The Middle Temple Murder

As a rule, Spargo left the Watchman office at two o’clock. The paper had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to a sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the machines began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling, until two o’clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd of June, 1912, he stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who had charge of the foreign news, and who began telling him about a telegram which had just come through from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was interesting: Spargo lingered to hear all about it, and to discuss it. Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of the office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the threshold the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight. In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the first grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of St. Paul’s.

Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every night and every morning he walked to and from the Watchman office by the same route—Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street. He came to know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formed the habit of exchanging greetings with various officers whom he encountered at regular points as he went slowly homewards, smoking his pipe. And on this morning, as he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, he saw a policeman whom he knew, one Driscoll, standing at the entrance, looking about him. Further away another policeman appeared, sauntering. Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then, turning, he saw Spargo. He moved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in his face.

“What is it?” asked Spargo.

Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open door of the lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat and jacket.

“He says,” answered Driscoll, “him, there—the porter—that there’s a man lying in one of them entries down the lane, and he thinks he’s dead. Likewise, he thinks he’s murdered.”

Spargo echoed the word.

“But what makes him think that?” he asked, peeping with curiosity beyond Driscoll’s burly form. “Why?”

“He says there’s blood about him,” answered Driscoll. He turned and glanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo. “You’re a newspaper man, sir?” he suggested.

“I am,” replied Spargo.

“You’d better walk down with us,” said Driscoll, with a grin. “There’ll be something to write pieces in the paper about. At least, there may be.” Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down the lane, wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. At the same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.

“Come on!” he said shortly. “I’ll show you.”

Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, and then turned to the porter.

“How came you to find him, then?” he asked

The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.

“I heard that door slam,” he replied, irritably, as if the fact which he mentioned caused him offence. “I know I did! So I got up to look around. Then—well, I saw that!”

He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed his outstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man’s foot, booted, grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.

“Sticking out there, just as you see it now,” said the porter. “I ain’t touched it. And so—”

He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasant thing. Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.

“And so you went along and looked?” he suggested. “Just so—just to see who it belonged to, as it might be.”

“Just to see—what there was to see,” agreed the porter. “Then I saw there was blood. And then—well, I made up the lane to tell one of you chaps.”

“Best thing you could have done,” said Driscoll. “Well, now then—”

The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a cold and formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having glazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring; something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested to Spargo the idea of a mortuary. And that the man whose foot projected over the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his pose certified to it.

For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemen unconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play with their fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully—Spargo remembered afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself put his hands in his pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys. Each man had his own thoughts as he contemplated the piece of human wreckage which lay before him.

“You’ll notice,” suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a hushed voice, “You’ll notice that he’s lying there in a queer way—same as if—as if he’d been put there. Sort of propped up against that wall, at first, and had slid down, like.”

Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw at his feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him, crushed in against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to be elderly because of grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in a good, well-made suit of grey check cloth—tweed—and the boots were good: so, too, was the linen cuff which projected from the sleeve that hung so limply. One leg was half doubled under the body; the other was stretched straight out across the threshold; the trunk was twisted to the wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles against which it and the shoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there were gouts and stains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt, pointed a finger at them.

“Seems to me,” he said, slowly, “seems to me as how he’s been struck down from behind as he came out of here. That blood’s from his nose—gushed out as he fell. What do you say, Jim?” The other policeman coughed.

“Better get the inspector here,” he said. “And the doctor and the ambulance. Dead—ain’t he?”

Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on the pavement.

“As ever they make ’em,” he remarked laconically. “And stiff, too. Well, hurry up, Jim!”

Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until the hand-ambulance came. More policemen came with it; they moved the body for transference to the mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man’s face. He looked long and steadily at it while the police arranged the limbs, wondering all the time who it was that he gazed at, how he came to that end, what was the object of his murderer, and many other things. There was some professionalism in Spargo’s curiosity, but there was also a natural dislike that a fellow-being should have been so unceremoniously smitten out of the world.

There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man’s face. It was that of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain, even homely of feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of white whisker, trimmed, after an old-fashioned pattern, between the ear and the point of the jaw. The only remarkable thing about it was that it was much lined and seamed; the wrinkles were many and deep around the corners of the lips and the angles of the eyes; this man, you would have said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered storm, mental as well as physical.

Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink. “Better come down to the dead-house,” he muttered confidentially.

“Why?” asked Spargo.

“They’ll go through him,” whispered Driscoll. “Search him, d’ye see? Then you’ll get to know all about him, and so on. Help to write that piece in the paper, eh?”

Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night’s work, and until his encounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the meal which would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into which he would subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send a man from the Watchman to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not in his line now, now—

“You’ll be for getting one o’ them big play-cards out with something about a mystery on it,” suggested Driscoll. “You never know what lies at the bottom o’ these affairs, no more you don’t.”

