“I’ve promised. Trust me,” was the innkeeper’s response, while a moment later the shabby stranger’s form cast a long shadow across the sanded tap-room and vanished.
“That’s a queer customer?” I remarked to Warr when he returned to me, for I had come down to pay him an account. “I don’t like the look of him somehow.”
“Neither do I,” the landlord answered. “At first I took him for a burglar spying around to ascertain who was at home up at the Hall, but I’ve formed a very different conclusion during the past five minutes. He isn’t a burglar, but he’s somebody who evidently knows Lady Lolita.”
“Knows her?” I exclaimed, surprised. “What do you mean? What did he tell you in private?”
“Nothing. He asked me to render him a service by giving a letter in secret to her ladyship, and as recompense gave me this.” And opening his hand, Warr showed me a sovereign. “Something fresh, this!” he added. “A tramp who gives sovereign tips;” and he laughed very heartily to himself.
I did not join in his laughter, for on being handed the letter I saw it was inscribed to her ladyship and marked “Private” in a neat educated hand, and sealed with black wax with an unfamiliar coat-of-arms bearing a coronet and many quarterings.
“He told me also to tell her that Richard Keene has returned, and said that she would understand. Strange, ain’t it?” observed the landlord, with a long pull at his clay.
“Very. If you wish, I’ll undertake the responsibility of giving Lady Lolita this letter and delivering the message,” I said.
“No. I’ll have to come up to the Hall myself,” was the innkeeper’s reply. “The chap actually compelled me to take a solemn oath to deliver it into no other hands but her own!”
“Then it must contain something of supreme importance, otherwise it might surely have been sent by post,” I remarked suspiciously.