“Inspector Armadale’s the last authority on the subject,” he remarked. “He’s got the confession of the master mind in his pocket. I haven’t seen it yet. Suppose I give you my account of things, and the Inspector will check it for us where necessary? That seems a fair division of labour.”
“Very fair,” Una Rainhill put in. “Now, Joan, be quiet and let’s get on with the tale.”
“Before the curtain goes up,” Sir Clinton suggested, “you’d better read your programmes. First of all you find the name of Thomas Pailton, alias Cocoa Tom, alias, J. B. Foss, alias The Wizard of Woz: a retired conjurer, gaolbird, confidence-trick sharp, etc. As I read his psychology, he was rather a weak character and not over straight even in dealing with his equals. In the present play, he was acting under the orders of a gentleman of much tougher fibre.
“The next name on the programme is Thomas Marden. The police have no records of his early doings, but I suspect that Mr. Marden had cause to bless his luck in this respect, rather than his honesty. I’m sure he wasn’t a prentice hand. As to his character, I believe he was rather a violent person when roused, and he had a deplorable lack of control over a rather bad temper.
“The third name is . . . ?”
“Stephen Racks,” the Inspector supplied in answer to Sir Clinton’s glance of inquiry.
“Alias Joe Brackley,” Sir Clinton continued. “I think we’ll call him Brackley, since that was the name you knew him by, if you knew him at all. He was nominally Foss’s chauffeur. Actually, I think, he was the brain of the gang and did the planning for them.”
“That’s correct,” the Inspector interpolated.
“Mr. Brackley, I think, was the most deliberately unscrupulous of them all,” Sir Clinton continued. “A really dangerous person who would stick at nothing to get what he wanted or to cover his tracks.
“Then, last of all, there’s a Mr. Blank, whose name I do not know, but who at present is under arrest in America for forging the name of Mr. Kessock the millionaire. He was employed by Mr. Kessock in some capacity or other which gave him access to Mr. Kessock’s correspondence. I’ve no details on that point as yet.”