"Then he lived in Egypt?" 

"Mostly in the deserts. His knowledge of Egyptology was, perhaps, unequalled. The last letter I received from him was from El Fasher, in Darfur." 

"Arnold was not his real name?" 

"Not exactly his baptismal one," laughed Dawnay, lightly. "It would hardly have suited him to use that!" 

"What was it? Is there any reason why I should not know?" 

"Yes. I am scarcely likely to betray my dead friend, Mr Kemball." 

I was silent beneath his stern rebuke. At one moment I felt repulsion when I gazed upon his pimply face, yet at the next I experienced a curious sense of fascination. The mystery of it all had become most tantalising. Thought of the bronze cylinder and what it might contain flashed across my mind, whereupon I asked whether Arnold had had any permanent address in London. 

"No. I usually wrote to him to the Poste Restante at Charing Cross. He was an elusive man always, and when in London--which was on very rare occasions--seemed to change his abode each day. He boasted that he never slept two nights running in the same bed. He had reasons for that--the same reasons, truth to tell, that I had." 

"He feared the police--eh?" 

Dawnay's fat face relaxed again into a grim smile. "But now that Arnold is dead I have to secure my own safety," he exclaimed quickly. "I'm in an infernal trap here in this train. I may be arrested when I step out of it--who knows?" 

"And would arrest entail serious consequences?" I asked slowly, my eyes fixed upon his. 

"Yes, very serious consequences. For myself I don't care very much, but for another--a woman--it would, alas! be fatal," he added hoarsely. 

A woman! Did he refer to that remarkable adventuress, details of whose strange career I had read in that old copy of the newspaper? 

I remembered that Arnold, in his letter to me, had appealed to me to assist this man--who was evidently his very intimate friend. 

"You must evade this person who is watching," I said. "How can it be done?" 

He shrugged his shoulders 

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