Hannasyde looked at him frowningly. “Hyde's papers,” he said abruptly. “Somebody wants to get hold of them.”
“Well, we shouldn't mind having a squint at them ourselves,” agreed the Sergeant. “But if young Matthews got the name of Hyde's lawyer out of Brown he's cleverer than I am, that's all I can say. Unless he knew all along, which somehow I don't think.”
“Not a lawyer,” Hannasyde said. “Matthews couldn't get papers out of a lawyer on the strength of that notice. And if the papers aren't—Good God, why didn't I think of it? A safe-deposit, Sergeant! Get me the names of all the big safe-deposits in London: there aren't many of them. We've got to stop anyone getting hold of those papers—if we're in time.”
But they were not in time. The first safe-depository Hannasyde rang up stated that Mr John Hyde's papers had been removed an hour ago by his brother, Mr Samuel Hyde, who had signed a receipt for them. Hannasyde, suppressing a desire to swear, made the rest of his way to the City, and presented himself in person at the Safe-Depository. The receipt for the contents of John Hyde's safe was signed in a sloping, copybook handwriting. Mr Samuel Hyde, said the official who had attended to him, had produced the notice of Mr Hyde's sudden death, together with a copy of his will, wherein his own name appeared as sole executor. Mr Samuel Hyde was in possession of Mr John Hyde's keys: everything had seemed to be perfectly in order.
“What did he look like?” Hannasyde asked. “Was he a young man, smartly dressed?”
“Oh no, not at all,” replied the official. “Really, I didn't study him very closely, but he had grey hair, I'm sure. What I should call a very sallow complexion, as though he'd been in the East. I don't remember him being smartly dressed. He wore an overcoat—quite an old looking overcoat. In fact, he was very like his brother, very.”
“If he was the man I suspect,” said Hannasyde, “there is one thing about him you could not fail to have noticed. Had he very vivid blue eyes, and extremely long eyelashes?”
“Well, I'm afraid I couldn't say,” was the apologetic answer. “He was wearing smoked spectacles, you see.”
“My lord!” exclaimed the Sergeant involuntarily. A few minutes later, when they had left the building, he said: “It's the man himself, Chief. Somehow or other Brown managed to tip him off. And if you want to know what I think, when we've laid our hands on Mr Vanishing Hyde we'll have got Gregory Matthews' murderer. You think it over: first, there's —”
“Thanks, I am thinking it over,” said Hannasyde. “I can see that Hyde's the likeliest person to have inserted the notice of his own death—if he wanted to disappear. I can see that there would have been nothing easier for him to have done than to have made a Will appointing a fictitious person as his executor. But what I do not see is why it should have been necessary to darken his face, and pretend to be someone else merely to get his own papers out of his own safe. If you've got an answer to that, let me have it!”