“How am I to know this is yours?” he asked immediately, taking the cue suggested.
“There are twenty proofs in those papers, that I am an Englishman; as well as on myself. See, the pocket book there has the address of a London maker. Here, the tab on my coat has my tailor’s name in London. Don’t you hear that I speak with a foreign accent?”
He examined the pocket book, and the tab on my coat; and appeared to be impressed. “They seem right; but you may have stolen them,” he said grudgingly.
I pressed the advantage. Picking out a couple of Sylvia’s letters I shewed him they were in English, and addressed to me.
“That is not Robert—that is B-o-b,” he said suspiciously.
“Robert in England is shortened into Bob,” I explained; but he shook his head.
“Here is one on the same paper, Wyrley Court, Great Malverton. It is from my mother, ‘My dear son Robert.’ You can read that?” and I stuck at him until I had deepened the impression. Then I told him briefly what had happened in the cottage, pointed to the heap of soaked shavings, the two ropes and a cask of petroleum.
This was not done without many interruptions from the woman, who vociferously denied the whole story.
“You say you were to be drugged? How do you know?” I told him of the attempt to make the man drink a cup of the coffee. This appealed to him; and he smiled grimly.
“Have you still the cup you saved?”