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Wynn," he said with quiet emphasis, and forthwith I plunged into my story, refraining only from any allusion to Anne's connection with Cassavetti's murder. That, I was determined, I would never mention to any living soul; determined also to deny it pointblank if any one should suggest it to me. He listened with absorbed interest, and without any comment; only interposing a question now and then.
He picked up Cassavetti's key, flattened the bit of red stuff on the palm of his hand, and held it towards me, pointing at it as if to indicate that here was the clue that he dare not give in words. I looked at the thing with interest. A tawdry artificial flower, with five petals, and in a flash I understood that the hieroglyphic on the portrait represented the same thing, a red geranium.
He seemed quite disappointed, and with a queer flash of memory I recalled how the little chattering woman I forget her name had been just as disappointed when I didn't give details about Cassavetti's murder on that Sunday evening in Mary's garden. There are a lot of people in this world who have an insatiable appetite for horrors, when they can get them at second-hand.
"Are there any here who are against the election of Constantine" I could not catch the other name, which was a long Polish one, I think "to the place on the council, vacant since the murder of our comrade, Vladimir Selinski?" Selinski! Cassavetti! He little guessed as he spoke that the man who found Cassavetti's body was now within five paces of him!
He certainly was no burglar or sneak-thief, or he would have bolted when I opened the door. The key with which he had attempted to gain ingress to my flat was doubtless a pass-key to Cassavetti's rooms. He seemed a queer person to be in possession of such a thing, but that was Cassavetti's affair, and not mine. "Here, you'd better have your key," I called, jerking it out of my lock.
I thought of the red symbol that had dangled from the key of Cassavetti's flat that night, and of the signal and password Mishka had taught me in Petersburg. In two strides I caught up with him, touched his shoulder with the five rapid little taps, thumb and fingers in succession, and said in his ear: "You will come to Barzinsky's within the hour, 'For Freedom. You understand?"
"He's a jolly good sort, and it would have been all up with me in another few hours. Though how on earth he could fix on me as Cassavetti's murderer, I can't imagine. It's a fool business, anyhow." "H'm yes, I suppose so," drawled Southbourne, in that exasperatingly deliberate way of his. "But I think you must blame or thank me for that!" "You! What had you to do with it?" I ejaculated.
I guessed I'd scared him pretty badly, and as I looked down at him I thought for a moment he was dead. I went up the stairs, and rang Cassavetti's bell. There was no answer, and I tried the key. It fitted right enough, but the rooms were empty. What was to be done?
He was the old Jew who had come to my flat on the night of Cassavetti's murder! "It is less safe than the streets of London, perhaps," I said quietly, in Russian. "But what of that? And how long is it since you left there, my friend?" He peered at me suspiciously, and spread his free hand with the quaint, graceful gesture he had used before.
There's only one of them, a shop in the Haymarket, keeps that particular kind of hairpin, and they snubbed him; they weren't going to give away their clients' names. And there was nothing in the rooms to give him a clue. All Cassavetti's private papers had been carried off, as you know. Then there was the old Russian you told about at the inquest.
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