‘He is an artist. He designs for some poster firm in the City, and he draws for the better-class magazines. I do not know if he has private means, but he seems to do well enough.’
‘Do you know anything about this extraordinary business of the cask?’
‘No, except this. On—let me see, what night was it? Monday, I think—yes, Monday, the 5th of April, a couple of friends turned in, and we wanted a rubber of bridge. I went round to St. Malo to see if Felix would make a fourth. That was about 8.30 o’clock. At first he hesitated, but afterwards he agreed to come. I went in and waited while he changed. The study fire had just been freshly lighted and the room, and indeed the whole house, was cold and cheerless. We played bridge till nearly one. The next thing we heard was that he was in St. Thomas’s Hospital, prostrated from a mental shock. Not professionally, but as a friend, I went to see him, and then he told me about the cask.’
‘And what did he tell you?’
‘He said he had had a letter saying a cask of money was being sent him—he will tell you the details himself—and that he had just got this cask from the steamer and brought it to St. Malo when I called on that Monday evening. The reason he hesitated about leaving home was that he was on tenterhooks to unpack the cask.’
‘Why did he not tell you about it?’
‘I asked him that, and he said he had had trouble with the steamer people about getting it away, and he did not want any one to know where the cask was, lest it should get round to these steamer folk. But I would rather he would tell you about that himself.’
‘I shall ask him, but I want to hear from you anything you know personally about it.’
‘Well, there is nothing more than that.’
‘Can you tell me anything of his friends?’