“Do you mean they weren’t really coincidences?” somebody asked.
“There was one real coincidence. The rest was a curious but not at all an unnatural result of quite an ordinary affair — a county dinner, in fact.”
After that we simply had to get the story out of him.
“I was asked as a guest to the Devorsetshire Association’s Annual Dinner in London (you can guess which county it really was for yourselves). There was nothing very remarkable in that, for I get asked out to all sorts of dinners. I had to reply to the toast of the guests, and there was nothing very remarkable in that either, for I’m always getting let in for after-dinner speaking — when they don’t want a very serious oration. In consequence everybody — or at all events most of the people there — discovered who I was; which was a very natural consequence.
“Again, it was very natural that natives of Devorsetshire and people connected with the county who hadn’t seen each other for years, should happen to meet on such an occasion. And if any one, or any two, or any three of them wanted advice in a ticklish matter, it was extremely natural that they should think of the eloquent gentleman who had replied for the guests.
“If you bear all this in mind, you’ll see how things fell out, though on the surface it looked as if some capricious elf had taken over the duties of destiny.
“Well, to come to our muttons. The very next morning a card with the name of Mr. R. C. Wickley was handed in to me, and in a moment Mr. Wickley himself walked into my room. He had reddish hair, a somewhat receding forehead, curiously suspicious eyes, and a prizefighting jowl. It doesn’t sound a very promising description, and yet somehow or other the man was distinctly likeable. For one thing, he had a pleasant smile, and for another, the look of one who has seen a good bit of trouble and yet hasn’t let his tail down; also he was unmistakably a gentleman.
“ ‘I saw you last night at the Devorset dinner, Mr. Carrington,’ he began, ‘and I thought you looked the sort of man who might help me, and who could be trusted.’
“This was not merely pleasant flattering, but it was said with an air of really meaning it and of badly wanting some one he could trust, that roused my interest immediately.
“ ‘What I am going to tell you,’ he went on, ‘must be absolutely confidential. Your business is a purely private agency, isn’t it? You don’t give things away to the police?’
“You may imagine that this roused my interest still more.
“ ‘If you come to me confidentially I give nothing away to anybody.’
“ ‘Not even murder?’
“I tell you frankly I hesitated. I had never had such a question put to me before.
“ ‘It would depend on the circumstances,’ I said.
“He looked at me and thought for a moment.
“ ‘I’ll risk it,’ he said, and plunged into this yarn.
“ ‘I’m a Devorset man originally,’ said he, ‘but I’ve lived a lot abroad and had a pretty mixed career. I’m going to make no bones about anything, and I may tell you candidly that there was one particular part of my life that I want to forget and don’t want other people to know. It isn’t the part I’m going to tell you about, but it partly accounts for it.
“ ‘Eleven years ago an old uncle of mine died, and as he hadn’t left a will I came into his property in Devorset. It included an old manor-house of the smaller type and quite a nice bit of mixed covert shooting — rough but good sport, and it suited me down to the ground. I came home, settled down on the place, and hoped my troubles were at an end. Being a hilly, wooded part of the county I hadn’t many neighbours — in fact I couldn’t raise enough guns to shoot my coverts properly, but that was the only disadvantage. Things being as they had been, I didn’t like meeting too many people, for fear some one should turn up who knew what I didn’t want known.’
“ ‘Were you married, by the way?’ I asked.
“ ‘No, I’m not much of a ladies’ man and have never missed a wife. I was quite contented, in fact, till things began to go wrong, and I may tell you absolutely honestly, Mr. Carrington, that why they began to go wrong has always been a complete mystery to me. In fact, as you’ll see presently, the whole thing has been more like a nightmare than a bit of ordinary life.
“ ‘My nearest neighbour was a man Spencer, ‘Toddy’ Spencer they called him, a fellow with a handsome wife but no children, pots of money, and quite a big country house. He was a wealthy stockbroker and had bought the place himself, largely for the shooting. As he was always keen for an extra gun, and so was I, we struck up quite a friendship to begin with and I saw a good bit of them. The wife was a trifle too go-ahead for my own taste — though most men would probably have been keen about her; but Toddy Spencer himself seemed quite a nice fellow, in spite of being rather a sulky-looking chap and obviously with a devil of a temper. Like a lot of fellows of his type, he did himself a little too well, both in the eating and drinking line; though I never saw him actually the worse for liquor.
“ ‘At first, the Spencers used to come down to Devorsetshire only for part of the year, and then they settled down there for good; though Toddy himself always spent at least two or three days in the week in London on business.
“ ‘Well, after about two and a half years, during which we had been excellent neighbours, the first mystery began. For some unknown reason Spencer suddenly took a violent dislike to me. In fact, dislike is too mild a term. The man hated me.’
“ ‘How did he show it?’ I asked.
“ ‘Wouldn’t shoot with me, stopped me and my tenants from using a path through his grounds, blackguarded me behind my back, and insulted me to my face. This low-class swine of a stockbroker! A man without birth or breeding or any connection with the county before he bought the place!’
“It was quite evident that though Mr. Wickley didn’t look particularly aristocratic, he was a gentleman with very sensitive family pride. In fact, the mere recollection of Mr. Spencer’s behaviour was making him boil afresh.
“ ‘I won’t trouble you with all the details, for his final performance made the rest seem almost nothing. I gave him a bit of my own mind, I may mention, which finally put an end to all relations...’
“ ‘What did you say to him?’ I asked.
“ ‘What I thought,’ he answered briefly, and I guessed that what Mr. Wickley thought had probably made Mr. Spencer sit up pretty sharply. ‘Well, anyhow, things had gone like this for months, and we were past speaking terms, when one day I got a note from him. I can’t remember, the exact words, for I threw the thing straight into the fire, but this was the gist of it. He had discovered the black mark against me, and gave me the choice of exposure, or leaving the county and selling my place to him.’
“ ‘One moment,’ I interrupted, for I saw that my visitor wanted to hurry over this part. ‘I don’t want to press you to tell me anything you-prefer not to; but in order to understand this extraordinary ultimatum I must ask you one or two questions. Was this “black mark”... er... pretty serious?’
“He hesitated for an instant, and I saw how suspicious those eyes of his could look. Then he answered, and I saw how doggedly that jowl of his could set.
“ ‘It was nothing I could actually suffer for — by the law, I mean. I had suffered already. But it had an ugly name, and I don’t suppose many people would have been keen to speak to me again. You don’t need to know the name, do you?’