“First, the letter being unaddressed was a rather curious fact,” he responded slowly. “Then, I was to meet a lady whom he did not describe further than that she was youngish, and would wear a bunch of flowers. All this appeared strange, but my curiosity was further aroused because he had dressed more carefully than he usually did in a morning, as though visitors were coming.”
“Was he down at the House on the previous night?”
“Yes, sir; I took a telegram down there, and delivered it to him in the Lobby. He opened it, read it, and uttered a bad word, as if its contents annoyed him very much. Then I returned, and he arrived home about half an hour after midnight. I gave him some whiskey and soda, and left him smoking and studying a big blue-book he had brought home with him.”
“Have you any suspicion that the telegram had any connection with the mysterious lady whom you were sent to meet?”
“I’ve several times thought that it had. Of course I can’t tell.”
A silence fell between us. At last I spoke again, saying—
“Remember that all you have heard to-day must be kept secret. Nobody must know that we have been to Mrs Popejoy’s. There is a mystery surrounding this lady named Cloud, and when we get to the bottom of it we shall, I feel certain, obtain a clue to the cause of your poor master’s death. You, his faithful servant, were, I feel assured, devoted to him, therefore it behoves us both to work in unison with a view to discovering the truth.”
“Certainly, sir; I shall not utter a single word of what I have heard to-day. But,” he added, “do you believe that my poor master was murdered?”
“It’s an open question,” I replied. “There are one or two facts which, puzzling the doctors, may be taken as suspicious, yet there are others which seem quite plain, and point to death from natural causes.”
Then, having given him certain instructions how to act if he discovered anything further regarding the mysterious Aline, he alighted at the corner of Cranbourne Street, while I drove on to my own rooms, full of saddest memories of the man who had for years been one of my closest friends.