"'I don't know,' the girl replied. 'I never saw him before.'
"'Didn't you ask his name?'
"'I did. But he said it didn't matter—he would call again to-morrow.'
"After that the two women sat for a little while longer, Mrs. Tufnell sewing, and Ann still rather restlessly turning over the pages of a magazine. At ten o'clock they went to bed. And that was the end of the day as far as the household of Mr. Jessup was concerned.
"You may well imagine that all the amateur detectives who were present at the inquest had made up their minds by now that Arthur Leighton had murdered Mr. Seton Jessup, and robbed the till both before and after the crime. It was a simple deduction easily arrived at and presenting the usual features. A flirty minx, an enamoured young man, extravagance, greed, opportunity, and supreme temptation. Amongst the public there were many who did not even think it worth while to hear further witnesses. To their minds the hangman's rope was already round young Leighton's neck. Of course, I admit that at this point it seemed a very clear case. It was only after this that complications arose and soon the investigations bristled with difficulties.
§4
"After a good deal of tedious and irrelevant evidence had been gone through the inquest was adjourned, and the public left the court on the tiptoe of expectation as to what the morrow would bring. Nor was any one disappointed, for on the morrow the mystery deepened, even though there was plenty of sensational evidence for newspaper reporters to feed on.
"The police, it seems, had brought forward a very valuable witness in the person of the point policeman, who was on duty from eight o'clock onwards on the evening of the sixteenth at the corner of Clerkenwell Road and Fulton Gardens. No. 13 is only a few yards up the street. The man had stated, it seems, that soon after half-past eight he had seen a man come along Fulton Gardens from the direction of Holborn, go up to the front door of No. 13 and ring the bell. He was admitted after a minute or two, and he stayed in the house about half an hour. It was a dark night, and there was a slight drizzle; the witness could not swear to the man's identity. He was slight and of middle height, and walked like a young man. When he arrived he wore a bowler hat and no overcoat, but when he came out again he had an overcoat on and a soft grey hat, and carried the bowler in his hand. Witness noticed as he walked away up Fulton Gardens towards Finsbury this time he took off the soft hat, slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat, and put on the bowler. About ten minutes later, not more, another visitor called at No. 13. He also was slight and tallish, and he wore an overcoat and a bowler hat. He turned into Fulton Gardens from Clerkenwell Road, but on the opposite corner to the one where witness was standing. He rang the bell and was admitted, and stayed about twenty minutes. He walked away in the direction of Holborn. Witness would not undertake to identify either of these two visitors; he had not been close enough to them to see their faces, and there was a good deal of fog that night as well as the drizzle. There was nothing suspicious looking about either of the men. They had walked quite openly up to the front door, rung the bell, and been admitted. The only thing that had struck the constable as queer was the way the first visitor had changed hats when he walked away.
"Witness swore positively that no one else had gone in or out of No. 13 that night except those two visitors. How important this evidence was you will understand presently.
"After this young Tufnell was called. He was a shy-looking fellow, with a nervous manner altogether out of keeping with his dark expressive eyes—eyes which he had obviously inherited from his mother and which gave him a foreign as well as a romantic appearance. He was said to be musical and to be a talented amateur actor. Every one agreed, it seems, that he had always been a very good son to his mother until his love for Ann Weber had absorbed all his thoughts and most of his screw. He explained that he was junior clerk to Mr. Jessup, and as far as he knew had always given satisfaction. On the sixteenth he had also noticed that the guv'nor was not quite himself. He appeared unusually curt and irritable with everybody. Witness had not been in the house all the evening. When his mother told him that neither she nor Ann could go to the cinema with him he went off by himself, and after the show he went straight back to his digs near the Alexandra Palace. He only heard of the tragedy when he arrived at the office as usual on the morning of the seventeenth. His evidence would have seemed uninteresting and unimportant but for the fact that while he gave it he glanced now and again in the direction where Ann Weber sat beside her aunt. It seemed as if he were all the time mutely asking for her approval of what he was saying, and presently when the coroner asked him whether he knew the cause of his employer's irritability, he very obviously looked at Ann before he finally said: 'No, sir, I don't!'