Frayne carefully unclasped it, and taking it across to the light, opened it, expecting to find a photograph, or, perhaps, a miniature. But there was nothing. It had evidently not been opened for years, for behind the little glass, where once had been a photograph, was only a little grey powder. Something had been preserved there—some relic or other—that had, with age, crumbled into dust.
"This doesn't tell us much," he said. "Yet, men seldom wear such things. Some relic of his sweetheart, eh?" Then he searched once more, and drew from the dead man's hip-pocket a serviceable Browning revolver, the magazine of which was fully loaded.
"He evidently expected trouble, and was prepared for it," Treeton said, as the Norwich detective produced the weapon.
"Well, he certainly had no time to use it," responded Frayne. "Death must have been instantaneous."
"I think not," I ventured. "If so, why was he found several feet away from the seat?"
Again Frayne showed impatience. He disliked any expression of outside opinion.
"Well, Mr. Vidal, we've not yet established that it is a case of murder, have we?" he said. "The young man may have died suddenly—of natural causes."
I smiled.
"Curious," I exclaimed, a moment later, "that he should be made up to so exactly resemble his uncle! No, Inspector Frayne, if I'm not greatly mistaken, you'll find this a case of assassination—a murder by a very subtle and ingenious assassin. It is a case of one master-criminal against another. That is my opinion."
The man from Norwich smiled sarcastically. My opinion was only the opinion of a mere amateur, and, to the professional thief-catcher, the amateur detective is a person upon whom to play practical jokes. The amateur who dares to investigate a crime from a purely independent standpoint is a man to jeer and laugh at—a target for ridicule.