‘He said he had had a letter saying a cask of money was being sent him--he will tell you the details himself--and that he had just got this cask from the steamer and brought it to St. Malo when I called on that Monday evening. The reason he hesitated about leaving home was that he was on tenterhooks to unpack the cask.’
‘I asked him that, and he said he had had trouble with the steamer people about getting it away, and he did not want any one to know where the cask was, lest it should get round to these steamer folk. But I would rather he would tell you about that himself.’
‘I shall ask him, but I want to hear from you anything you know personally about it.’
‘Can you tell me anything of his friends?’
‘Nothing. I think only twice in all the years I have known him have I met acquaintances of his, in each case artists who were looking at the paintings in his studio, and who I know did not stay the night. Whom he met during the day I can’t tell.’
‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘I think that is all we can do to-day. I’ll let you know how things go on, but, as I warned you before, the business will be slow.’
With a hearty handshake and a word of thanks the doctor took his leave, while Clifford sat down to write to Heppenstall, K.C., to know if he would take up the case.
The next day Mr. Clifford was occupied with various technical formalities, and in obtaining from the authorities such information as was then available about the case, and it was not till the following morning he set out to make the acquaintance of his client. He found him seated in his cell, his head on his hands, and an expression of deep gloom upon his face. The two men talked generalities for some time, and then the lawyer came to business.
‘Now, Mr. Felix,’ he said, ‘I want you please to tell me everything you know of this unhappy affair--everything, no matter how seemingly minute or unimportant. Remember--I cannot impress it on you too strongly--for a man in your position it is suicidal to withhold information. Keep nothing back. Your confidence will be as safe as the confessional. If you have made mistakes, done foolish things, or criminal things, or even--forgive me--if you have committed the crime you are charged with, tell me the whole truth. Else I shall be a blind man leading the blind, and we shall both have our fall.’