“Dear Lane,—Your terms seem exorbitant. I quite understand that at least four or five of you must be in the affair, but the price asked is ridiculous. Besides, I didn’t like Bennett’s tone when he spoke to me yesterday. He was almost threatening. What have you told him? Recollect that each of us knows something to the detriment of the other, and even in these days of so-called equality the man with money is always the best. You must contrive to shut Bennett’s mouth. Give him money, if he wants it—up to ten pounds. But, of course, do not say that it comes from me. You can, of course, pose as my friend, as you have done before. I shall be at the usual place to-night.—Z.”
“Looks as though there’s been some blackmailing,” one of the constables remarked. “Who’s Bennett?”
“I expect that’s Bobby Bennett who works in the Meat Market,” replied the atom of a man who had accosted us at Aldgate. “He was a friend of Lanky’s, and a bad ’un. I’ve ’eard say that ’e ’ad a record at the Old Bailey.”
“What for?”
“’Ousebreakin’.”
“Is he working now?” Ambler inquired.
“Yes. I saw ’im in Farrin’don Street yesterday.”
“Ah!” remarked the constable. “We shall probably want to have a chat with him. But the chief mystery is the identity of the writer of these letters. At all events it is evident that this poor man Lane knew something to his detriment, and was probably trying to make money out of that knowledge.”
“Not at all an unusual case,” I said.
Jevons grunted, and appeared to view the letters with considerable satisfaction. Any documentary evidence surrounding a case of mysterious death is always of interest. In this case, being of such a suspicious nature, it was doubly so.