That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct for getting news began to assert itself.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go along with you.”

And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cortège through the streets, still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflected on the unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here was the work of murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along a principal London thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials to whom the dealing with it was all a matter of routine. Surely—

“My opinion,” said a voice at Spargo’s elbow, “my opinion is that it was done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there. That’s what I say.” Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at his side. He, too, was accompanying the body.

“Oh!” said Spargo. “You think—”

“I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there,” said the porter. “In somebody’s chambers, maybe. I’ve known of some queer games in our bit of London! Well!—he never came in at my lodge last night—I’ll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know? From what I see of him, not the sort to be about our place.”

“That’s what we shall hear presently,” said Spargo. “They’re going to search him.”

But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found nothing. The police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt, been struck down from behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the skull and caused death almost instantaneously. In Driscoll’s opinion, the murder had been committed for the sake of plunder. For there was nothing whatever on the body. It was reasonable to suppose that a man who is well dressed would possess a watch and chain, and have money in his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But there was nothing valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found that could lead to identification—no letters, no papers, nothing. It was plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity lay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been newly purchased at a fashionable shop in the West End.

Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his food and he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping. He was not the sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at last that the morning’s event had destroyed his chance of rest; he accordingly rose, took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went out. He was not sure of any particular idea when he strolled away from Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise him when, half an hour later he found that he had walked down to the police station near which the unknown man’s body lay in the mortuary. And there he met Driscoll, just going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “’Tisn’t five minutes since they found a bit of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor man’s waistcoat pocket—it had slipped into a crack. Come in, and you’ll see it.”

Spargo went into the inspector’s office. In another minute he found himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an address, scrawled in pencil:—Ronald Breton, Barrister, King’s Bench Walk, Temple, London.

CHAPTER TWO
HIS FIRST BRIEF

Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. “I know this man,” he said.

The inspector showed new interest.

“What, Mr. Breton?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m on the Watchman, you know, sub-editor. I took an article from him the other day—article on ‘Ideal Sites for Campers-Out.’ He came to the office about it. So this was in the dead man’s pocket?”

“Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn’t present myself. It’s not much, but it may afford some clue to identity.”

Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It seemed to him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in clubs; it had been torn roughly from the sheet.

“What,” he asked meditatively, “what will you do about getting this man identified?”

The inspector shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, usual thing, I suppose. There’ll be publicity, you know. I suppose you’ll be doing a special account yourself, for your paper, eh? Then there’ll be the others. And we shall put out the usual notice. Somebody will come forward to identify—sure to. And—”

A man came into the office—a stolid-faced, quiet-mannered, soberly attired person, who might have been a respectable tradesman out for a stroll, and who gave the inspector a sidelong nod as he approached his desk, at the same time extending his hand towards the scrap of paper which Spargo had just laid down.

“I’ll go along to King’s Bench Walk and see Mr. Breton,” he observed, looking at his watch. “It’s just about ten—I daresay he’ll be there now.”

“I’m going there, too,” remarked Spargo, but as if speaking to himself. “Yes, I’ll go there.”

The newcomer glanced at Spargo, and then at the inspector. The inspector nodded at Spargo.

“Journalist,” he said, “Mr. Spargo of the Watchman. Mr. Spargo was there when the body was found. And he knows Mr. Breton.” Then he nodded from Spargo to the stolid-faced person. “This is Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, from the Yard,” he said to Spargo. “He’s come to take charge of this case.”

“Oh?” said Spargo blankly. “I see—what,” he went on, with sudden abruptness, “what shall you do about Breton?”

“Get him to come and look at the body,” replied Rathbury. “He may know the man and he mayn’t. Anyway, his name and address are here, aren’t they?”

“Come along,” said Spargo. “I’ll walk there with you.”

Spargo remained in a species of brown study all the way along Tudor Street; his companion also maintained silence in a fashion which showed that he was by nature and custom a man of few words. It was not until the two were climbing the old balustrated staircase of the house in King’s Bench Walk in which Ronald Breton’s chambers were somewhere situate that Spargo spoke.

“Do you think that old chap was killed for what he may have had on him?” he asked, suddenly turning on the detective.

“I should like to know what he had on him before I answered that question, Mr. Spargo,” replied Rathbury, with a smile.

“Yes,” said Spargo, dreamily. “I suppose so. He might have had—nothing on him, eh?”

The detective laughed, and pointed to a board on which names were printed.

“We don’t know anything yet, sir,” he observed, “except that Mr. Breton is on the fourth floor. By which I conclude that it isn’t long since he was eating his dinner.”

