If you like, you may meet me at Fenchurch Street Station, in the first-class waiting-room, in the late afternoon.

Since I surmise that after thirty years' absence my face may not be familiar to you, I may as well tell you that you will recognize me by a heavy Astrakhan fur coat, which I shall wear, together with a cap of the same.
You may then introduce yourself to me, and I will personally listen to what you may have to say.
'Yours faithfully, 'Francis Smethurst.' "It was this last letter which had caused William Kershaw's excitement and his wife's tears.

In the German's own words, he was walking up and down the room like a wild beast, gesticulating wildly, and muttering sundry exclamations.

Mrs.Kershaw, however, was full of apprehension.
She mistrusted the man from foreign parts--who, according to her husband's story, had already one crime upon his conscience--who might, she feared, risk another, in order to be rid of a dangerous enemy.
Woman-like, she thought the scheme a dishonourable one, for the law, she knew, is severe on the blackmailer.
"The assignation might be a cunning trap, in any case it was a curious one; why, she argued, did not Smethurst elect to see Kershaw at his hotel the following day?
A thousand whys and wherefores made her anxious, but the fat German had been won over by Kershaw's visions of untold gold, held tantalisingly before his eyes.

He had lent the necessary L2, with which his friend intended to tidy himself up a bit before he went to meet his friend the millionaire.