RESTED

Being left to myself after thoroughly thrashing out the whole case with
Dr. Mainwaring and the chief constable, who both agreed with me that
the circumstances were the most extraordinary they had ever heard of, I
sat down to consider matters by myself.

Here was I, a country gentleman of moderate estate, trying to eke out a
smallish income by literature, plumped down into the centre of as fine
a tangle of mystery as ever came out of the _Arabian Nights
Entertainments_.

I got up and looked at myself in the glass, and saw there a
clean-shaven tall man of thirty whose black hair was already turning
white at the temples; about my grey eyes, alas, there were already
crows' feet, the price I had paid, I suppose, for taking honours at
Oxford.

I sat down again and thought deeply.

"Bill Anstruther," I said to myself, "you're in for it. You've
consented to receive the confidences of that old lady, who, poor soul,
was in the direst need of help and friendship without doubt when she
called you in the night before last. You're bound in honour to go
through with it, and try to help her, or at any rate carry out her
wishes, be she dead or alive."

Thus I reasoned, and in this, it seemed to me, my duty lay. Obviously
the first thing to do was to obtain possession of the packets again and
ascertain their contents. I knew, of course, that they were directed
to me and possibly contained some request of the old lady. I marvelled
very much what the connection between her and the man with the glass
eye could possibly be, but could form no guess even in the matter. It
was very evident that he was a bloodthirsty scoundrel, and I had little
doubt in my own mind that it was he who had wounded her, perhaps unto
death.

While I thought of it, I decided to go down to the office and make
inquiries concerning Saumarez.

I found he had left during the morning.

"Mr. Saumarez went up to town, sir," explained the clerk, "by the
twelve-twenty."

"Thank you," I said, and walked away to the smoking-room to have a good
think again. Eating for the present was out of the question.

After three cigarettes I arrived at the following conclusions. I would
go up to town in the morning, secure the packets, and read them in my
lawyers' office.

I would not trust myself to carry them about with me while that man
Saumarez was at large. It was very evident that the safe and its
contents possessed a great attraction for him; probably