“What time did you say my train left Victoria?” he inquired.
“Plenty of time yet to make your guess and listen to further details,” scoffed Furneaux.
“Frankly, I give it up. But, if I must share in the hunt, I tell you now that, metaphorically speaking, I shall cling to the postmaster’s daughter till torn away by sheer force of evidence.”
Furneaux dug his colleague in the ribs.
“That’s the effect of constant association with me, James,” he cackled gleefully. “Ten years ago you would have pounced on Elkin. You’ve hit it! I’m a prood mon the day. The pupil is equaling the master.”
“You little rat, I had hanged my first murderer before you knew the meaning of habeas corpus! Let’s turn now, and get to business.”
Few Treasury barristers, leading for the Crown, could have marshaled the facts with such lucidity and fairness as Furneaux during that saunter to Victoria Station.
“Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice,” said Othello to Lodovico, and these Scotland Yard men, charged with so great a responsibility, never forgot the great-hearted Moor’s advice.
When Winter took his seat in the train at five o’clock he could have drawn a plan of Steynholme, which he had never seen, and marked thereon the exact position of each house mentioned in this record. Moreover, he was acquainted with the chief characters by sight, as it were. And, finally, he and Furneaux had arranged a plan of campaign.
Furneaux refreshed a jaded intellect by an evening at the opera. Next morning, at eleven o’clock, he was inquiring for Mr. Ingerman at an office in a certain alley off Cornhill.