Geoffrey seized them eagerly.
“By Jove!” he gasped. “Why they’re mine—the stolen plans of my invention!”
“Then it seems as though the thief, after committing the robbery, was murdered,” the inspector said.
“So it appears. But who can he be—and who killed him?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out, sir. Perhaps you’ll come into Romford with me and view the body? You may know the man. He seems well-dressed, and we found on him about forty pounds in Treasury notes and several letters. But none of the latter give any clue as to who he may be. The envelopes have all been destroyed.”
An hour later Geoffrey Falconer was shown the body as it lay, pale and still, awaiting the coroner’s inquiry.
“Why, I recognise him!” gasped the young engineer the moment his eyes fell upon the dead man’s face. “That’s a man with whom I chatted at the Queen’s Hotel, at Hastings, some weeks ago. I remember his face quite well. And his hand. He is still wearing that flesh-coloured calico glove!”
“Was he alone?” asked the police inspector.
“Yes, as far as I know,” Geoffrey replied, and then in a flash it occurred to him how the stranger, now dead, had managed to strike up a conversation by the overturning of the coffee. He recollected, too, Sylvia’s instinctive dislike of the fellow.
But if the mysterious man had evil intentions, why should he have taken all those pains to meet him?