“A stranger!” he laughed, with a haughty touch of sarcasm. “Dick Dawson a stranger! No, sir, you will find that to her I am no stranger. On the other hand you will, I think, discover that instead of resenting my interference, the young lady will rather welcome it. Wait and see,” he added, with a strangely confident air. “To-morrow I intend to call upon Mr Leighton, and to take up my duties as secretary to the daughter of the late Burton Blair, millionaire,” and laying stress on the final word, he laughed again defiantly in our faces.
He was not a gentleman. I decided that on the instant he had entered the room. Outwardly his bearing was that of one who had mixed with respectable people, but it was only a veneer of polish, for when he grew excited he was just as uncouth as the bluff seafarer who had so suddenly expired. His twang was pronouncedly Cockney, even though it was said he had lived in Italy so many years that he had almost become an Italian. A man who is a real born Londoner can never disguise his nasal “n’s,” even though he live his life at the uttermost ends of the earth. We had both quickly detected that the stranger, though of rather slim built, was unusually muscular. And this was the man who had had those frequent secret interviews with the grave-eyed Capuchin, Fra Antonio.
That he stood in no fear of us had been shown by the bold and open manner in which he had called, and the frankness with which he had spoken. He was entirely confident in his own position, and was inwardly chuckling at our own ignorance.
“You speak of me as a stranger, gentlemen,” he said, buttoning his overcoat after a short pause and taking up his stick. “I suppose I am to-night—but I shall not be so to-morrow. Very soon, I hope, we shall learn to know one another better, then perhaps you will trust me a little further than you do this evening. Recollect that I have for many years been the dead man’s most intimate friend.”
It was on the point of my tongue to remark that the reason of the strange clause in the will was because of poor Burton’s fear of him, and that it had been inserted under compulsion, but I fortunately managed to restrain myself and to wish the fellow “Good-evening” with some show of politeness.
“Well, I’m hanged, Gilbert,” cried Reggie, when the one-eyed man had gone. “The situation grows more interesting and complicated every moment. Leighton has a tough customer to deal with, that’s very evident.”
“Yes,” I sighed. “He has the best of us all round, because Blair evidently took him completely into his confidence.”
“Burton treated us shabbily, that’s my opinion, Greenwood!” blurted forth my friend, selecting a fresh cigar, and biting off the end viciously.
“He left his secret to me remember.”
“He may have destroyed it after making the will,” my friend suggested.