"Why, it is perfectly obvious. You see which way the dog is going—to the left. Very well. Now, Baynes, to whom does the dog belong?"
"To the detective!"
The laughter against Wilson that followed this announcement was simply boisterous, and so prolonged that Russell, who had at the time possession of the photo, seized the opportunity for making a most minute examination of it. In a few moments he held up his hands to invoke silence.
"Baynes is right," he said. "There is important evidence there which settles the matter with certainty. Assuming that the gentleman is really Lord Marksford—and the figure, so far as it is visible, is his—I have no hesitation myself in saying that—"
"Stop!" all the members shouted at once.
"Don't break the rules of the club, Russell, though Wilson did," said Melville. "Recollect that 'no member shall openly disclose his solution to a puzzle unless all present consent.'"
"You need not have been alarmed," explained Russell. "I was simply going to say that I have no hesitation in declaring that Lord Marksford is walking in one particular direction. In which direction I will tell you when you have all 'given it up.'"
[63].—The Cornish Cliff Mystery.
Though the incident known in the Club as "The Cornish Cliff Mystery" has never been published, every one remembers the case with which it was connected—an embezzlement at Todd's Bank in Cornhill a few years ago. Lamson and Marsh, two of the firm's clerks, suddenly disappeared; and it was found that they had absconded with a very large sum of money. There was an exciting hunt for them by the police, who were so prompt in their action that it was impossible for the thieves to get out of the country. They were traced as far as Truro, and were known to be in hiding in Cornwall.