“During the whole of that time I never met my brother. This morning I came upon him, face to face, at Charing Cross Station. I walked away, and he came after me. I went down the steps to the underground station and booked to Wimbledon. He followed and did the same. I got out at Gloucester Road, and he stepped out of the next compartment after me. I took a hansom back to Charing Cross. He followed in another. Then I tried to tire him out with walking. I have walked all the way here, and have not come directly, but by the most circuitous routes. Always he was a little way behind me. As we drew near to this street I quickened my pace very much. He was tired, and I saw there was no cab. I got round the corner, nearly a hundred yards ahead of him, and saw your door open. What a chance!”
“It sounds queer enough to be true.”
“Mademoiselle,” he said in a pained voice, “I would not repay your kindness by deceiving you.”
“But I don’t understand. What did your brother say when you met?”
“Nothing. Nor I. We shall not speak again, except perhaps at the very last.”
“But why? Why do you run away from him? What does he want?”
“He wants,” said the man dreamily, “and I think that it is the only thing in the world that he does want, to kill me. He has wanted that for just a little more than three years. He does not wish for any publicity or, if possible, any scandal. He would have liked this morning to have found out where I lived and then made his opportunity.”
“But this is perfectly absurd. The law does not permit anything of the kind. If you thought your brother was following you with the intention of injuring you in any way, you had only to speak to the nearest policeman.”
“Ah, mademoiselle,” he said, with an indulgent smile, “there are just a few matters on which one does not speak to the nearest policeman, and this is one of them. It is a private matter—a family matter. The honour of three women is involved in it. Our family name is involved in it. We do not want talk in the newspapers.”
“What a cold-blooded brute your brother must be!”