“Oh, he’s young—he’s quite young,” said Spargo. “I should say he’s about four-and-twenty. I’ve met him only—”

At that moment the unmistakable sounds of girlish laughter came down the staircase. Two girls seemed to be laughing—presently masculine laughter mingled with the lighter feminine.

“Seems to be studying law in very pleasant fashion up here, anyway,” said Rathbury. “Mr. Breton’s chambers, too. And the door’s open.”

The outer oak door of Ronald Breton’s chambers stood thrown wide; the inner one was well ajar; through the opening thus made Spargo and the detective obtained a full view of the interior of Mr. Ronald Breton’s rooms. There, against a background of law books, bundles of papers tied up with pink tape, and black-framed pictures of famous legal notabilities, they saw a pretty, vivacious-eyed girl, who, perched on a chair, wigged and gowned, and flourishing a mass of crisp paper, was haranguing an imaginary judge and jury, to the amusement of a young man who had his back to the door, and of another girl who leant confidentially against his shoulder.

“I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury—I put it to you with confidence, feeling that you must be, must necessarily be, some, perhaps brothers, perhaps husbands, and fathers, can you, on your consciences do my client the great wrong, the irreparable injury, the—the—”

“Think of some more adjectives!” exclaimed the young man. “Hot and strong ’uns—pile ’em up. That’s what they like—they—Hullo!”

This exclamation arose from the fact that at this point of the proceedings the detective rapped at the inner door, and then put his head round its edge. Whereupon the young lady who was orating from the chair, jumped hastily down; the other young lady withdrew from the young man’s protecting arm; there was a feminine giggle and a feminine swishing of skirts, and a hasty bolt into an inner room, and Mr. Ronald Breton came forward, blushing a little, to greet the interrupter.

“Come in, come in!” he exclaimed hastily. “I—”

Then he paused, catching sight of Spargo, and held out his hand with a look of surprise.

“Oh—Mr. Spargo?” he said. “How do you do?—we—I—we were just having a lark—I’m off to court in a few minutes. What can I do for you, Mr. Spargo?”

He had backed to the inner door as he spoke, and he now closed it and turned again to the two men, looking from one to the other. The detective, on his part, was looking at the young barrister. He saw a tall, slimly-built youth, of handsome features and engaging presence, perfectly groomed, and immaculately garbed, and having upon him a general air of well-to-do-ness, and he formed the impression from these matters that Mr. Breton was one of those fortunate young men who may take up a profession but are certainly not dependent upon it. He turned and glanced at the journalist.

“How do you do?” said Spargo slowly. “I—the fact is, I came here with Mr. Rathbury. He—wants to see you. Detective-Sergeant Rathbury—of New Scotland Yard.”

Spargo pronounced this formal introduction as if he were repeating a lesson. But he was watching the young barrister’s face. And Breton turned to the detective with a look of surprise.

“Oh!” he said. “You wish—”

Rathbury had been fumbling in his pocket for the scrap of grey paper, which he had carefully bestowed in a much-worn memorandum-book. “I wished to ask a question, Mr. Breton,” he said. “This morning, about a quarter to three, a man—elderly man—was found dead in Middle Temple Lane, and there seems little doubt that he was murdered. Mr. Spargo here—he was present when the body was found.”

“Soon after,” corrected Spargo. “A few minutes after.”

“When this body was examined at the mortuary,” continued Rathbury, in his matter-of-fact, business-like tones, “nothing was found that could lead to identification. The man appears to have been robbed. There was nothing whatever on him—but this bit of torn paper, which was found in a hole in the lining of his waistcoat pocket. It’s got your name and address on it, Mr. Breton. See?”

Ronald Breton took the scrap of paper and looked at it with knitted brows.

“By Jove!” he muttered. “So it has; that’s queer. What’s he like, this man?”

Rathbury glanced at a clock which stood on the mantelpiece.

“Will you step round and take a look at him, Mr. Breton?” he said. “It’s close by.”

“Well—I—the fact is, I’ve got a case on, in Mr. Justice Borrow’s court,” Breton answered, also glancing at his clock. “But it won’t be called until after eleven. Will—”

“Plenty of time, sir,” said Rathbury; “it won’t take you ten minutes to go round and back again—a look will do. You don’t recognize this handwriting, I suppose?”

Breton still held the scrap of paper in his fingers. He looked at it again, intently.

“No!” he answered. “I don’t. I don’t know it at all—I can’t think, of course, who this man could be, to have my name and address. I thought he might have been some country solicitor, wanting my professional services, you know,” he went on, with a shy smile at Spargo; “but, three—three o’clock in the morning, eh?”

“The doctor,” observed Rathbury, “the doctor thinks he had been dead about two and a half hours.”

Breton turned to the inner door.

