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I am staying at L , which I shall leave for Derval Court tomorrow evening. Come to me there the day after to-morrow, at any hour that may suit you the best. Adieu!" Here Sir Philip Derval rose and left the room. I made no effort to detain him.
Of the effect that you say Philip Derval produced on me I have no recollection. Of himself I have only this, that he was my foe, that he came to England intent on schemes to shorten my life or destroy its enjoyments. All my faculties tend to self-preservation; there, they converge as rays in a focus; in that focus they illume and they burn. I willed to destroy my intended destroyer.
And with this unsatisfactory note, not worn next to my heart, not covered with kisses, but thrust crumpled into my desk like a creditor's unwelcome bill, I flung myself on my horse and rode to Derval Court. I am naturally proud; my pride came now to my aid.
Fenwick," said he, knitting his brows, and fixing his eyes on me rudely, "did Sir Philip Derval in his conversation with you mention the steel casket which it seems he carried about with him?" I felt my countenance change slightly as I answered, "Yes." "Did he tell you what it contained?" "He said it contained secrets." "Secrets of what nature, medicinal or chemical?
He was a stranger to me and to L , a visitor to one of the dwellers on the Hill, who had asked leave to present him to its queen as a great traveller and an accomplished antiquary. Said this gentleman: "Sir Philip Derval? I know him. I met him in the East.
I asked Strahan if he had yet found the manuscript. He said, "No, he had not yet had the heart to inspect the papers left by the deceased. He would now do so. He should go in a day or two to Derval Court, and reside there till the murderer was discovered, as doubtless he soon must be through the vigilance of the police.
I went on, Derval's murder; the missing contents of the casket; the apparition seen by the maniac assassin guiding him to the horrid deed; the luminous haunting shadow; the positive charge in the murdered man's memoir connecting Margrave with Louis Grayle, and accusing him of the murder of Haroun; the night in the moonlit pavilion at Derval Court; the baneful influence on Lilian; the struggle between me and himself in the house by the seashore, the strange All that is told in this Strange Story.
The next day Haroun summoned Sir Philip Derval, and said to him, "Depart to Damascus. In that city the Pestilence has appeared. Go thither thou, to heal and to save. In this casket are stored the surest antidotes to the poison of the plague. Of that essence, undiluted and pure, which tempts to the undue prolongation of soul in the prison of flesh, this casket contains not a drop.
"He has left; he had business." And, as I spoke, again I looked hard on Margrave. His countenance now showed a change; not surprise, not dismay, but rather a play of the lip, a flash of the eye, that indicated complacency, even triumph. "So! Sir Philip Derval! He is in L ; he has been here to-night? So! as I expected." "Did you expect it?" said our host. "No one else did. Who could have told you?"
Breaking from such interrogations, to which I could give but abrupt and evasive answers, I seized my hat and took my departure. Letter from Allen Fenwick to Lilian Ashleigh. "I have promised to go to Derval Court to-day, and shall not return till to-morrow. I cannot bear the thought that so many hours should pass away with one feeling less kind than usual resting like a cloud upon you and me.
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