"Let me tell you this, then. You are watched, constantly watched, and the moment you do discover anything——" He shrugged his shoulders by way of concluding his sentence. "Every man has his own secrets," he went on; "as you say, motives govern lives. They guide our actions, control our words."
"If I am watched day and night," I said, "I must be a person of some importance; but more than that, you must be in danger in coming here."
"I fight the devil with his own weapons," was his reply. "I meet cunning with cunning, plot with plot, mystery with mystery. To be forewarned is to be fore-armed, and I have taken every precaution; but I cannot tell you what I know—that is why I beseech you to leave here. You, a poor invalid, weak as a rabbit, with one foot in the grave, can do nothing; yet your very presence is a menace. Therefore leave the neighborhood, or if you must stay in the neighborhood, go into the village away from here."
"I should not be in danger if I went into the village, then?" I asked.
"Go into the village," he repeated. "There are lodgings there, simple perhaps, but clean, which would suit you just as well as this."
"No," I replied, "no place will suit me quite as well as this."
"Then your blood be upon your own head; I am sorry. I like you; I watched you directly after you came here. I discovered all that there was to be known about you. Leave the place, man, and give it out that it is haunted."
"Do you realize," I said, "that you have put yourself in danger, too? I do not mean from those enemies who are unknown to me, but from other sources. I happen to know three magistrates in this district. If I were to tell them what you have told me to-night, I could have you arrested as a dangerous character. I have a servant, too, who is in a room close by. Possibly he has heard every word which has passed between us."
He laughed like a man amused.
"No, Mr. Erskine," he said, "there is not the slightest danger of that. Your servant is asleep. Bah, do you think I don't know? Do you think I am such a fool as that? As for telling the magistrates, you could not do it."