“I’ll—I’ll just tell these ladies I’m going out for a quarter of an hour,” he said. “They’re going over to the court with me—I got my first brief yesterday,” he went on with a boyish laugh, glancing right and left at his visitors. “It’s nothing much—small case—but I promised my fiancée and her sister that they should be present, you know. A moment.”

He disappeared into the next room and came back a moment later in all the glory of a new silk hat. Spargo, a young man who was never very particular about his dress, began to contrast his own attire with the butterfly appearance of this youngster; he had been quick to notice that the two girls who had whisked into the inner room had been similarly garbed in fine raiment, more characteristic of Mayfair than of Fleet Street. Already he felt a strange curiosity about Breton, and about the young ladies whom he heard talking behind the inner door.

“Well, come on,” said Breton. “Let’s go straight there.”

The mortuary to which Rathbury led the way was cold, drab, repellent to the general gay sense of the summer morning. Spargo shivered involuntarily as he entered it and took a first glance around. But the young barrister showed no sign of feeling or concern; he looked quickly about him and stepped alertly to the side of the dead man, from whose face the detective was turning back a cloth. He looked steadily and earnestly at the fixed features. Then he drew back, shaking his head.

“No!” he said with decision. “Don’t know him—don’t know him from Adam. Never set eyes on him in my life, that I know of.”

Rathbury replaced the cloth.

“I didn’t suppose you would,” he remarked. “Well, I expect we must go on the usual lines. Somebody’ll identify him.”

“You say he was murdered?” said Breton. “Is that—certain?”

Rathbury jerked his thumb at the corpse.

“The back of his skull is smashed in,” he said laconically. “The doctor says he must have been struck down from behind—and a fearful blow, too. I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Breton.”

“Oh, all right!” said Breton. “Well, you know where to find me if you want me. I shall be curious about this. Good-bye—good-bye, Mr. Spargo.”

The young barrister hurried away, and Rathbury turned to the journalist.

“I didn’t expect anything from that,” he remarked. “However, it was a thing to be done. You are going to write about this for your paper?”

Spargo nodded.

“Well,” continued Rathbury, “I’ve sent a man to Fiskie’s, the hatter’s, where that cap came from, you know. We may get a bit of information from that quarter—it’s possible. If you like to meet me here at twelve o’clock I’ll tell you anything I’ve heard. Just now I’m going to get some breakfast.”

“I’ll meet you here,” said Spargo, “at twelve o’clock.”

He watched Rathbury go away round one corner; he himself suddenly set off round another. He went to the Watchman office, wrote a few lines, which he enclosed in an envelope for the day-editor, and went out again. Somehow or other, his feet led him up Fleet Street, and before he quite realized what he was doing he found himself turning into the Law Courts.

CHAPTER THREE
THE CLUE OF THE CAP

Having no clear conception of what had led him to these scenes of litigation, Spargo went wandering aimlessly about in the great hall and the adjacent corridors until an official, who took him to be lost, asked him if there was any particular part of the building he wanted. For a moment Spargo stared at the man as if he did not comprehend his question. Then his mental powers reasserted themselves.

“Isn’t Mr. Justice Borrow sitting in one of the courts this morning?” he suddenly asked.

“Number seven,” replied the official. “What’s your case—when’s it down?”

“I haven’t got a case,” said Spargo. “I’m a pressman—reporter, you know.”

The official stuck out a finger.

“Round the corner—first to your right—second on the left,” he said automatically. “You’ll find plenty of room—nothing much doing there this morning.”

He turned away, and Spargo recommenced his apparently aimless perambulation of the dreary, depressing corridors.

“Upon my honour!” he muttered. “Upon my honour, I really don’t know what I’ve come up here for. I’ve no business here.”

Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton. The young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of papers tied up with pink tape; he was escorting two young ladies, who were laughing and chattering as they tripped along at his side. And Spargo, glancing at them meditatively, instinctively told himself which of them it was that he and Rathbury had overheard as she made her burlesque speech: it was not the elder one, who walked by Ronald Breton with something of an air of proprietorship, but the younger, the girl with the laughing eyes and the vivacious smile, and it suddenly dawned upon him that somewhere, deep within him, there had been a notion, a hope of seeing this girl again—why, he could not then think.

Spargo, thus coming face to face with these three, mechanically lifted his hat. Breton stopped, half inquisitive. His eyes seemed to ask a question.

“Yes,” said Spargo. “I—the fact is, I remembered that you said you were coming up here, and I came after you. I want—when you’ve time—to have a talk, to ask you a few questions. About—this affair of the dead man, you know.”

Breton nodded. He tapped Spargo on the arm.

