“If I am to talk,” the man said, “I must have some absinthe. My throat is dry. I have things to say to you, too.”
Macheson called a waiter and ordered it.
“Look here,” the man said, “I know all that you want to say to me. I can save you time. It was I who called upon old Mr. Hurd. It was out of kindness that I went. He has a daughter whom I cannot find. She is in danger, and I went to warn him. He struck me first. He lost his temper. He would not tell me where to find her, he would not give me even the money I had spent on my journey. I, too, lost my temper. I returned the blow. He fell down—and I was frightened. So I ran away.”
Macheson nodded.
“Well,” he said, “you seem to have struck an old man because he would not let you blackmail him, and I, like a fool, helped you to escape.”
“Blackmail!” The man looked around him as though afraid of the word. His cheeks were sunken, but his brown eyes were still bright. “It wasn’t that,” he said. “I brought information that was really valuable. There is a young lady somewhere who is in danger of her life. I came to warn him; I believed what I had always been told, that she was his daughter. I found out that it was a lie. It was a conspiracy against me. He never had a daughter. But I am going to find out who she is!”
“What if I give you up to the police?” Macheson asked.
“For the sake of the woman whom the old man Hurd was shielding you had better not. You had very much better not,” was the hoarse reply. “If you do, it may cost a woman her life.”
“Why are you staying on in England?” Macheson asked.
“To find that woman, and I will find her,” he added, with glittering eyes. “Listen! I have seen her riding in a carriage, beautifully dressed, with coachman and footman upon the box, an aristocrat. I always said that she was that. It was a plot against us—to call her that old man’s daughter.”