“I have no more notion than you have, Spargo,” replied Myerst. “I tell you one or other of them knows something that I don’t. Elphick, I gather, took fright from you, and went to Cardlestone—then they both vanished. It may be that Cardlestone did kill Maitland—I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what I know about the actual murder—for I do know a good deal about it, though, as I say, I don’t know who killed Maitland. Now, first, you know all that about Maitland’s having papers and valuables and gold on him? Very well—I’ve got all that. The whole lot is locked up—safely—and I’m willing to hand it over to you, Breton, when we go back to town, and the necessary proof is given—as it will be—that you’re Maitland’s son.”
Myerst paused to see the effect of this announcement, and laughed when he saw the blank astonishment which stole over his hearers’ faces.
“And still more,” he continued, “I’ve got all the contents of that leather box which Maitland deposited with me—that’s safely locked up, too, and at your disposal. I took possession of that the day after the murder. Then, for purposes of my own, I went to Scotland Yard, as Spargo there is aware. You see, I was playing a game—and it required some ingenuity.”
“A game!” exclaimed Breton. “Good heavens—what game?”
“I never knew until I had possession of all these things that Marbury was Maitland of Market Milcaster,” answered Myerst. “When I did know then I began to put things together and to pursue my own line, independent of everybody. I tell you I had all Maitland’s papers and possessions, by that time—except one thing. That packet of Australian stamps. And—I found out that those stamps were in the hands of—Cardlestone!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.
THE FINAL TELEGRAM
Myerst paused, to take a pull at his glass, and to look at the two amazed listeners with a smile of conscious triumph.
“In the hands of Cardlestone,” he repeated. “Now, what did I argue from that? Why, of course, that Maitland had been to Cardlestone’s rooms that night. Wasn’t he found lying dead at the foot of Cardlestone’s stairs? Aye—but who found him? Not the porter—not the police—not you, Master Spargo, with all your cleverness. The man who found Maitland lying dead there that night was—I!”
In the silence that followed, Spargo, who had been making notes of what Myerst said, suddenly dropped his pencil and thrusting his hands in his pockets sat bolt upright with a look which Breton, who was watching him seriously, could not make out. It was the look of a man whose ideas and conceptions are being rudely upset. And Myerst, too, saw it and he laughed, more sneeringly than ever.
“That’s one for you, Spargo!” he said. “That surprises you—that makes you think. Now what do you think?—if one may ask.”