"That's so, Mr. Penniket," answered Melky. "Mr. Purdie's one of us, so to speak—you can tell us anything you like, before him. We were going into details when you come—there's some strange business on, Mr. Penniket! And we want to get a bit clear about it before we tell the police what we know."
"You know something that they don't know?" asked Mr. Penniket.
"More than a bit!" replied Melky, laconically. "This here affair's revolving itself into a network, mister, out of which somebody's going to find it hard work to break through!"
The solicitor, who had been quietly inspecting Purdie, gave him a sly smile.
"Then before I tell you what I have just found out," he said, turning to Melky, "I think you had better tell me all you know, and what you have been discussing. Possibly, I may have something to tell which bears on our knowledge. Let us be clear!"
He listened carefully while Purdie, at Zillah's request, told him briefly what had been said before his arrival, and Purdie saw at once that none of the facts surprised him. He asked Mrs. Goldmark one or two questions about the man who was believed to have dropped one of his cuff-links in her restaurant; he asked Melky a question as to his discovery of the other; he made no comment on the answers which they gave him. Finally, he drew his chair nearer to the table at which they were sitting, and invited their attention with a glance.
"There is no doubt," he said, "that the circumstances centring round the death of my late client are remarkably mysterious! What we want to get at, put into a nut-shell, is just this—what happened in this parlour between half-past four and half-past five on Monday afternoon? We might even narrow that down to—what happened between ten minutes to five and ten minutes past five? Daniel Multenius was left alone—we know that. Some person undoubtedly came in here—perhaps more than one person came. Who was the person? Were there two persons? If there were two, did they come together—or singly, separately? All that will have to be solved before we find out who it was that assaulted my late client, and so injured him that he died under the shock. Now, Miss Wildrose, and Mr. Rubinstein, there's one fact which you may as well get into your minds at once. Your deceased relative had his secrets!"
Neither Zillah nor Purdie made any comment on this, and the solicitor, with a meaning look at Purdie, went on. "Not that Daniel Multenius revealed any of them to me!" he continued. "I have acted for him in legal matters for some years, but only in quite an ordinary way. He was a well-to-do man, Mr. Purdie—a rich man, in fact, and a considerable property owner—I did all his work of that sort. But as regards his secrets, I know nothing—except that since yesterday, I have discovered that he certainly had them. I have, as Miss Wildrose knows—and by her instructions—been making some enquiries at the bank where Mr. Multenius kept his account—the Empire and Universal, in Lombard Street—and I have made some curious unearthings in the course of them. Now then, between ourselves—Mr. Purdie being represented to me as in your entire confidence—I may as well tell you that Daniel Multenius most certainly had dealings of a business nature completely outside his business as jeweller and pawnbroker in this shop. That's positively certain. And what is also certain is that in some of those dealings he was, in some way or another, intimately associated with the man whose name has already come up a good deal since Monday—Mr. Spencer Levendale!"
"S'elp me!" muttered Melky. "I heard Levendale, with my own two ears, say that he didn't know the poor old fellow!"
"Very likely," said Mr. Penniket, drily. "It was not convenient to him—we will assume—to admit that he did, just then. But I have discovered—from the bankers—that precisely two years ago, Mr. Spencer Levendale paid to Daniel Multenius a sum of ten thousand pounds. That's a fact!"