"This!" answered the detective, with something of triumph in his tone. "I've been making some enquiries already this morning, early as it is. When Parslett was picked up and carried to the hospital—this St. Mary's Hospital, close by here—he was found to have fifty pounds in gold in his pocket. Now, according to Parslett's widow, whom I've seen this morning, Parslett was considerably hard up yesterday. Trade hasn't been very good with him of late, and she naturally knows his circumstances. He went out of the house last night about nine o'clock, saying he was going to have a stroll round, and the widow says she's certain he'd no fifty pounds on him when he left her—it would be a wonder, she says, if he'd as much as fifty shillings! Now then, Mr. Purdie, where did a man like that pick up fifty sovereigns between the time he went out, and the time he was picked up, dying?"
"He might have borrowed it from some friend," suggested Purdie.
"I thought of that, sir," said Ayscough. "It seems the natural thing to think of. But Mrs. Parslett says they haven't a friend from whom he could have borrowed such an amount—not one! No, sir!—my belief is that Parslett saw some man enter and leave Multenius's shop; that he knew the man; that he went and plumped him with the affair, and that the man gave him that gold to get rid of him at the moment—and contrived to poison him, too!"
Purdie considered the proposition for awhile in silence.
"Well," he remarked at last, "if that's so, it seems to establish two facts—first, that the murderer is some man who lives in this neighbourhood, and second, that he's an expert in poisons."
"Right, sir!" agreed Ayscough. "Quite right. And it would, of course, establish another—the innocence of your friend, Lauriston."
Purdie smiled.
"I never had any doubt of that," he said.
"Between ourselves, neither had I," remarked Ayscough heartily. "I told our people that I, personally, was convinced of the young fellow's complete innocence from the very first—and it was I who found him in the shop. It's a most unfortunate thing that he was there, and a sad coincidence that those rings of his were much of a muchness with the rings in the tray in the old man's parlour—but I've never doubted him. No, sir!—I believe all this business goes a lot deeper than that! It's no common affair—old Daniel Multenius was attacked by somebody—somebody!—for some special reason—and it's going to take a lot of getting at. And I'm convinced this Parslett affair is a development—Parslett's been poisoned because he knew too much."
"You say you don't know what particular poison was used?" asked Purdie. "It would be something of a clue to know that. Because, if it turned out to be one of a very subtle nature, that would prove that whoever administered it had made a special study of poisons."