“Look here,” he said. “When this case of mine is over, I can give you as much time as you like. Can you wait a bit? Yes? Well, I say, do me a favour. I was taking these ladies round to the gallery—round there, and up the stairs—and I’m a bit pressed for time—I’ve a solicitor waiting for me. You take them—there’s a good fellow; then, when the case is over, bring them down here, and you and I will talk. Here—I’ll introduce you all—no ceremony. Miss Aylmore—Miss Jessie Aylmore. Mr. Spargo—of the Watchman. Now, I’m off!” Breton turned on the instant; his gown whisked round a corner, and Spargo found himself staring at two smiling girls. He saw then that both were pretty and attractive, and that one seemed to be the elder by some three or four years.

“That is very cool of Ronald,” observed the elder young lady. “Perhaps his scheme doesn’t fit in with yours, Mr. Spargo? Pray don’t—”

“Oh, it’s all right!” said Spargo, feeling himself uncommonly stupid. “I’ve nothing to do. But—where did Mr. Breton say you wished to be taken?”

“Into the gallery of number seven court,” said the younger girl promptly. “Round this corner—I think I know the way.”

Spargo, still marvelling at the rapidity with which affairs were moving that morning, bestirred himself to act as cicerone, and presently led the two young ladies to the very front of one of those public galleries from which idlers and specially-interested spectators may see and hear the proceedings which obtain in the badly-ventilated, ill-lighted tanks wherein justice is dispensed at the Law Courts. There was no one else in that gallery; the attendant in the corridor outside seemed to be vastly amazed that any one should wish to enter it, and he presently opened the door, beckoned to Spargo, and came half-way down the stairs to meet him.

“Nothing much going on here this morning,” he whispered behind a raised hand. “But there’s a nice breach case in number five—get you three good seats there if you like.”

Spargo declined this tempting offer, and went back to his charges. He had decided by that time that Miss Aylmore was about twenty-three, and her sister about eighteen; he also thought that young Breton was a lucky dog to be in possession of such a charming future wife and an equally charming sister-in-law. And he dropped into a seat at Miss Jessie Aylmore’s side, and looked around him as if he were much awed by his surroundings.

“I suppose one can talk until the judge enters?” he whispered. “Is this really Mr. Breton’s first case?”

“His very first—all on his own responsibility, any way,” replied Spargo’s companion, smiling. “And he’s very nervous—and so’s my sister. Aren’t you, now, Evelyn?”

Evelyn Aylmore looked at Spargo, and smiled quietly.

“I suppose one’s always nervous about first appearances,” she said. “However, I think Ronald’s got plenty of confidence, and, as he says, it’s not much of a case: it isn’t even a jury case. I’m afraid you’ll find it dull, Mr. Spargo—it’s only something about a promissory note.”

“Oh, I’m all right, thank you,” replied Spargo, unconsciously falling back on a favourite formula. “I always like to hear lawyers—they manage to say such a lot about—about—”

“About nothing,” said Jessie Aylmore. “But there—so do gentlemen who write for the papers, don’t they?”

Spargo was about to admit that there was a good deal to be said on that point when Miss Aylmore suddenly drew her sister’s attention to a man who had just entered the well of the court.

“Look, Jessie!” she observed. “There’s Mr. Elphick!”

Spargo looked down at the person indicated: an elderly, large-faced, smooth-shaven man, a little inclined to stoutness, who, wigged and gowned, was slowly making his way to a corner seat just outside that charmed inner sanctum wherein only King’s Counsel are permitted to sit. He dropped into this in a fashion which showed that he was one of those men who loved personal comfort; he bestowed his plump person at the most convenient angle and fitting a monocle in his right eye, glanced around him. There were a few of his professional brethren in his vicinity; there were half a dozen solicitors and their clerks in conversation with one or other of them; there were court officials. But the gentleman of the monocle swept all these with an indifferent look and cast his eyes upward until he caught sight of the two girls. Thereupon he made a most gracious bow in their direction; his broad face beamed in a genial smile, and he waved a white hand.

“Do you know Mr. Elphick, Mr. Spargo?” enquired the younger Miss Aylmore.

“I rather think I’ve seen him, somewhere about the Temple,” answered Spargo. “In fact, I’m sure I have.”

“His chambers are in Paper Buildings,” said Jessie. “Sometimes he gives tea-parties in them. He is Ronald’s guardian, and preceptor, and mentor, and all that, and I suppose he’s dropped into this court to hear how his pupil goes on.”

“Here is Ronald,” whispered Miss Aylmore.

“And here,” said her sister, “is his lordship, looking very cross. Now, Mr. Spargo, you’re in for it.”

Spargo, to tell the truth, paid little attention to what went on beneath him. The case which young Breton presently opened was a commercial one, involving certain rights and properties in a promissory note; it seemed to the journalist that Breton dealt with it very well, showing himself master of the financial details, and speaking with readiness and assurance. He was much more interested in his companions, and especially in the younger one, and he was meditating on how he could improve his further acquaintance when he awoke to the fact that the defence, realizing that it stood no chance, had agreed to withdraw, and that Mr. Justice Borrow was already giving judgment in Ronald Breton’s favour.

