“My dear Halfpenny!” he exclaimed. “Why, you’ve just given us the very best proof of what I’ve been saying! You’re not looking deeply enough into things. The very fact to which you bear testimony proves to me that a certain theory which is assuming shape in my mind may possibly have a great deal in it. That theory, briefly, is this—on the day of his death, Jacob Herapath may have had upon his person a large amount of money in bank-notes. He may have had them paid to him. He may have drawn them from his bank, to pay to somebody else. Some evil person may have been aware of his possession of those notes and have tracked him to the estate offices, or gained entrance, or—mark this!—have been lurking—lurking!—there, in order to rob him. Don’t forget two points, my friend—one, that Barthorpe (if he’s speaking the truth, and I, personally, believe he is) tells us that the doors of the offices and the private room were open when he called at twelve o’clock; and, too, that, according to Mountain, the coachman, Jacob Herapath had been in those offices since twenty-five minutes to twelve—plenty of time for murder and robbery to take place. I repeat—Jacob may have had a considerable sum of money on him that night, some one may have known it, and the motive of his murder may have been—probably was—sheer robbery. And we ought to go on that, if we want to save the family honour.”
Mr. Tertius nodded and murmured assent, and Mr. Halfpenny stirred uneasily in his chair.
“Family honour!” he said. “Yes, yes, that’s right, of course. It would be a dreadful thing to see a nephew hanged for the murder of his uncle—quite right!”
“A much more dreadful thing to stand by and see an innocent man hanged, without moving heaven and earth to clear him,” commented the Professor. “Come now, I helped to establish the fact that Barthorpe visited Portman Square that night—Tertius there helped too, by his quickness in seeing that the half-eaten sandwich had been bitten into by a man who had lost two front teeth, which, of course, was Barthorpe’s case—so the least we can do is to bestir ourselves now that we believe him to have told the truth in that statement.”
“But how exactly are we to bestir ourselves?” asked Mr. Halfpenny.
“I suggest a visit to Jacob Herapath’s bankers, first of all,” answered the Professor. “I haven’t heard that any particular inquiry has been made. Did you make any, Halfpenny?”
“Jacob’s bankers are Bittleston, Stocks and Bittleston,” replied the old lawyer. “I did make it in my way to drop in there and to see Mr. Playbourne, the manager of their West End branch, in Piccadilly. He assured me that there was nothing whatever out of the common in Jacob Herapath’s transactions with them just before his death, and nothing at all in their particulars of his banking account which could throw any possible light on his murder.”
“In his opinion,” said the Professor, caustically, “in his opinion, Halfpenny! But—you don’t know what our opinion might be. Now, I suggest that we all go at once to see this Mr. Playbourne; there’s ample time before the bank closes for the day.”
“Very well,” assented Mr. Halfpenny. “All the same, I’m afraid Playbourne will only say just what he said before.”
Mr. Playbourne, a good typical specimen of the somewhat old-fashioned bank manager, receiving this formidable deputation of four gentlemen in his private room, said precisely what he had said before, and seemed astonished to think that any light upon such an unpleasant thing as a murder could possibly be derived from so highly respectable a quarter as that in which he moved during the greater part of the day.