“I wonder whether I might presume to say something to you strictly in private, Mr. Biddulph? I know that I ought not to interfere in your private affairs—yet, as a minister of religion, I perhaps am a slightly privileged person in that respect. At least you will, I trust, believe in my impartiality.”
“Most certainly I do, Mr. Shuttleworth,” I replied, somewhat surprised at his manner.
“Well, you recollect our conversation on the last occasion you were here?” he said. “You remember what I told you?”
“I remember that we spoke of Miss Sylvia,” I exclaimed, “and that you refused to satisfy my curiosity.”
“I refused, because I am not permitted,” was his calm rejoinder.
“Since I saw you,” I said, “a dastardly attempt has been made upon my life. I was enticed to an untenanted house in Bayswater, and after a cheque for a thousand pounds had been obtained from me by a trick, I narrowly escaped death by a devilish device. My grave, I afterwards found, was already prepared.”
“Is this a fact!” he gasped.
“It is. I was rescued—by Sylvia herself.”
He was silent, drawing hard at his pipe, deep in thought.
“The names of the two men who made the dastardly attempt upon me were Reckitt and Forbes—friends of Sylvia Pennington,” I went on.