In another minute he was walking out of the gallery in rear of the two sisters.

“Very good—very good, indeed,” he said, absent-mindedly. “I thought he put his facts very clearly and concisely.”

Downstairs, in the corridor, Ronald Breton was talking to Mr. Elphick. He pointed a finger at Spargo as the latter came up with the girls: Spargo gathered that Breton was speaking of the murder and of his, Spargo’s, connection with it. And directly they approached, he spoke.

“This is Mr. Spargo, sub-editor of the Watchman.” Breton said. “Mr. Elphick—Mr. Spargo. I was just telling Mr. Elphick, Spargo, that you saw this poor man soon after he was found.”

Spargo, glancing at Mr. Elphick, saw that he was deeply interested. The elderly barrister took him—literally—by the button-hole.

“My dear sir!” he said. “You—saw this poor fellow? Lying dead—in the third entry down Middle Temple Lane? The third entry, eh?”

“Yes,” replied Spargo, simply. “I saw him. It was the third entry.”

“Singular!” said Mr. Elphick, musingly. “I know a man who lives in that house. In fact, I visited him last night, and did not leave until nearly midnight. And this unfortunate man had Mr. Ronald Breton’s name and address in his pocket?”

Spargo nodded. He looked at Breton, and pulled out his watch. Just then he had no idea of playing the part of informant to Mr. Elphick.

“Yes, that’s so,” he answered shortly. Then, looking at Breton significantly, he added, “If you can give me those few minutes, now—?”

“Yes—yes!” responded Ronald Breton, nodding. “I understand. Evelyn—I’ll leave you and Jessie to Mr. Elphick; I must go.”

Mr. Elphick seized Spargo once more.

“My dear sir!” he said, eagerly. “Do you—do you think I could possibly see—the body?”

“It’s at the mortuary,” answered Spargo. “I don’t know what their regulations are.”

Then he escaped with Breton. They had crossed Fleet Street and were in the quieter shades of the Temple before Spargo spoke.

“About what I wanted to say to you,” he said at last. “It was—this. I—well, I’ve always wanted, as a journalist, to have a real big murder case. I think this is one. I want to go right into it—thoroughly, first and last. And—I think you can help me.”

“How do you know that it is a murder case?” asked Breton quietly.

“It’s a murder case,” answered Spargo, stolidly. “I feel it. Instinct, perhaps. I’m going to ferret out the truth. And it seems to me—”

He paused and gave his companion a sharp glance.

“It seems to me,” he presently continued, “that the clue lies in that scrap of paper. That paper and that man are connecting links between you and—somebody else.”

“Possibly,” agreed Breton. “You want to find the somebody else?”

“I want you to help me to find the somebody else,” answered Spargo. “I believe this is a big, very big affair: I want to do it. I don’t believe in police methods—much. By the by, I’m just going to meet Rathbury. He may have heard of something. Would you like to come?”

Breton ran into his chambers in King’s Bench Walk, left his gown and wig, and walked round with Spargo to the police office. Rathbury came out as they were stepping in.

“Oh!” he said. “Ah!—I’ve got what may be helpful, Mr. Spargo. I told you I’d sent a man to Fiskie’s, the hatter! Well, he’s just returned. The cap which the dead man was wearing was bought at Fiskie’s yesterday afternoon, and it was sent to Mr. Marbury, Room 20, at the Anglo-Orient Hotel.”

“Where is that?” asked Spargo.

“Waterloo district,” answered Rathbury. “A small house, I believe. Well, I’m going there. Are you coming?”

“Yes,” replied Spargo. “Of course. And Mr. Breton wants to come, too.”

“If I’m not in the way,” said Breton.

Rathbury laughed.

“Well, we may find out something about this scrap of paper,” he observed. And he waved a signal to the nearest taxi-cab driver.

CHAPTER FOUR
THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL

The house at which Spargo and his companions presently drew up was an old-fashioned place in the immediate vicinity of Waterloo Railway Station—a plain-fronted, four-square erection, essentially mid-Victorian in appearance, and suggestive, somehow, of the very early days of railway travelling. Anything more in contrast with the modern ideas of a hotel it would have been difficult to find in London, and Ronald Breton said so as he and the others crossed the pavement.

