"It was Geoffrey Fleming. 'Good God!--Fleming!' I cried. 'Where did you come from? I never heard you. Anyhow, you're just in the nick of time. Lanyon's come to grief--lend me a hand with him.' I bent down, to take hold of one side of poor old Lanyon, meaning Fleming to take hold of the other. Before I had a chance of touching Lanyon, Fleming, catching me by the shoulder, whirled me round--I had had no idea the fellow was so strong, he gripped me like a vice. I was just going to ask what the dickens he meant by handling me like that, when, before I could say Jack Robinson, or even had time to get my mouth open, Fleming, darting his hand into my coat pocket, snatched my pocket-book clean out of it."
He stopped, apparently to gasp for breath. "And, pray, what were you doing while Mr. Fleming behaved in this exceedingly peculiar way--even for Mr. Fleming?" inquired Mr. Cathcart.
"Doing!" Mr. Jackson was indignant. "Don't I tell you I was doing nothing? There was no time to do anything--it all happened in a flash. I had just come from my bankers--there were a hundred and thirty pounds in that pocket-book. When I realised that the fellow had taken it, I made a grab at him. And"--again Mr. Jackson looked furtively about him, and once more the bandanna came into active play--"directly I did so, I don't know where he went to, but it seemed to me that he vanished into air--he was gone, like a flash of lightning. I told myself I was mad--stark mad! but when I felt for my pocketbook, and found that that was also gone, I ran yelling to the door."
CHAPTER IV
It was, as the old-time novelists used to phrase it, about three weeks after the events transpired which we have recorded in the previous chapter. Evening--after dinner. There was a goodly company assembled in the smoking room at the Climax Club. Conversation was general. They were talking of some of the curious circumstances which had attended the death of Colonel Lanyon. The medical evidence at the inquest had gone to shew that the Colonel had died of one of the numerous, and, indeed, almost innumerable, varieties of heart disease. The finding had been in accordance with the medical evidence. It seemed to be felt, by some of the speakers, that such a finding scarcely met the case.
"It's all very well," observed Mr. Cathcart, who seemed disposed to side with the coroner's jury, "for you fellows to talk, but in such a case, you must bring in some sort of verdict--and what other verdict could they bring? There was not a trace of any mark of violence to be found upon the man.
"It's my belief that he saw Fleming, and that Fleming frightened him to death."
It was Mr. Jackson who said this. Mr. Cathcart smiled a rather provoking smile.
"So far as I observed, you did not drop any hint of your belief when you were before the coroner."
"No, because I didn't want to be treated as a laughing-stock by a lot of idiots."