“I looked into it, sir, just as you did—only just looked into it. Not for worlds would I do even that again!”
“I noticed some reference here to a slab in the cellar. What slab is that?”
“It covers an old, dried-up well, sir.”
“Will you show it to me?”
“You can find it for yourself, sir, if you wish. I’m not goin’ down there,” she said, decidedly.
“Ah, well, I’ve seen enough for today,” I told her. “I’ll take the diary back to my hotel and read it.”
I did not return to my hotel, however. In my one brief glance into the little book, I had seen something which had bitten into my soul; only a few words, but they had brought me very near to that queer, solitary man who had been my uncle.
I dismissed Mrs. Malkin, and remained in the study. There was the fitting place to read the diary he had left behind him.
His personality lingered like a vapor in that study. I settled into his deep morris chair, and turned it to catch the light from the single, narrow window—the light, doubtless, by which he had written much of his work on entomology.