“That’s the man beyond doubt.”
Dyke hastily poured out some whiskey and water and swallowed it. Then he spoke, with a faint smile: “You didn’t know, Bruce,” he said, “that you vividly described the attempted self-murder of a man I know intimately.”
“What an extraordinary thing! Yet I never remember hearing you mention his name.”
“Probably not. I have hardly seen him since my marriage. We were schoolboys together, though I was so much his senior that we did not chum together until later, when we met a good deal on the turf. Then he went off, roughing it in the States. It must be he. It is just one of his pranks. And he is going to marry, eh? Is she a nice girl?”
The baronet was thoroughly excited. He talked fast, and helped himself liberally to stimulants.
“Yes, unusually so. But I cannot help marvelling at this coincidence. It has upset you.”
“Not a bit. I was interested in your yarn, and naturally I was unprepared for the startling fact that an old friend of mine filled the chief part. What a fellow you are, Claude, for always turning up at the right time. I have never been in a tight place personally, but if I were I suppose you would come along and show me the way out. Sit down again and give me all the details. I am full of curiosity.”
Bruce had never before seen Sir Charles in such a hysterical mood. The anguish of the past three months had changed the careless, jovial baronet into a fretful, wayward being, who had lost control of his emotions. Undoubtedly he required some powerful tonic. The barrister resolved to see more of him in the future, and not to cease urging him until he had started on a long sea voyage, or taken up some hobby that would keep his mind from brooding upon the everlasting topic of his wife’s strange death.
Dyke’s fitful disposition manifested itself later. After he had listened with keen attention to all that Bruce had told him concerning Mensmore and Phyllis Browne, he suddenly swerved back to the one engrossing thought.