought, "but not rash. Here is danger. When Mr. Cavanagh recovers and informs Sir William of to-night's happenings—Ah!—and when, moreover, Sir Charles Venner discovers that he has been swindled! What then? It is unlikely, but at the same time just possible that my master's thoughts may turn to me!"
I caught up the wigs and stuffed them into the box which I locked. Where to hide it? Not in my room, nor in the pantry! nor in any place under my control! Search would reveal it there—infallibly. I must then dispose it in some place not likely to be searched. Where then? For a third time in one evening I was suddenly inspired. Seizing the box, I stole downstairs into my master's private study and, using the utmost caution, I bestowed it behind some mounds of books that were covered with many summers' dust. Heaving a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction I returned to my little chamber and leisurely undressed. Three o'clock chimed as I pulled off my boots. I then removed the last traces of my disguise with a lavish application of soap and water, and last of all I screwed back into its plate the tooth I had removed from my false set earlier in the evening in order more perfectly to resemble my master. After that I got into bed. I felt secure and almost happy—was I not a capitalist? Under my pillow reposed three hundred pounds, and never in my life until then had I possessed more than a paltry fraction of that sum. I rejoiced in determining to bank it on the morrow, and I sleepily assured myself that I would make it the seed of a great fortune. I should have been quite happy, save for one thing. I was already beginning to repent the magnanimity or cowardice which had prevented me from asking Sir William Venner for six hundred pounds instead of three. I felt sure he would have given me six as readily as three, and it was a great opportunity wasted. Wasted! It is terribly sad to look back upon wasted opportunities; a heartrending thing indeed. Even now I recall that circumstance with melancholy. I dreamed of death and murders and shadowy unutterable horrors. Soon after dawn I awoke, bathed in perspiration, and shivering in every limb. There was a sound of rushing waters in my ears, and I retained a shuddersome impression of a dark brooding figure bending over me. With a gasp of terror I plunged my hand beneath my pillow, but my three hundred pounds were safe. The delight of that discovery quickly dispelled the phantoms of my tired fancies, and I arose, with a glad heart, to begin the work of the day, by performing the work that I should have done on the previous night—the clearing up from the dinner party.