"If one could only discover by what motive Mr. Melray was influenced, or what particular object he had in view, in coming back to his office after having set out for the house of Mr. Arbour, we should, I think, lay our hands on a very important clue. I suppose there was nothing found among Mr. Melray's papers bearing on that feature of the affair?"
"So far as I am aware, nothing. Mr. Cray had the going through of my son's papers, and had there been anything of the kind among them he would surely not have overlooked it. Not only was he closely questioned at the inquest, which was twice adjourned, but, later on, he had more than one private interview with the officer from Scotland Yard who had the case specially in hand. No man, however, could have been more entirely bewildered and nonplussed than he was. Again and again he declared that, as far as his knowledge went, his master had not an enemy in the world--no, not a single enemy, but a thousand friends!"
"I presume," said Fanny, "there was nothing found on Mr. Melray's person after death--no letter, or memorandum of any kind--which would serve to throw even a glimmer of light on the events of the 18th of September?"
"Mine were the hands that emptied my son's pockets of their contents after death," said the mother with a thin quaver in her voice. "Of course she--his wife, I mean--was supposed to be too much overcome to think of anything. I knew that James was in the habit of carrying a pocket-book, and it seemed to me that there might perhaps be entries in it which it would be as well that no strange eyes should read. Accordingly I took possession of it, and it has never been out of my keeping since that time."
"Pardon my inquisitiveness, but may I ask whether you have made yourself acquainted with the contents of the pocket-book?"
"I went carefully through it within a few hours of my son's death."
"And there was nothing in it that would serve----?"
"Nothing whatever. Nearly the whole of the entries in it have reference to his personal or domestic expenditure, for James was methodical in all his ways, and as careful to balance his private expenses as he was his business accounts. Since that day I have never opened the book, but have kept it locked up in my writing-table. Of course I was very much upset and put about just then, and it may be as well that you, with your younger and more trained eyes, should look over it, for, now that the point has been raised, it will certainly be more satisfactory to me to be assured that it contains nothing of moment which I may inadvertently have overlooked."
She rose, crossed to her writing-table, unlocked a drawer and produced therefrom her dead son's pocket-book, which she at once placed in Fanny's hands.
"Look carefully through it, my dear," she said. "There is nothing in it that you may not read."