The elder of the two youths grunted and leaning back lit a cigarette. He watched Edward, at first carelessly, but as he saw the man take out a penknife and cut from the paper a paragraph, he grew more interested. In a few moments Edward gulped down his beer, and, without a word, made his way outside.
"Bertie," it was the elder artist who was speaking, "that chap saw something in the paper that upset him a little—is that the News you're reading?"
"Yes—why?"
"Look at page five, will you, the third paragraph from the bottom on column two. Read it out loud if you don't mind."
The paper rustled as the other young man turned to the desired portion, then in a blasé voice read:—
"MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN PARIS.
"A gentleman who arrived at the Hôtel Meurice from London two days ago has met with a fate such as is becoming more and more frequent in the streets of Paris. A gendarme passing down the Rue des Batignolles last evening about ten o'clock, came upon the body of the unfortunate man huddled into an angle of a doorway. Assistance was forthcoming, but was too late to be of any service to the victim, who had suffered terrible injuries to the head, and to which he succumbed within an hour after his admission to the hospital. The outrage points undoubtedly to being the work of the dreaded Apaches. The deceased gentleman, who was about fifty years of age, had registered under the name of Sydney Kyser, but it has been impossible to trace among his belongings any clue to his home address. The French police, however, are in communication with Scotland Yard, and are in the mean time actively engaged in searching for the perpetrators of the outrage."
"Bet you that chap knew this Kyser, or whoever it is——" a yawn—"none of our business, what! See you in Peter's studio, there's a game of bridge on, I think. Ta-ta."
Meanwhile Edward Povey was walking up Clay Hill in a ferment of thought. It seemed ten years rather than one week since he had been on his stool in the dingy Eastcheap counting-house. He had hoped for a little excitement to enter into his life, and he was getting excitement to the full. He had not looked upon the borrowing of Adderbury Cottage as a crime; the advent of Uncle Jasper and Aunt Eliza was nothing more than a farce—but now tragedy was playing a hand in the game in the shape of a Parisian murder.
He stopped suddenly as a thought struck him. It could not be long before Mr. Kyser's business friends heard of his death, when visits would be paid to his houses, to Grosvenor Square and to Adderbury Cottage. It was easy enough quietly to leave the place himself and to take Charlotte; with Uncle and Aunt it was different. Various schemes entered into his head for effecting their departure, schemes that made poor Edward think that given opportunities he would have made a first-class criminal.