“What kind of a man did he look? A broken-down gentleman?”
“Yes, I should say he had been a gentleman once, but he had come down a longish way. He had come down as low as drink and dissipation can bring a man. Altogether I should consider him a dangerous customer.”
“A man capable of violence—of crime even?”
“Perhaps! A man who wouldn’t have stopped at crime if he hadn’t been a white-livered hound. I tell you, sir, the fellow was afraid of Mr. Dalbrook, although Mr. Dalbrook ought to have been afraid of him. He was a craven to the core of his heart.”
“What age did you give him?”
“At the time he came to me I should put him down at about six and thirty.”
“And that is how many years ago?”
“Say four and twenty—I can’t be certain to a year or so. It wasn’t a business transaction, and I haven’t any record of the fact.”
“Was he a powerful-looking man?”
“He was the remains of a powerful man: he must have been a fine man when he was ten years younger—a handsome man, too—one of those fair-complexioned, blue-eyed, aquiline-nosed men who set off good clothes—the kind of man to do justice to a rig out from a fashionable tailor. He was a wreck when I saw him, but he was the wreck of a handsome man.”