"Well," said the landlord, "I noticed that his hands and fingers were stained—all sorts of colours. Sometimes it was more noticeable than at others. But there it was."
"Um!" remarked Matherfield. He exchanged a knowing glance with Hetherwick. And when, a few minutes later, they left the tavern, he turned to him with an air of assurance. "I'm beginning to feel the end!" he said. "Feel it, if I don't see it. Stained fingers, eh? We've heard of them before, Mr. Hetherwick. And I'll tell ye what it is. Somewhere about this very spot there's some place where men are dabbling—secretly, I should think—with chemicals, and Ambrose is one of 'em, and perhaps Baseverie another, and it was there that Hannaford and that man Grannet had been that night, and where they were poisoned—and there, too, no doubt, these two ladies are at this minute! Well—come to my place first thing in the morning."
Hetherwick, at a loss what to do further that night, went away and dined, and, that done, strolled home to his chambers. There was a light in his parlour, and when he opened the door he found Mapperley, evidently awaiting him, and with Mapperley a curly-headed, big-nosed, beady-eyed young Jew.
CHAPTER XXI
THE ORDER IN WRITING
Hetherwick realised at once that Mapperley had news, and was waiting there to communicate it. But he looked not so much at Mapperley as at Mapperley's companion. Mapperley, as Hetherwick had remarked to more than one person in the course of those proceedings, concealed his sharpness under an unusually commonplace exterior; he looked, as a rule, like a young man whose ideas rarely soared above a low level. But the Jew was of a different aspect—Hetherwick was not quite sure whether he was rat or ferret. There was subtlety and craft written all over him, from his bright beady eyes to his long, thin, dirty fingers, and before Mapperley spoke his employer felt sure that in this son of Israel the clerk had found a valuable associate.
"Hullo, Mapperley!" exclaimed Hetherwick. "Waiting for me? You've some news, I suppose?"
Mapperley, grave and formal, pointed a finger at the Jew.
"Mr. Isidore Goldmark, sir," he said. "Friend of mine. I got him to give me a bit of assistance in this Baseverie and Vivian affair. The fact is, sir, he knows Vivian's—don't you, Issy?"