“Others!” cried the man in astonishment. “What do you mean?”
“Well, first, who was the man that put you on the track of my discovery, eh? What, for instance, is the name or position of Mr Glynn’s employer?”
In spite of myself I flushed and started. Should I now hear who Don José Casteno really was, if he were really a friend of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, and why he was a resident at that home of mystery, St. Bruno’s. Alas! no. I was doomed to disappointment.
“We decline to tell you,” said my companion with great firmness.
“I shall find out for myself,” roared the dwarf.
“Do, if you can,” returned the man coolly. “For the present, stick to the point we are discussing. Who else have we to fear?”
“The cut-throats who did this,” snarled the hunchback, stepping quickly across the room and taking down a cloak from the walls. Then he spread the garment out on the table and indicated certain bullet holes in the back. “They did this to me this afternoon as I walked homeward,” he added. “The shots came just as I was crossing Westminster Bridge. I searched everywhere for a sight of the man, who must have done it with some new-fangled air-gun. I could find none at all.
“Nor is that all,” he proceeded the next moment; “just cast a glance in this direction, will you?” He stumbled across the parlour to a point where stood an old oaken chest about two feet high, the lid of which he threw back with a bang. “Do you see that fine mastiff in there?” pointing to the shadowy form of a huge dog in the depths of the chest. “Well, an hour ago he was poisoned. By whom? For what? I have lived here in this house, in this neighbourhood, for five and forty years and nothing of the sort has ever occurred before.
“Ten minutes before your carriage rattled up I had another weird experience. Explain it if you can—I can’t. I was seated at this very table poring over one of those precious manuscripts, which I hide in a place practically inaccessible to anybody except myself, when I became conscious I was not alone. Somebody, I felt certain, had come mysteriously on the scene and was watching me intently. I glanced up suddenly, and found there, at that small casement window which opens on the street, and which is usually guarded by the shutter you now see placed in position, the face of a man. ‘What do you want?’ I cried angrily, and darted across the room to fling the shutter back into position with all the force I could exert. But he was much too swift for me. With incredible rapidity he flung an envelope through the opening and darted off, and the shutter and window slammed together, as I intended, but with an empty bang. The scoundrel had escaped!
“Well, by that time I was accustomed to surprises, and so I took up the envelope, which was of a cheap, inferior make, similar to those sold by small stationers in poor districts. It had no address upon it, but it was sealed. I tore it open, and found inside a piece of paper bearing this message.” After fumbling behind an ornament on the mantelpiece he produced a slip that had been evidently torn out of some child’s exercise book, and upon which was written in feigned handwriting to resemble a schoolboy’s: