"You'll just keep in the shadow till the last moment," he said. "I have very particular reasons for not being seen here and one of these reasons you will see for yourself. One can't be too careful."
Wilfrid asked no further questions. He was content to leave matters in Russell's hands until the latter was ready to explain. He began to understand the necessity for caution presently, when, amongst the steady stream of passengers trickling into the station, he saw the familiar form of Samuel Flower.
"There he goes, the beauty," Russell murmured. "Look at the scoundrel. Isn't he the very essence of middle-class respectability? He might pass for a churchwarden or the deacon of a chapel. Of all the scoundrels in the city of London there is not a more noxious specimen than Samuel Flower. I believe that if you gave that chap the chance of making a thousand pounds honestly, or a mere sovereign by defrauding a widow or an orphan, he would choose the latter. And the luck he has had, too! Where would he be now if the whole facts of that Guelder Rose business had come to light? What would become of him if a single ship's officer had survived the wreck of the Japonica? But I'll bring him down, Mercer; I'll beat that ruffian to his knees yet. And I have got the information, too, if I can only complete it. My only fear is that the other vengeance may reach him first."
"You allude to the matter of the string with five knots, I suppose?" Wilfrid asked.
A look of surprise crossed Russell's face.
"What on earth do you know about that?" he asked.
"You forget that I was in the Malay Archipelago myself," Wilfrid responded. "You seem to have forgotten the tragic death of the white man I told you about. Besides, I was in Flower's house at the very moment when he received his warning in a registered letter, and that letter came from Borneo."
Russell chuckled.
"Come along," he said. "We have cut it quite fine enough. You can tell me the rest in the train."
CHAPTER XV