Eastern tobacco. I am a little nervous, and I find my hookah an
invaluable sedative."

  He applied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled
merrily through the rose-water. We sat all three in a semicircle,
with our heads advanced and our chins upon our hands, while
the strange, jerky little fellow, with his high, shining head,
puffed uneasily in the centre.

  "When I first determined to make this communication to
you," said he, "I might have given you my address; but I feared
that you might disregard my request and bring unpleasant people
with you. I took the liberty, therefore, of making an appointment
in such a way that my man Williams might be able to see you
first. I have complete confidence in his discretion, and he had
orders, if he were dissatisfied, to proceed no further in the
matter. You will excuse these precautions, but I am a man of
somewhat retiring, and I might even say refined, tastes, and
there is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman. I have a
natural shrinking from all forms of rough materialism. I seldom
come in contact with the rough crowd. I live, as you see, with
some little atmosphere of elegance around me. I may call myself
a patron of the arts. It is my weakness. The landscape is a
genuine Corot, and though a connoisseur might perhaps throw a
doubt upon that Salvator Rosa, there cannot be the least question
about the Bouguereau. I am partial to the modern French school."

  "You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto," said Miss Morstan, "but
I am here at your request to learn something which you desire to
tell me. It is very late, and I should desire the interview to be as
short as possible."

  "At the best it must take some time," he answered; "for we
shall certainly have to go to Norwood and see Brother Barth-
olomew. We shall all go and try if we can get the better of
Brother Bartholomew. He is very angry with me for taking the
course which has seemed right to me. I had quite high words
with him last night. You cannot imagine what a terrible fellow
he is when he is angry."

  "If we are to go to Norwood, it would perhaps be as well to
start at once," I ventured to remark.

  He laughed until his ears were quite red.

  "That would hardly do," he cried. "I don't know what he
would say if I brought you in that sudden way. No, I must
prepare you by showing you how we all stand to each other. In
the first place, I must tell you that there are several points in the
story of which I am myself ignorant. I can only lay the facts
before you as far as I know them myself.

  "My father was, as you may have guessed, Major John
Sholto, once of the Indian Army. He retired some eleven years
ago and came to live at Pondicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood.
He had prospered in India and brought back with him a con-
siderable sum of money, a large collection of valuable curiosi-
ties, and a staff of native servants. With these advantages he
bought himself a house, and lived in great luxury. My twin-
brother Bartholomew and I were the only children.

  "I very well remember the sensation which was caused by the
disappearance of Captain Morstan. We read the details in the
papers, and knowing that he had been a friend of our father's we
discussed the case freely in his presence. He used to join in our
speculations as to what could have happened. Never for an
instant did we suspect that he had the whole secret hidden in his
own breast, that of all men he alone knew the fate of Arthur
Morstan.

  "We did know, however, that some mystery, some positive
danger, overhung our father. He was very fearful of going out
alone, and he always employed two prize-fighters to act as
porters at Pondicherry Lodge. Williams, who drove you tonight,
was one of them. He was once lightweight champion of En-
gland. Our father would never tell us what it was he feared, but
he had a most marked aversion to men with wooden legs. On
one occasion he actually fired his revolver at a wooden-legged
man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman canvassing for
orders. We had to pay a large sum to hush the matter up. My
brother and I used to think this a mere whim of my father's, but
events have since led us to change our opinion.

  "Early in 1882 my father received a letter from India which
was a great shock to him. He nearly fainted at the breakfast-table
when he opened it, and from that day he sickened to his death.
What was in the letter we could never discover, but I could see
as he held it that it was short and written in a scrawling hand. He
had suffered for years from an enlarged spleen, but he now
became rapidly worse, and towards the end of April we were
informed that he was beyond all hope, and that he wished to
make a last communication to us.

  "When we entered his room he was propped up with pillows
and breathing heavily. He besought us to lock the door and to
come upon either side of the bed. Then grasping our hands he
made a remarkable statement to us in a voice which was broken
as much by emotion as by pain. I shall try and give it to you in
his own very words.