‘Of course you believe the same as I. Let unbelievers scoff if they will, I shall always believe the evidence of my eyes.’
‘Of course,’ Le Gautier returned politely, his thoughts wandering feebly in the direction of nightmare, and looking round for some means of escape. ‘I have seen ghosts myself, or thought I have.’
‘It is no imagination, Le Gautier,’ Sir Geoffrey continued, with all the prosy earnestness of a man with a hobby. ‘The strangest coincidence happened to me. My late brother, Sir Ughtred, who has been dead nearly twenty years, manifested himself to me the other night. Surely that implies some coming evil, or some duty I have neglected?’
‘Perhaps he charged you with some commission,’ Le Gautier observed, and pricking up his ears for any scrap of useful information.
‘Not that I remember; indeed, I did not see him for years before he died. He was an eccentric man, and an extreme politician—in fact, he got into serious trouble with the authorities, and might even have been arrested, had he not removed himself to New York.’
‘New York?’ queried Le Gautier, wondering vaguely where he had heard of this Ughtred Charteris before. ‘Was he connected with any secret society—any Socialist conspiracy?’
‘Do you know, I really fancy he was,’ Sir Geoffrey whispered mysteriously. ‘There were certainly some curious things in his effects which were sent to me. I can show you some now, if you would like to see them.’
Le Gautier expressed his willingness; and the baronet led the way into a small room at the back of the house, half library, half studio. In one corner was an old ebony cabinet; and opening the front, he displayed a multitude of curiosities such as a man will gather together in the course of years. In one little drawer was a case of coins. Le Gautier turned them over carelessly one by one, till, suddenly starting, he eagerly lifted one and held it to the light. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked abruptly.
Sir Geoffrey took it in his hand. It was a gold coin, a little larger than an ordinary sovereign, and bearing on the reverse side a curious device. ‘That came with the rest of my brother’s curiosities.—But why do you ask? You look as if the coin had burnt you.’
For a moment, Le Gautier had started back, his pale face aglow with suppressed excitement; but as he noticed the baronet’s wondering eyes upon him, he recovered himself by a violent effort. ‘It is nothing’—with a smile. ‘It is only the coincidence which startled me for a moment. If you will look here, you will see that I wear a similar coin upon my watch-chain.’