“And yet a good many people used to favour this place on their way to and from Southampton in the old days,” remarked Rathbury. “And I daresay that old travellers, coming back from the East after a good many years’ absence, still rush in here. You see, it’s close to the station, and travellers have a knack of walking into the nearest place when they’ve a few thousand miles of steamboat and railway train behind them. Look there, now!” They had crossed the threshold as the detective spoke, and as they entered a square, heavily-furnished hall, he made a sidelong motion of his head towards a bar on the left, wherein stood or lounged a number of men who from their general appearance, their slouched hats, and their bronzed faces appeared to be Colonials, or at any rate to have spent a good part of their time beneath Oriental skies. There was a murmur of tongues that had a Colonial accent in it; an aroma of tobacco that suggested Sumatra and Trichinopoly, and Rathbury wagged his head sagely. “Lay you anything the dead man was a Colonial, Mr. Spargo,” he remarked. “Well, now, I suppose that’s the landlord and landlady.”

There was an office facing them, at the rear of the hall, and a man and woman were regarding them from a box window which opened above a ledge on which lay a register book. They were middle-aged folk: the man, a fleshy, round-faced, somewhat pompous-looking individual, who might at some time have been a butler; the woman a tall, spare-figured, thin-featured, sharp-eyed person, who examined the newcomers with an enquiring gaze. Rathbury went up to them with easy confidence.

“You the landlord of this house, sir?” he asked. “Mr. Walters? Just so—and Mrs. Walters, I presume?”

The landlord made a stiff bow and looked sharply at his questioner.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he enquired.

“A little matter of business, Mr. Walters,” replied Rathbury, pulling out a card. “You’ll see there who I am—Detective-Sergeant Rathbury, of the Yard. This is Mr. Frank Spargo, a newspaper man; this is Mr. Ronald Breton, a barrister.”

The landlady, hearing their names and description, pointed to a side door, and signed Rathbury and his companions to pass through. Obeying her pointed finger, they found themselves in a small private parlour. Walters closed the two doors which led into it and looked at his principal visitor.

“What is it, Mr. Rathbury?” he enquired. “Anything wrong?”

“We want a bit of information,” answered Rathbury, almost with indifference.

“Did anybody of the name of Marbury put up here yesterday—elderly man, grey hair, fresh complexion?”

Mrs. Walters started, glancing at her husband.

“There!” she exclaimed. “I knew some enquiry would be made. Yes—a Mr. Marbury took a room here yesterday morning, just after the noon train got in from Southampton. Number 20 he took. But—he didn’t use it last night. He went out—very late—and he never came back.”

Rathbury nodded. Answering a sign from the landlord, he took a chair and, sitting down, looked at Mrs. Walters.

“What made you think some enquiry would be made, ma’am?” he asked. “Had you noticed anything?”

Mrs. Walters seemed a little confused by this direct question. Her husband gave vent to a species of growl.

“Nothing to notice,” he muttered. “Her way of speaking—that’s all.”

“Well—why I said that was this,” said the landlady. “He happened to tell us, did Mr. Marbury, that he hadn’t been in London for over twenty years, and couldn’t remember anything about it, him, he said, never having known much about London at any time. And, of course, when he went out so late and never came back, why, naturally, I thought something had happened to him, and that there’d be enquiries made.”

“Just so—just so!” said Rathbury. “So you would, ma’am—so you would. Well, something has happened to him. He’s dead. What’s more, there’s strong reason to think he was murdered.”

Mr. and Mrs. Walters received this announcement with proper surprise and horror, and the landlord suggested a little refreshment to his visitors. Spargo and Breton declined, on the ground that they had work to do during the afternoon; Rathbury accepted it, evidently as a matter of course.

“My respects,” he said, lifting his glass. “Well, now, perhaps you’ll just tell me what you know of this man? I may as well tell you, Mr. and Mrs. Walters, that he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane this morning, at a quarter to three; that there wasn’t anything on him but his clothes and a scrap of paper which bore this gentleman’s name and address; that this gentleman knows nothing whatever of him, and that I traced him here because he bought a cap at a West End hatter’s yesterday, and had it sent to your hotel.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Walters quickly, “that’s so. And he went out in that cap last night. Well—we don’t know much about him. As I said, he came in here about a quarter past twelve yesterday morning, and booked Number 20. He had a porter with him that brought a trunk and a bag—they’re in 20 now, of course. He told me that he had stayed at this house over twenty years ago, on his way to Australia—that, of course, was long before we took it. And he signed his name in the book as John Marbury.”

“We’ll look at that, if you please,” said Rathbury.

Walters fetched in the register and turned the leaf to the previous day’s entries. They all bent over the dead man’s writing.

“‘John Marbury, Coolumbidgee, New South Wales,’” said Rathbury. “Ah—now I was wondering if that writing would be the same as that on the scrap of paper, Mr. Breton. But, you see, it isn’t—it’s quite different.”

“Quite different,” said Breton. He, too, was regarding the handwriting with great interest. And Rathbury noticed his keen inspection of it, and asked another question.

“Ever seen that writing before?” he suggested.

“Never,” answered Breton. “And yet—there’s something very familiar about it.”

