"What can be the mystery concerning your garden? A mystery that is a double one, because it brings your house, of all houses in London, into connection with the murder of the very man who, at the moment, was the actual owner of it? That is inexplicable!"
"It is," Penlyn said, "inexplicable to every one. But the Señor tells us that when we know what he knows, and when he has brought the murderer to bay, we shall see that it is no mystery at all."
CHAPTER XVII.
Although the Señor Guffanta had not, as yet, in answer to many questions put to him, been able to say positively that he was on the immediate track of the murderer of Walter Cundall, he still continued to inspire confidence in those by whom he was surrounded; and it had now come to be quite accepted amongst all whom he met at Occleve House that, although he was working darkly and mysteriously, he was in some way nearing the object he had in view. It may have been his intense self-confidence, the outward appearance of which he never allowed to fail, that impressed them thus, or the stern look with which he accompanied any words he ever uttered in connection with the assassin; or it may have been the manner he had of making inquiries of all descriptions of every one who had known anything of the dead man, that led them to believe in him; but that they did believe in him there was no doubt.
In the time he had at his disposal, after transacting any affairs he might have to manage for the merchant who had appointed him his agent in London, he was continually passing from one spot to another, sometimes spending hours at Mr. Cundall's house in Grosvenor Place, and sometimes a long period of time each day at Occleve House; but to no one did he ever say one word indicative of either success or failure. And, when he was alone in either of these places, his proceedings were of a nature that, had they been witnessed by any one, would have caused them to wonder what it was that he was seeking for. He would study attentively every picture that was a portrait, whether painting or engraving, and for photograph albums, of which there were a number in both houses, he seemed to have an untiring curiosity. He would look them over and over again, pausing occasionally a long time over some man's face that struck him, and then would turn the leaf and go on to another; and then, when he had, for the second or third time exhausted one album, he would take up another, and again go through that.
To Dobson, who was by the outside world regarded as the man who had the whole charge of the case, the Señor's actions, and his absolute refusal to confide in him, were almost maddening. To any question that he asked, he received nothing but the regular answer, "Patience, my good Dobson, patience," and with that he was obliged to be content. For himself, he had done nothing; he was no nearer having any idea now as to who the murderer was than he had been the morning after the deed had been committed, and as day after day went by, he began to doubt whether Guffanta was any nearer finding the man who was wanted than he was.
"But if he doesn't do something pretty quick," he said to one of the men who was supposed to be employed under him in investigating the case, "I shall put a spoke in his wheel."
"Why, what will you do, Mr. Dobson?" his underling asked.
"I shall just go up to the Home Office, and when they ask me, as they do regular, if I have got anything to report in connection with the Cundall case, I shall tell them that the Señor professes to know a good deal that he won't divulge, and ask them to have him up before them, and make him tell what he do know."
"And suppose he won't tell, Mr. Dobson? What then?"