"Read this," said he, holding out the dirty, crumpled sheet of note; "read it, and tell me if you ever saw the like to it?"
I took the letter and found that it contained two lines of crabbed and winding writing, done in pencil. It was some minutes before I could make head or tail of the thing; but when at last I read it, I was just as much astonished as he was.
"If you are seen at Lilian More's again, I will blow your brains out."
This was all of it—no address, no date, no signature; note-paper which you might have bought at a farthing the sheet, and a handwriting which might have been a parson's, and might have been a schoolboy's. And as if to blind us further, the postmark was Chancery Lane, which, as all the world knows, has nothing particular to do with Chelsea.
"Well," said Sir Nicolas, while I stood gaping at the letter like a board-school boy might gape at a slice of Greek, "can ye read it?"
"Oh, I can read it all right, sir," I replied; "it ain't a difficult handwriting to read."
"Indeed, and it is not. I call it altogether a very pretty production; 'tis worthy of the murdering scoundrel who had the impudence to send it."
"Then you know who sent it, sir?"
"Should I know who sent it? The devil take me if I have the ghost of an idea, unless it's the barrister with the one arm. 'Tis a queer letter entirely."
"That's true, sir; but I don't think Mr. Connoley wrote it. If he was having a bit of fun with you, he'd set about it different to that. You don't forget his three Bulgarians and his fortune in the East? What's more, he likes to see you at Chelsea. I'm as sure of that as of my own name."
"Then who the blazes would send such a thing?"
"That I can't say off-hand. Maybe one of the young men who hang about Miss More at the theatre. It isn't to be expected that all of them would see her come here and say nothing about it. You don't know of any friends that would have the right to speak for her, sir?"
"Not the shadow of one. When I met her in Birmingham eight years ago, her father was living—a bookseller down at Oxford he was; but he died three years ago, and I never heard that she had a brother."
"Then it's one of her theatre friends," said I, "and, if he comes my way, I'll wipe him down with a hickory towel. Don't you trouble about that, sir. A young man in' love is fond of flying to pistols—when he don't fly to whiskey and soda. You toss the thing into the fire, and I'll do the rest."
He heard me out, and then he seemed persuaded.
"Bedad," said he, "I believe ye're right, and it's some jealous little boy out of the wings that is anxious to crow upon my own dung-heap. The impudence of the devil! 'Tis as good as a play that any one should think I would be marrying Miss More. They'll laugh finely at the theatre when I pass it round."
"I wouldn't do that for a bit, sir," said I; "we may as well try and find out how the land lies. There are plenty of lunatics walking about the world, and it's just as well to know what road they take——"
"Would ye have me seek police protection, then? 'Tis funny I would look with a policeman at my heels for the matter of a penny letter from a maniac. Faith, I'll just put it in my pocket-book, and show it to Miss More when she comes. 'Twill be a good laugh for the pair of us."
He seemed pleased with this idea, and, sure enough, when she came up with Connoley in the afternoon, the three of them had a rare laugh over it.
"'Tis to many we are, Lilian," said my master, reading the letter out aloud, while the one-armed barrister smoked harder than ever—"to marry we are, and here is the man who will forbid the banns, d'ye see? The murdering scoundrel, to want to blow me brains out!"
"He'll never do that, Nicky," said Connoley; "that's beyond him. He may excavate the cavity, but as for blowing your brains out, why, ye can't blow out what isn't there to blow. Now, when I was in Bulgaria—you remember the three men I shot there——"
"Be hanged to your three men!" cried Sir Nicolas. "Is it not yerself that has shot them twenty times in this very room?"
"And why not?" says Connoley. "If there's a more curious story than mine since I met 'The Raven' in the Strand, I'd be glad to hear of it. But ye've no literary faculty, Nicky—not a trace of it."
"There was nothing so vulgar ever run in me family," exclaimed my master. "We never came lower than pathriots since I can remember. Ye'll not claim to be a cousin of mine, Roderick. Bedad, I'll change my name if you do. 'Tis a sweet name is More, and I would carry it finely."
He looked at Miss More when he said this, and all three of them laughed together.
"You seem to think it a very good joke, Pat," said she.
"I have heard no better since I came out of Ireland!" cried he. "That they should want to blow out my brains! I knew it would amuse you finely."
With this laugh they changed the subject; but during the afternoon I saw Miss More with tears in her eyes, as I have told you, and I am sure it was a very poor joke to her, though Nicky was blind to the end of it, and never so much as suspected what I knew all along. As for the silly letter, he forgot that as soon as he had torn it up. I heard him making an appointment to go down to Chelsea that very night, and get a picture of Lilian More in her theatre clothes. He was always messing about with photographs and stinking chemicals, and if he took one picture of that bright little woman, he took fifty. I have one now stuck on the mantle-shelf of my room here—I burned a dozen before he went down to Derbyshire and nearly married Miss Oakley there; but the photograph of Miss More in her theatre clothes is in the hands of the man who, in some sort of way, has the best right to it, though God help him when he looks at it, say I.
CHAPTER III
THE MESSAGE
The arrangement was that Sir Nicolas should go down and take the picture at half -past eleven that night.
"I'll take ye by the magnesium light, Lilian," said he; "and after that we'll go and get supper somewhere. 'Tis a beautiful light, if ye know how to handle it. Ye won't forget to put on the bull's eyes and the crown."
"Why not take Roderick, too, and call it 'Beauty and the Beast'?" said she.
"’T would be a libel on my race," said he; and with that they parted, she going to the theatre, while he went to get a bit of dinner in Old Compton Street.
Half-past ten had struck when he came back again. It never occurred to me that he would want my company, but such proved the case.
"Ye may help me to carry the camera," said he, while he began to get the dry plates ready; "and, if ye're not very tired, I'd be glad to take you as far as Miss More's place. 'Tis not afraid I am of a paltry threatening letter, but we couldn't do with a scene just now, and there's plenty of fools ready to make one when they're a bit spoony over a woman. I won't keep you the half of an hour."
I was a little surprised at this, for he seemed to have forgotten all about the letter; but I went ready enough, and, what's more, I took a good thick stick in my hand when I started.
"If there is any puppy who desires particular to bark, I'm his man," said I to myself as I got in the cab. I knew well enough that he was right when he said that we could not afford to have a scene. There was too much talked of already for us to be advertising ourselves on the newspaper bills. And that I meant to prevent, all the puppies in London notwithstanding.
We were half an hour, I suppose, driving from Gower Street to Chelsea. It was near about a quarter to twelve when we arrived at Miss More's studio; but even then we seemed to have come too early. Her flat, as