"I am not myself informed, at present," I answered. "I am waiting for the arrival of the lawyer."
I had risen to my feet, and was standing with the handle of the door in my hand. Mr. Stanley took the hint, yet I fancied that he departed unwillingly.
"I should like," he admitted, "to have seen—him, and also the lawyer."
"Then you can find another opportunity," I answered stiffly. "Mr. Guest's friends would receive every consideration from me. His enemies, I must admit, I cannot, under the circumstances, see the back of too quickly."
Mr. Stanley had no alternative but to depart, which he did with as good a grace as possible. I was glad to be alone for a few minutes. My ordinary share of the vices of life, both great and small, I was, without a doubt, possessed of. But I had never been a liar. I had never looked a man in the face and made statements which I had known at the time were absolutely and entirely false. This was my first essay in a new role.
My next visitor was a very different sort of person, a fair, florid little man, with easy, courteous manners, and dressed in deep mourning. He introduced himself as Mr. Raynes, of Raynes and Bishop, Solicitors, Lincoln's Inn, and alluded to the telegram which I had sent him earlier in the morning.
"May I inquire," he asked, after we had exchanged a few commonplaces, "if you are aware that Mr. Leslie Guest was an assumed name of the deceased?"
"I was in his confidence towards the last," I answered. "He told me a good deal of his history."
The lawyer nodded sympathetically.
"A very sad one, I fear you found it," he remarked.