"Your name is Milburgh," said the other. "Yes, that's it, Milburgh. He used to talk about you! That lovely man—here!" He clutched the clergyman's sleeve and Milburgh's face went a shade paler. There was a concentrated fury in the grip on his arm and a strange wildness in the man's speech. "Do you know where he is? In a beautivault built like an 'ouse in Highgate Cemetery. There's two little doors that open like the door of a church, and you go down some steps to it."
"Who are you?" asked Milburgh, his teeth chattering.
"Don't you know me?" The little man peered at him. "You've heard him talk about me. Sam Stay—why, I worked for two days in your Stores, I did. And you—you've only got what he's given you. Every penny you earned he gave you, did Mr. Lyne. He was a friend to everybody—to the poor, even to a hook like me."
His eyes filled with tears and Mr. Milburgh looked round to see if he was being observed.
"Now, don't talk nonsense!" he said under his breath, "and listen, my man; if anybody asks you whether you have seen Mr. Milburgh, you haven't, you understand?"
"Oh, I understand," said the man. "But I knew you! There's nobody connected with him that I don't remember. He lifted me up out of the gutter, he did. He's my idea of God!"
They had reached a quiet corner of the Gardens and Milburgh motioned the man to sit beside him on a garden seat.
For the first time that day he experienced a sense of confidence in the wisdom of his choice of disguise. The sight of a clergyman speaking with a seedy-looking man might excite comment, but not suspicion. After all, it was the business of clergymen to talk to seedy-looking men, and they might be seen engaged in the most earnest and confidential conversation and he would suffer no loss of caste.
Sam Stay looked at the black coat and the white collar in doubt.
"How long have you been a clergyman, Mr. Milburgh?" he asked.