About eleven o’clock Redwood arrived, and as he met me in the hall he pushed a copy of that day’s Times under my nose, asking—
“Seen this, Mr Kemball? It concerns you, I fancy. That’s the name you mentioned yesterday, isn’t it?”
Eagerly I scanned the lines which he indicated. It was an advertisement, which read—
“Re Melvill, Arnold.—Will the gentleman to whom Mr Melvill Arnold has entrusted a certain ancient object in bronze kindly deliver it according to promise, first communicating with Messrs Fryer and Davidson, solicitors, 196 London Wall, London, E.C.”
I read it again and again.
Then of a sudden I recollected that it was the third of November. On that day I had instructions to deliver the bronze cylinder to the first person who made application for it!
The low, soft-spoken words of the dying man as he had handed me the heavy cylinder, bidding me keep it in safe custody, recurred to me as I stood there with the newspaper in my hand. So I resolved to go at once to London, and call upon the firm who had advertised.
Soon after three o’clock, therefore, I ascended in the lift of a large block of offices in London Wall, and entered the swing doors of Messrs Fryer and Davidson.
When asked by the clerk for my name, I gave a card, adding that I had called in response to the advertisement, and a few moments later found myself in a comfortable private room with a thin, clean-shaven, thin-faced, alert-looking man of middle age, who introduced himself as Mr Cyril Fryer, the head of the firm.
After thanking me for my call he said—