"Come and have a cigarette," the lawyer said. "It is a quarter of an hour's interval, and I should like to have a word with you."
Deane excused himself to his companions, and joined his friend in the foyer. "Well?" he asked tersely.
Hardaway toyed with a cigarette case, and glanced quietly around. He was tall and thin, clean-shaven, with hard, pronounced features and sunken eyes, gray hair parted in the middle, and a single eyeglass suspended around his neck by a narrow black ribbon. He looked exactly what he was—a criminal lawyer.
"I wanted to have a word with you, Deane," he said, "about this Rowan case."
Deane nodded. "Is there anything fresh?" he asked.
"Nothing particular," the lawyer answered. "Come upstairs for a moment."
They found a corner of the refreshment room where no one else was within hearing. Deane lit his cigarette with perfectly steady fingers. There was nothing in his face to indicate the fierce anxiety which was consuming him.
"With reference to that case," his companion commenced, "the facts were all so simple that there was no need for the prosecution to consider any other motive than the obvious one of attempted robbery. Therefore, no very searching investigation has been made into the dead man's papers. Yesterday afternoon, it occurred to me to look them through once more, in case anything had been overlooked. I came across a clumsy sort of document purporting to be the deeds of a gold-mine. I should not have taken any particular notice of it but for the title of the mine."
"Well?"
"It was the Little Anna Gold-Mine," Hardaway continued. "These deeds stated that Sinclair himself was the sole owner."