"Then my father knew about this chest also?"
"Yes. I expect he looked for it in Captain Huxham's study after the crime was committed. Unfortunately it happened, according to Granny Tunks, to be in the attic, so he missed it. But Huxham may have had the papers in his study."
"And that was why the room was so upset?" asked Lister thoughtfully.
"That was why. After the crime was committed——"
"Great heavens! man," burst out the other irritably, "don't talk as if it was certain that my father killed the man."
"If he did not, who did?" demanded Durgo coolly; then, as Cyril was markedly silent, he continued, "I think very little of the killing myself. If what I believe about the papers I require is correct, Captain Huxham deserved his death as a thief and a false friend."
"You speak in riddles," said Lister bewildered.
"Granny Tunks can solve them," replied the negro significantly. "Have some more coffee and try these cigars. They are superfine."
Cyril silently accepted this further hospitality, and stared furtively at the calm black face of his host. The nose was aquiline and the lips extraordinarily thin, so it was apparent that Durgo had Arab blood in his veins. Perhaps he was a descendant of those conquering Mohammedans who came down like a storm on Central Africa, in the Middle Ages. What with Durgo's looks, his educated speech and his air of command, Cyril wondered that he had ever taken the negro for an ordinary black. All the same he believed that, given the necessary environment, the savagery would break out from under the thin veneer of civilisation which the man had acquired at Oxford. Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar; scratch a modern man, semi-civilised or wholly civilised, and you find the prehistoric animal.
While Cyril was thinking in this manner and watching the black man's face through the smoke, he saw Durgo suddenly listen intently, with the air of an animal scenting danger. Shortly footsteps were heard in the passage without, and the door opened to admit Granny Tunks, who was shown in by Mrs. Giles. The toss of the lean landlady's head, and her air of disdain, showed that she was by no means pleased with the ragged visitor. But a glance from the glossy Romany eye of Mrs. Tunks sent her shuddering out of the room. In spite of the religion taught by Silas Pence at the Little Bethel chapel, Mrs. Giles was primitive enough to believe in the power of the evil eye. And she had some reason to, for people who offended Mrs. Tunks invariably underwent a spell of bad luck.