"Oh, yes," she answered. "Mr. Maxwell is a very pleasant gentleman, and often asked me if I knew what made Mr. Fletcher so low-spirited, but of course I couldn't tell him."
Maxwell had evidently acted with great caution.
A few hours afterwards I got out at the Liverpool station. My business in that city did not take me long, but it led to something of the greatest importance.
In Fordham's written story of his life which he had sent to Miss Cameron he says he is uncertain whether the man who attacked him rushed out of a courtway or a house. There is no court near the house in which the struggle took place, therefore that point is settled. The house is still uninhabited, and I had no difficulty in obtaining admission. Mentally following the course of the fatal struggle between John and Louis Fordham from the street door to the room on the first floor in which Louis' body was found, I was struck by the peculiar formation of the staircase. There were two sharp turns in it, one of them being nearly an acute angle. That two men striking blindly at each other, and fighting for life or death in dense darkness, should have ascended this staircase, seemed to me exceedingly improbable, and the doubt presented itself whether John Fordham's account of the conflict was to be depended upon. When a man's sober senses are at fault, he is apt to be misled by his imagination. Was it so in this instance?
I examined the oak table in the room. It is of unusual size, six feet square, exceedingly heavy, and set on four massive legs. All the pressure I could bring to bear upon it was ineffective in tilting it, and I came to the positive conclusion that it could only have been overturned by a powerful effort from beneath. This proved that neither John nor Louis was responsible for the position in which the table was found by the police. I was convinced that a third person was implicated in the tragic affair; but though it was inevitable that my suspicions should point to Maxwell, I did not pledge myself to it. There might have been a fourth.
My interview with the agent who had let the house to a "Mr. Mollison" for a month upon trial opened up the field of conjecture, and was the means of leading to a direct clue—in fact, to two. He had seen Mr. Mollison on one occasion only, and he gave me such a confused and bungling description of that person that I felt it would be foolish to place any dependence upon it. In relation to this description I put but one question to him.
"Did you observe a scar upon Mr. Mollison's forehead?"
"No," he answered, after a little hesitation: "I do not think there was any scar."
We then spoke of the London reference which Mr. Mollison had given him, and he produced the letter he had received in reply to his own. It was signed "R. Lambert," and addressed, 214 Adelaide Road, N. W. From subsequent inquiries I learned that this house had been inhabited for only a few weeks during the last six or seven years, and then not by a person of the name of Lambert.
Now, I do not profess to be an expert in handwriting, but placing F. Lambert's letter by the side of Maxwell's, which I had taken from John Fordham's desk, a certain resemblance (by no means perfect) forced itself upon my attention. Accompanied by the agent, I went to the office of an expert, who partially confirmed my suspicion, but declined to pledge himself to it without a more minute examination. I left the letters with him, and directed him to forward them to London with his report. This was one of the clues I obtained during my brief stay in Liverpool. The more important one (which led to a startling result) was obtained in the following manner: