"Ah! You would not have done so had you but known the terrible evil which must now threaten you," he said in a low, hoarse voice, his manner changing to one of great alarm. He seemed agitated and nervous.

"I don't quite follow you," I said, much puzzled at his manner.

"You are, of course, in ignorance, Mr Kemball. But by the acceptance of that executorship--by the holding in your possession of that cylinder you are a doomed man."

"Doomed? How?" I asked, with an incredulous smile.

"I tell you this quite openly and frankly, because you have already proved yourself my friend," he said, his face now entirely transformed. We were standing together at the edge of the square croquet lawn, once the bowling-green, where the great old box-trees were clipped into fantastic shapes, while at the end was the long stone terrace with the open park beyond.

"I think you told me that he made you a present in banknotes?" Shaw went on. "Ah! Melvill Arnold knew only too well what dire unhappiness and misfortune, what deadly peril, possession of that cylinder must entail. He therefore made you that payment by way of a little recompense. Did he instruct you what to do with the thing," he inquired.

"On a certain day I am to hand it over to a person who will come to me and ask for it."

"To hand it over without question?"

"Yes, without question."

Shaw was silent for some moments. His brows were knit, and he was thinking deeply, his arms folded as he stood.

"Well," he exclaimed suddenly, at last, "I never dreamed that he had entrusted the cylinder to you. You, of course, still hold it in your possession?"

"Yes."

"Then, if I were you, I should be very anxious for the arrival of the appointed day when you are to be relieved of its heavy responsibility. The history of that metal tube is a record of ruin, disaster, and death, for misfortune in one form or another always overtakes its possessor. Its story is surely the weirdest and most terrible that could be related. I knew that Arnold was in Egypt, but I never dreamed that he would dare at last to take 

 Prev. P 41/188 next