Running thus from incident to incident he
increased his suspicions without being able to cull from the
circumstances anything amounting to evidence; but evidence he now
determined to acquire without saying a word to any one.
His plan was of a cruel kind: to set a trap into which the pair
would blindly walk if any secret understanding existed between them
of the nature he suspected.
XXX
Louis began his stratagem by calling at the tower one afternoon, as
if on the impulse of the moment.
After a friendly chat with Swithin, whom he found there (having
watched him enter), Louis invited the young man to dine the same
evening at the House, that he might have an opportunity of showing
him some interesting old scientific works in folio, which, according
to Louis's account, he had stumbled on in the library. Louis set no
great bait for St. Cleeve in this statement, for old science was not
old art which, having perfected itself, has died and left its secret
hidden in its remains. But Swithin was a responsive fellow, and
readily agreed to come; being, moreover, always glad of a chance of
meeting Viviette en famille. He hoped to tell her of a scheme that
had lately suggested itself to him as likely to benefit them both:
that he should go away for a while, and endeavour to raise
sufficient funds to visit the great observatories of Europe, with an
eye to a post in one of them.
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