"I am afraid I can't help you without fuller knowledge," said Gimblet.
"What do you think I can do?"
"You can do this," said Lord Ashiel. He put his hand in his pocket and Gimblet heard a crackling of paper. "I am thinking out a hiding-place for some valuable documents that are in my possession, and when I have decided on it I will write to you and explain where I have put them, using a cipher of which the key is enclosed in an envelope I have here in my pocket, and which I will leave with you when I go. Take charge of it for me, and in the course of the next week or so I will send you a cipher letter describing where the papers are concealed. Do not read it unless the occasion arises. I can trust you not to give way to curiosity, but if anything happens to me, if I die a violent death, or equally if I die under the most apparently natural circumstances, I want you to promise you will investigate those circumstances; and, if anything should strike you as suspicious in connection with what I have told you, you will be able to interpret my cipher letter, find the document I have referred to, and act on the information it contains. Will you undertake to do this for me?"
"I will, certainly," Gimblet answered readily, "but I hope the occasion will not arise. I beg you to break a vow which was extorted from you by false representations and which cannot be binding on you. Do confide fully in me; I do not at all like the look of this business."
"No, no," replied Lord Ashiel, smiling. "You must let me be the judge of whether my word is binding on me or not. As you say, I hope nothing will happen to justify my perhaps uncalled-for nervousness. In any case it will be a great comfort and relief to me to know that, if it does, the scoundrels will not go unpunished."
"They shall not do that," said Gimblet fervently. "You can make your mind easy on that score, at least. But I advise you to send your documents to the bank. They will be safer there than in any hiding-place you can contrive."
"I might want to lay my hand upon them at any moment," said Lord Ashiel, "and I admit I don't like parting with my only weapon of defence. Still, I dare say you are right really, and I will think it over. But mind, I don't want you to take any steps unless you can satisfy yourself that these people have a hand in my death. Please be very careful to make certain of that. My health is not good, and grows worse. I may easily die without their interference; but I suspect that, if they do get me, they will manage the affair so that it has all the look of having been caused by the purest misadventure. That is what I fear. Not exactly murder; certainly no violent open assault. But we are all liable to suffer from accidents, and what is to prevent my meeting with a fatal one? That is more the line they will adopt, if, as I imagine, they have decided on my death."
"If ever there were a case in which prevention is better than cure," said Gimblet, "I think you will own that we have it here. If I had some hint of the quarter from which you expect danger, I might at least suggest some rudimentary precautions. What kind of 'accident' do you imagine likely to occur?"
"That I can't tell," replied Lord Ashiel. "I only know that these enemies of mine are resourceful people, who are apt to make short work of anyone whose existence threatens their safety or the success of their designs. I am, by your help, taking a precaution to ensure that I shall not die unavenged. They must be taught that murder cannot be committed in this country with impunity. And I am very careful not to trust myself out of England. If I crossed the Channel it would be to go to my certain death. Otherwise I should have gone myself to see Sir Arthur Byrne. But in this island the man who kills even so unpopular a person as a member of the House of Lords does not get off with a few years' imprisonment, as he may in some of the continental countries; and the Nihilists, for the most part, know that as well as I do."
Gimblet followed Lord Ashiel into the hall with the intention of showing him out of the flat, but the sudden sound of the door bell ringing made him abandon this courtesy and retreat to shelter.
He did not wish to be denied all possibility of refusing an interview to some one he might not want to see.