“I don’t wish you only to think it, I want you to know. You’ll appreciate the difference. I am ready to give you any proofs you can suggest, to answer any questions you like to put, and to back every word I say with facts. I am tremendously in earnest about this. And when you have thoroughly convinced yourself, I wish you to convince any one and every one associated with you, who may be inclined to suspect me.”
“Your reasons, Mr. Donnington?”
“Must surely be obvious. Last night’s business showed me the length to which some of your more reckless friends are prepared to carry mistakes of the kind; and I desire to be able to walk the streets of the city without expecting to be shot or knifed at the next corner.”
“I do not doubt you, and certainly do not presume to ask for any facts; but if you would prefer to make any statement, I am of course ready to listen.”
I replied to that by giving him a fairly full account of myself, and then added: “Of course I am aware that my statement, unsupported by evidence, could easily be made up by any one who was here as a spy. I suggest, therefore, that you shall get evidence of my identity. The best and simplest thing I can suggest at the moment is that I give you the addresses of various firms who have photographed me from time to time, and that you send your agents to them to get photographs of Ralph Donnington which they have taken. You can then send some one to my place at Tapworth for the photographs to be identified; you can have them shown also to my bankers in London; and to any one of a dozen people who know all about me.”
“I accept your word, I assure you,” he said, with a wave of the hand.
“But that is just what I do not wish you to do. You must be in a position to say you know, and to table the evidence;” and with that I wrote down the names and addresses and insisted upon his taking them.
“As the matter is naturally pressing you will of course use the telegraph, and if money will expedite your inquiries I will very gladly pay any sum that is necessary. I am, fortunately for myself, a man of considerable means, and not likely to spare money to put an end to this intolerable suspicion.”
“You have invited me to question you. There is one point. You are a friend of M. Volheno?”
“That gentleman, as I have told you, was brought to our place, Tapworth Hall, by my sister’s husband, M. Stefan Madrillo, some years ago, and when I came over here about these concessions, Madrillo advised me to see him. Only in that degree is he a friend of mine.”