"I wonder what all these sums can mean?" remarked the detective, as Treeton and I looked over his shoulder.
"Mr. Gregory was a business man," the local police officer said. "These are, no doubt, his things, not his nephew's."
"They seem to be measurements," I said, "not sums of money."
"Perhaps the old man himself will tell us what they are," Frayne remarked. Then again examining the wallet, he drew forth several slips of thin foreign notepaper, which were carefully folded, and had the appearance of having been carried there for a long time. Upon each was written a separate word, together with a number, in carefully-formed handwriting, thus—
"Lavelle 429; Kunzle 191; Geering 289; Souweine 17; Hodrickx 110."
The last one we opened contained the word, "Cromer 900," and I wondered whether they were code words.
"These are rather funny, Mr. Vidal," Frayne remarked, as he slowly replaced them in the wallet. "A little mysterious, eh?"
"No doubt, old Mr. Gregory will explain," I said. "The great puzzle to me is why the nephew should carry the uncle's belongings in his pockets. There was some deep motive in it, without a doubt."
Frayne returned to the body and made further search. There was nothing more in the other pockets save a handkerchief, some loose silver and a pocket-knife.
But, around the dead man's neck, suspended by a fine gold chain, and worn beneath his shirt, was a lady's tiny, round locket, not more than an inch in diameter, and engine-turned like a watch, a thin, neatly-made, old-fashioned little thing.