Thus requested, I placed my hand at the end of the box, and together we emptied it out upon the flags.
The sight was awful. The face was so terribly decomposed that it was absolutely unrecognisable; but the detective’s keen eye noticed a gleam of gold amid the horrible mass of putrefaction, and, stooping, drew forth from the mass of decaying clothes a watch and chain. He rubbed the watch upon a piece of old rag lying on the rubbish heap, then held it close to the light. The back was elaborately engraved, and I saw there was a monogram.
“Initials,” exclaimed the detective calmly. “This watch has already been described. It is his watch, and the letters are ‘G.S.’—Gilbert Sternroyd.”
“Gilbert!” I gasped. “Can it really be Sternroyd?” I cried, my eyes fixed upon the black awful heap.
“No doubt whatever. The man is in evening dress. On his finger, there—can’t you see it glittering?—is the diamond ring that Spink’s supplied him with six weeks before his disappearance. This discovery at least proves the theory I have held all along, that he has been murdered.”
“By whom?”
“We have yet to discover that,” he rejoined. “Do you know what connection your friend Bethune had with this house?”
“None, as far as I am aware,” I replied.
“It is apparent though, that he was well acquainted with the lady to whom you were married here.”
I admitted the truth of these words, but he did not pursue the subject further.