"Really, my dear fellow," I said, "you speak in enigmas. What do you mean—you intend what?"
"That matters nothing to you, Royle," was his hoarse reply. "I merely ask for your continued friendship. I ask that you will treat my successor here in the exact manner in which you have treated me—that you will become his firm friend—and that you will perform for me one great and most important service."
"Your successor! Who will succeed you? You have no son!"
"No, I have no male relation whatever," he replied. "But we were speaking of the favour I am begging of you to perform for me. On the fourteenth of January I shall not be here, but it is highly necessary that on that evening, at eight o'clock, a secret message should be delivered into the hands of a certain lady—a message from myself. Will you do it?"
"Certainly. Are you going abroad again?"
"I—well, I can hardly tell. I may be dead by then—who knows?" And he smiled grimly.
He returned to his writing-table, unlocked a drawer, and took therefrom a letter which was carefully sealed with black wax.
"Now, listen," he said, holding the letter in his fingers; "on the night of the fourteenth, just at eight o'clock precisely, go to the Piccadilly tube station, stand at the telephone box numbered four on the Haymarket side, when a lady in black will approach you and ask news of me. In response you will give her this note. But there is a further condition: you may be watched and recognised, therefore be extremely careful that you are not followed on that day, and, above all, adopt some effective disguise. Go there dressed as a working-man, I would suggest."
"That request, Kemsley, is certainly a very queer one," I remarked. "Is she the lady?"
He smiled, and I took that as an affirmative.