Often in the silence of his room he sighed heavily when he spoke of her to me, and more than once, old friends that we were, he had unbosomed himself to me, so that, knowing what I did, I honestly pitied him. There was, in fact, affection just as strong in the heart of the millionaire landowner as in that of his very humble secretary.
“I had the misfortune to be born a rich man, Willoughby,” he had once declared to me. “If I had been poor and had had to work for my living, I should probably have been far happier.”
At the present moment, however, he seemed to have forgotten his own sorrows in the startling occurrence that had taken place within his own demesne, and his declaration that the man now dead had followed him in London was to me intensely interesting. It added more mystery to the affair.
“Are you quite certain that you recognise him?” I inquired a few moments later, wondering whether, if this were an actual fact, I had not also seen him when walking with the Earl in London.
“Well, not quite,” was my companion’s reply. “A dead man’s face looks rather different to that of a living person. Nevertheless, I feel almost positive that he’s the same. I recollect that the first occasion I saw him was at Ranelagh, when he came and sat close by me, and was apparently watching my every movement. I took no notice, because lots of people, when they ascertain who I am, stare at me as though I were some extraordinary species. A few nights later on, walking home from the Bachelors’, I passed him in Piccadilly, and again on the next day he followed me persistently through the Burlington. Don’t you remember, too, when Marigold held that bazaar in the drawing-room in aid of the Deep Sea Mission? Well, he came, and bought several rather expensive things. I confess that his constant presence grew very irritating, and although I said nothing to you at the time, for fear you would laugh at my apprehension, I grew quite timid, and didn’t care to walk home from the club at night alone.”
“Rather a pity you didn’t point him out to me,” I remarked, very much puzzled. “I, too, have a faint idea that I’ve seen him somewhere. It may have been that when I’ve walked with you he has followed us.”
“Most likely,” was the young Earl’s reply. “He evidently had some fixed purpose in watching my movements, but what it could be is an entire mystery. During the last fortnight I was in town I always carried my little revolver, fearing—well, to tell you the truth, fearing lest he should make an attack upon me,” he admitted with a smile. “The fact was, I had become thoroughly unnerved.”
This confession sounded strange from a resolute athletic man of his stamp whom I had hitherto regarded as utterly fearless and possessing nerves of iron.
“And now,” he went on, “the fellow is found murdered within half a mile of the house! Most extraordinary, isn’t it?”
“Very remarkable—to say the least,” I said reflectively. “The police will probably discover who and what he is.”