The aged pair seemed flattered at receiving us as visitors, and good-naturedly offered us a gla.s.s of ale.
"It"s home-brewed, you know," declared Mrs. Hales. "The likes of us can"t afford wine. Just taste it," she urged, and being thus pressed we were glad of an excuse to extend our visit.
The old lady had bustled out to the kitchen to fetch gla.s.ses, when Reggie rose to his feet, closed the door quickly, and, turning to Hales, said in a low voice--
"We want to have five minutes" private conversation with you, Mr. Hales.
Do you recognise this?" and he drew forth the photograph and held it before the old man"s eyes.
"Why, it"s a picture o" my house," he exclaimed in surprise. "But what"s the matter!"
"Nothing, only just answer my questions. They are most important, and our real object in coming here is to put them to you. First, have you ever known a man named Blair--Burton Blair."
"Burton Blair!" echoed the old fellow, his hands on the arms of his chair as he leaned forward intently. "Yes, why?"
"He discovered a secret, didn"t he?"
"Yes, through me--made millions out of it, they say."
"When did you last see him?"
"About five or six years ago."
"When he discovered you living here?"
"That"s it. He searched every road in England to find me."
"You gave him this photograph?"
"No, I think he stole it."
"Where did you first meet him?"
"On board the _Mary Crowle_ in the port of Antwerp. He was at sea, like myself. But why do you wish to know all this?"
"Because," answered Reggie, "Burton Blair is dead, and his secret has been bequeathed to my friend here, Mr. Gilbert Greenwood."
"Burton Blair dead!" cried the old man, jumping to his feet as though he had received a shock. "Burton dead! Does d.i.c.ky Dawson know this?"
"Yes, and he is in London," I replied.
"Ah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with impatience, as though the premature knowledge held by the man Dawson had upset all his plans. "Who told him? How the devil did he know?"
I had to confess ignorance, but in reply to his demand I deplored the tragic suddenness of our friend"s decease, and how I had been left in possession of the pack of cards upon which the cipher had been written.
"Have you any idea what his secret really was?" asked the wiry old fellow. "I mean of where his great wealth came from?"
"None whatever," was my reply. "Perhaps you can tell us something?"
"No," he snapped, "I can"t. He became suddenly rich, although only a month or so before he was on tramp and starving. He found me and I gave him certain information for which I was afterwards well repaid. It was this information, he told me, which formed the key to the secret."
"Was it anything to do with this pack of cards and the cipher?" I inquired eagerly.
"I don"t know, I"ve never seen the cards you mention. When he arrived here one cold night, he was exhausted and starving and dead beat. I gave him a meal and a bed, and told him what he wanted to know. Next morning, with money borrowed from me, he took train to London and the next I heard of him was a letter which stated that he had paid into the County Bank at York to my credit one thousand pounds, as we had arranged to be the price of the information. And I tell you, gentlemen, n.o.body was more surprised than I was to receive a letter from the bank next day, confirming it. He afterwards deposited a similar sum in the bank, on the first of January every year--as a little present, he said."
"Then you never saw him after the night that his search for you was successful?"
"No, not once," Hales answered, addressing his wife, who had just entered, saying that he was engaged in a private conversation, and requesting her to leave us, which she did. "Burton Blair was a queer character," Hales continued, addressing me, "he always was. No better sailor ever ate salt junk. He was absolutely fearless and a splendid navigator. He knew the Mediterranean as other men know Cable Street, Whitechapel, and had led a life cram-full of adventure. But he was a reckless devil ash.o.r.e--very reckless. I remember once how we both narrowly escaped with our lives at a little town outside Algiers. He pulled an Arab girl"s veil off her face out of sheer mischief, and, when she raised the alarm, we had to make ourselves scarce, pretty quick, I can tell you," and he laughed heartily at the recollection of certain sprees ash.o.r.e. "But both he and I had had pretty tough times in the Cameroons and in the Andes. I was older than he, and when I first met him I laughed at what I believed to be his ignorance. But I soon saw that he"d crammed about double the amount of travelling and adventure into his short spell than ever I had done, for he had a happy knack of deserting and going up country whenever an opportunity offered. He"d fought in half-a-dozen revolutions in Central and South America and used to declare that the rebels in Guatemala, had, on one occasion, elected him Minister of Commerce!"
"Yes," I agreed, "he was in many ways a most remarkable man with a most remarkable history His life was a mystery from beginning to end, and it is that mystery which now, after his death, I am trying to unravel."
"Ah! I fear you"ll find it a very difficult task," replied his old friend, shaking his head. "Blair was secret in everything. He never let his right hand know what his left did. You could never get at the bottom of his ingenuity, or at his motives. And," he added, as though it were an afterthought, "can you a.s.sign any reason why he should have left his secret in your hands?"
"Well, only grat.i.tude," I replied. "I was able on one occasion to render him a little a.s.sistance."
"I know. He told me all about it--how you had both put his girl to school, and all that. But," he went on, "Blair had some motive when he left you that unintelligible cipher, depend upon it. He knew well enough that you would never obtain its solution alone."
"Why?"
"Because others had tried before you and failed."
"Who are they?" I inquired, much surprised.
"d.i.c.k Dawson is one. If he had succeeded he might have stood in Blair"s shoes--a millionaire. Only he wasn"t quite cute enough, and the secret pa.s.sed on to your friend."
"Then you don"t antic.i.p.ate that I shall ever discover the solution of the cipher?"
"No," answered the old man, very frankly, "I don"t. But what of his girl--Mabel, I think she was called?"
"She"s in London and has inherited everything," I replied; whereat the old fellow"s furrowed face broadened into a grim smile, and he remarked--
"A fine catch for some young fellow, she"d make. Ah! if you could induce her to tell all she knows she could place you in possession of her father"s secret."
"Does she actually know it?" I cried quickly. "Are you certain of this?"
"I am; she knows the truth. Ask her."
"I will," I declared. "But cannot you tell us the nature of the information you gave to Blair on that night when he re-discovered you?"
I asked persuasively.
"No," he replied in a decisive tone, "it was a confidential matter and must remain as such. I was paid for my services, and as far as I am concerned, I have wiped my hands of the affair."
"But you could tell me something concerning this strange quest of Blair"s--something, I mean, that might put me on the track of the solution of the secret."
"The secret of how he gained his wealth, you mean, eh?"
"Of course."
"Ah, my dear sir, you"ll never discover that--mark me--if you live to be a hundred. Burton Blair took jolly good care to hide that from everybody."