“This is fearful! Who could it be? One of the servants? Surely not Vickers—not Hamley.”
“You must have patience, madam; you will know all in a few minutes.”
Nance again grasped the back of the chair and stood firm.
“You remember,” continued Crossley, looking fixedly at her as he spoke, “the evidence which I had in hand from the beginning. There was found near the body of the murdered man a torn piece of paper, which contained some writing in cipher; at the bottom of the cipher was a hieroglyphic of peculiar shape and size. On the night of the murder, a friend of the murdered man saw a man escaping from the café—a tall, dark, fine-looking man, with a peculiar mark on his upper lip. That man was searched for by the police, but he was not heard of again. On that evidence I had to work up my case. The most important part of the evidence was contained in the torn paper which held the cipher.
“After long toil and weeks of labour I became acquainted with the key of the cipher, and was able to read what was written on the torn bit of paper. It was incriminating to the last degree, showing that the murder was premeditated, for it was an appointment to meet your brother at the café where he lost his life. From that day to now my object, madam, has been to find the man who used that cipher and that hieroglyphic. I obtained a certain clue which made me think it probable that I should find him in your house. Yes, Mrs. Rowton, in your house.
“I sent Jacob there for the purpose of rendering my suspicions certainties. He worked well, his object being to find the cipher and hieroglyphic, which had already been used on the piece of paper found close to the murdered man in the possession of the suspected party. For this purpose he made friends with a woman who kept a small post-office in the village near your home. He also left not a stone unturned to make investigations at the Heights itself. Yesterday morning, madam, a man living on your premises wrote a letter to town in the same cipher and signed it with the same hieroglyphic which was used when your brother was murdered more than six years ago.
“This is terrible! it excites me beyond measure. Go on; tell me the rest quickly.”
“Jacob Short sent me full particulars,” continued Crossley, “and acting on them I went to see a woman last night whose husband belongs to a celebrated gang or school of burglars, known to us police as the Silver School. The man has not long ago been arrested on a charge of uttering a forged cheque. I thought it possible that the wife might know something about the man who wrote the cipher and who lived at Rowton Heights. I went to her last night and taxed her with her knowledge, believing, as I will explain, that her husband and this man belonged to the same School. Under pressure, she told me what she knew. She described the man who used that cipher and who signed his name with that special hieroglyphic. She described him as I expected her to describe him, but she could not tell me his name, for that had always been hidden from her. I had a photograph in my possession, however, which I showed her, and she identified the photograph with the man. There is no doubt that this man and the woman’s husband had been employed in the same nefarious work.”
“You absolutely bewilder me,” said Nance. “Then this ruffian has not only taken human life, but he is also a burglar. And you tell me calmly to my face that this fiend has lived in the house with my husband and myself. Have you arrested him, Mr. Crossley?”
Nancy Rowton’s eyes became full of fire—a passion of absolute revenge gave to her face a totally foreign appearance.