“Oh, no, my friend, merely a man with a memory, that’s all; and I happen to remember a curious little ‘pool’ that was made up of eight men. Five of them are dead. The other three are Juan Alvarez, a Spaniard, that Lieutenant Edgburn who married and beggared the girl Captain Barrington-Edwards lost when he was disgraced, and last of all the ex-Captain Barrington-Edwards himself. Gently, gently, my friend. Don’t excite yourself. All these murders have been committed with a definite purpose in view, with a devil’s instrument, and for the devil’s own stake—riches. Those riches, Mr. Narkom, were to come in the shape of precious stones, the glorious sapphires of Ceylon. And five of the eight men who were to reap the harvest of them died mysteriously in the vicinity of Lemmingham House.”
“Cleek! My hat!” Narkom sprang up as he spoke, and then sat down again in a sort of panic. “And he—Barrington-Edwards, the man that lives there—deals in precious stones. Then that man——”
“Gently, my friend, gently—don’t bang away at the first rabbit that bolts out of the hole—it may be a wee one and you’ll lose the buck that follows. Two men live in that house, remember; Mr. Archer Blaine is Mr. Barrington-Edwards’ heir as well as his nephew and—who knows?”
CHAPTER III
“Cinnamon! what a corroboration—what a horrible corroboration! Cleek, you knock the last prop from under me; you make certain a thing that I thought was only a woman’s wild imaginings,” said Narkom, getting up suddenly, all a-tremble with excitement. “Good heavens! to have Miss Valmond’s story corroborated in this dreadful way.”
“Miss Valmond? Who’s she? Any relation to that Miss Rose Valmond whose name one sees in the papers so frequently in connection with gifts to Catholic Orphanages and Foundling Homes?”
“The same lady,” replied Narkom. “Her charities are numberless, her life a psalm. I think she has done more good in her simple, undemonstrative way than half the guilds and missions in London. She has an independent fortune, and lives, in company with an invalid and almost imbecile mother, and a brother who is, I am told, studying for the priesthood, in a beautiful home surrounded by splendid grounds, the walls of which separate her garden from that of Lemmingham House.”
“Ah, I see. Then she is a neighbour of Barrington-Edwards?”
“Yes. From the back windows of her residence one can look into the grounds of his. That is how—Cleek!” Mr. Narkom’s voice shook with agitation—“You will remember I said, a little time back, that I would have something startling to tell you in connection with Barrington-Edwards—something that was not connected with that old army scandal? If it had not been for the high character of my informant; if it had been any other woman in all England I should have thought she was suffering from nerves—fancying things as the result of an overwrought mind sent into a state of hysteria through all those abominable crimes in the neighbourhood; but when it was she, when it was Miss Valmond——”