Therefore I remained in eager expectancy of Guy’s visit. He had vaguely promised to come over “in a day or two.” But as a week passed and I heard nothing from him, I wrote, and by return of post received a reply that he would motor over and lunch with me on Sunday.
“I have something of greatest importance to tell you,” his letter concluded; “so I hope you can make it convenient to be in on that day.”
I received the letter on Thursday morning, and at once replied that I would be at home. I would await his visit with keenest impatience.
The warm breathless days at Upton End passed but slowly. Truth to tell, I found life there extremely dull. I had many friends in the neighbourhood, but they were mostly elderly persons, or angular girls of superior education. I had little in common with them, and already found myself longing to travel again.
More than once when smoking my lonely cigar before going to bed, I had taken out the mysterious cylinder from the big safe built in the wall of the library and held it in my hand pondering. What could be the Thing it contained—the thing which would amaze the world!
The weird story told to me by Shaw concerning it haunted me; yet what evil could its possession bring upon me? I had heard, of course, of authenticated stories of certain Egyptian mummies which have brought disaster and death to those who disturbed their long sleep; yet in my case I had become the unwilling agent of another.
On the night of receiving Nicholson’s letter, after every one had retired, I was sitting as usual smoking, with the long window open to the verandah, for the air was close and oppressive. Outside the night was glorious, the moon shone brightly, and not a breath of wind stirred.
I opened the steel door in the wall by the fireplace, and from the safe took out the dead man’s letter to me with the heavy cylinder. It was a curious fancy of mine to handle and examine it.
I read and re-read that letter traced by the hand of the man whom I had known as Arnold, but whose real name seemed most probably to have been Edgcumbe. Then I read that strange letter threatening vengeance, and held in my hand the old copy of the newspaper which told the curious story of Lady Lettice Lancaster.
It was all mysterious, but surely most mysterious of all was that bronze cylinder. Why should the dead man have feared to expose its contents to the world?