“There is only one thing certain, to my mind,” said Barton. “The seafaring man with whom Shields was drinking on the last night of his life, and the gentleman in the fur travelling-coat who sent the telegram in your name and took away Margaret from Miss Marlett’s, are in the same employment, or, by George, are probably the same person. Now, have you any kind of suspicion who they or he may be? or can you suggest any way of tracking him or them?”
“No,” said Maitland; “my mind is a perfect blank on the subject. I never heard of the sailor till the woman at the Hit or Miss mentioned him, the night the body was found. And I never heard of a friend of Shields’, a friend who was a gentleman, till I went down to the school.”
“Then all we can do at present is, not to set the police at work—they would only prevent the man from showing—but to find out whether anyone answering to the description is ‘wanted’ or is on their books, at Scotland Yard. Why are we not in Paris, where a man, whatever his social position might be, who was capable of that unusual form of crime, would certainly have his dossier? They order these things better in France.”
“There is just one thing about him, at least about the man who was drinking with poor Shields on the night of his death. He was almost certainly tattooed with some marks or other. Indeed, I remember Mrs. Gullick—that’s the landlady of the Hit or Miss—saying that Shields had been occupied in tattooing him. He did a good deal in that way for sailors.”
“By Jove,” said Barton, “if any fellow understands tattooing, and the class of jail-birds who practise it, I do. It is a clew after a fashion; but, after all, many of them that go down to the sea in ships are tattooed, even when they are decent fellows; and besides, we seldom, in our stage of society, get a view of a fellow-creature with nothing on but these early decorative designs.”
This was only too obvious, and rather damping to Maitland, who for a moment had been inclined to congratulate himself on his flair as a detective.
CHAPTER VIII.—The Jaffa Oranges.
“Letting I dare not wait upon I would.”
Of all fairy gifts, surely the most desirable in prospect, and the most embarrassing in practice, would be the magical telescope of Prince Ali, in the “Arabian Nights.” With his glass, it will be remembered, he could see whatever was happening on whatever part of the earth he chose, and, though absent, was always able to behold the face of his beloved. How often would one give Aladdin’s Lamp, and Fortunatus’ Purse, and the invisible Cap which was made of “a darkness that might be felt” to possess for one hour the Telescope of Fairyland!