He was followed by Inspector Curtis, who at once requested the magistrate to grant a remand until the next day.
The latter looked at him rather quizzically over his glasses.
"As I did not grant the warrant for the arrest," he observed in a dry voice, "it would perhaps be as well to state your grounds."
I don't think the Inspector was pleased, but he was too old a hand to betray any sign of annoyance. In quick, short sentences he began a brief statement of the case for the police, to which I need hardly say I listened with the most intense interest.
To start with, he informed the magistrate that the body of the man found murdered in Baxter's Rents had been identified beyond all question as that of Stuart Northcote. Secondly, there was ample evidence to show that I had spent some time with the deceased at the Milan Hotel two days before the murder. On the night of the crime, I had attended Lord Sangatte's dance in the character of Stuart Northcote, and his lordship would bear witness that I had left early in a state of some agitation. I had not arrived home in Park Lane until the small hours of the morning, the clothes that I was wearing being subsequently found saturated with blood. The case still presented many mysterious features, but he maintained that this evidence was amply sufficient to justify a remand.
The magistrate heard him without interruption, and then turned to me.
"Do you wish to cross-examine the witness?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I shall be represented by counsel when I appear again," I replied. "I shall have to pay him, so he may as well do the work."
A smile flickered across the magistrate's face.
"In that case," he said, "I shall remand you until to-morrow. I presume the police are granting you the usual facilities for preparing your defence?"