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Updated: June 14, 2025
Hilditch had had a great deal to drink, and there was a queer look on Sir Timothy's face that I didn't understand. I stepped into the little room which communicates with the library by folding doors. There was a chink already between the two. I got a knife from the pantry and widened it until I could see through. I heard very little of the conversation but there was no quarrel. Mr.
Early the next morning I was at 28 Stonecutter Street. Being apprehensive of a fine as well as imprisonment, I made hasty arrangements for removing the whole of the printing plant to some empty rooms in a private house. Mr. A. Hilditch was the friend on whom I relied in this emergency; and I am indebted to him for aid in many other difficulties arising from my prosecution. My foreman printer, Mr.
Andrew Wilmore, who had observed his action, spoke of it as they settled down to lunch. "So you are going to keep your engagement tonight, Francis?" he observed. The latter nodded. "After all, why not?" he asked, a little defiantly. "It ought to be interesting." "Well, there's nothing of the sordid criminal, at any rate, about Oliver Hilditch," Wilmore declared.
"Come and join our tour of exploration. You know Lady Cynthia. Let me present you to Mrs. Hilditch." The introduction was effected and they all, strolled on together.
"I won't keep you long, sir," the man replied. "The matter is rather a serious one." "Are you ill?" "Yes, sir!" "You had better sit down." The man relapsed gratefully into a chair. "I'll leave out everything that doesn't count, sir," he said. "I'll be as brief as I can. I want you to go back to the night I waited upon you at dinner the night Mr. Oliver Hilditch was found dead. You gave evidence.
Conversation had been from the first curiously desultory, edited, in a way, Francis felt, for his benefit. There was an atmosphere about his host and Lady Cynthia, shared in a negative way by Margaret Hilditch, which baffled Francis. It seemed to establish more than a lack of sympathy to suggest, even, a life lived upon a different plane.
"Yet it contains a secret which would most certainly have hanged me," Oliver Hilditch declared pleasantly. "See!" He held the shaft firmly in one hand and bent the blade away from it. In a moment or two it yielded and he commenced to unscrew it. A little exclamation escaped from Francis' lips. The woman looked on with tired eyes.
"To-morrow evening will suit me as well as any other," she acquiesced, after a brief pause. "At eight o'clock, then number 10 b, Hill Street," Hilditch concluded. Francis bowed and turned away with a murmured word of polite assent. Outside, he found Wilmore deep in the discussion of the merits of various old brandies with an interested maitre d'hotel. "Any choice, Francis?" his host enquired.
"Welcome," he said, "you, the most unique party, at least, amongst my guests. Prince, may I present you to my daughter, Mrs. Hilditch? Lady Cynthia Milton and Mr. Ledsam you know, I believe." "Your father has just been preparing me for this pleasure," the Prince remarked, with a smile.
Hilditch is entirely imaginary, that you did not see Sir Timothy in the house that night, that you went to bed at your usual time and slept until you were awakened, and that you only made this charge for the purpose of extorting money if you will sign a confession to that effect and give it me with these papers, I will pay you the two hundred pounds and I will never use the confession unless you repeat the charge."
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