“Then the probability is that you have seen it before,” remarked Rathbury. “Well—now we’ll hear a little more about Marbury’s doings here. Just tell me all you know, Mr. and Mrs. Walters.”

“My wife knows most,” said Walters. “I scarcely saw the man—I don’t remember speaking with him.”

“No,” said Mrs. Walters. “You didn’t—you weren’t much in his way. Well,” she continued, “I showed him up to his room. He talked a bit—said he’d just landed at Southampton from Melbourne.”

“Did he mention his ship?” asked Rathbury. “But if he didn’t, it doesn’t matter, for we can find out.”

“I believe the name’s on his things,” answered the landlady. “There are some labels of that sort. Well, he asked for a chop to be cooked for him at once, as he was going out. He had his chop, and he went out at exactly one o’clock, saying to me that he expected he’d get lost, as he didn’t know London well at any time, and shouldn’t know it at all now. He went outside there—I saw him—looked about him and walked off towards Blackfriars way. During the afternoon the cap you spoke of came for him—from Fiskie’s. So, of course, I judged he’d been Piccadilly way. But he himself never came in until ten o’clock. And then he brought a gentleman with him.”

“Aye?” said Rathbury. “A gentleman, now? Did you see him?”

“Just,” replied the landlady. “They went straight up to 20, and I just caught a mere glimpse of the gentleman as they turned up the stairs. A tall, well-built gentleman, with a grey beard, very well dressed as far as I could see, with a top hat and a white silk muffler round his throat, and carrying an umbrella.”

“And they went to Marbury’s room?” said Rathbury. “What then?”

“Well, then, Mr. Marbury rang for some whiskey and soda,” continued Mrs. Walters. “He was particular to have a decanter of whiskey: that, and a syphon of soda were taken up there. I heard nothing more until nearly midnight; then the hall-porter told me that the gentleman in 20 had gone out, and had asked him if there was a night-porter—as, of course, there is. He went out at half-past eleven.”

“And the other gentleman?” asked Rathbury.

“The other gentleman,” answered the landlady, “went out with him. The hall-porter said they turned towards the station. And that was the last anybody in this house saw of Mr. Marbury. He certainly never came back.”

“That,” observed Rathbury with a quiet smile, “that is quite certain, ma’am? Well—I suppose we’d better see this Number 20 room, and have a look at what he left there.”

“Everything,” said Mrs. Walters, “is just as he left it. Nothing’s been touched.”

It seemed to two of the visitors that there was little to touch. On the dressing-table lay a few ordinary articles of toilet—none of them of any quality or value: the dead man had evidently been satisfied with the plain necessities of life. An overcoat hung from a peg: Rathbury, without ceremony, went through its pockets; just as unceremoniously he proceeded to examine trunk and bag, and finding both unlocked, he laid out on the bed every article they contained and examined each separately and carefully. And he found nothing whereby he could gather any clue to the dead owner’s identity.

“There you are!” he said, making an end of his task. “You see, it’s just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on him. There are no papers—there’s nothing to tell who he was, what he was after, where he’d come from—though that we may find out in other ways. But it’s not often that a man travels without some clue to his identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought in Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and money on him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma’am?” he asked, suddenly turning to Mrs. Walters. “Did he pull out his purse in your presence, now?”

“Yes,” answered the landlady, with promptitude. “He came into the bar for a drink after he’d been up to his room. He pulled out a handful of gold when he paid for it—a whole handful. There must have been some thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns.”

“And he hadn’t a penny piece on him—when found,” muttered Rathbury.

“I noticed another thing, too,” remarked the landlady. “He was wearing a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his left hand—little finger—gold, with a big diamond in it.”

“Yes,” said the detective, thoughtfully, “I noticed that he’d worn a ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him. Well—now there’s only one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid notice if he left any torn paper around—tore any letters up, or anything like that?”

But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on the contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy indeed. So Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing further to say, just then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the Anglo-Orient Hotel good morning, and went away, followed by the two young men.

“What next?” asked Spargo, as they gained the street.

“The next thing,” answered Rathbury, “is to find the man with whom Marbury left this hotel last night.”

“And how’s that to be done?” asked Spargo.

“At present,” replied Rathbury, “I don’t know.”

And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being alone.

CHAPTER FIVE
SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE

The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a crowded pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.

“We don’t seem to have gained much information,” he remarked. “I’m about as wise as ever.”

“No—wiser,” said Spargo. “At any rate, I am. I know now that this dead man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia; that he only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the company last night of a man whom we have had described to us—a tall, grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman.”

Breton shrugged his shoulders.

“I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in London,” he remarked.

“Exactly—so it would,” answered Spargo. “But we know that it was one of the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The thing is to find that one—the one.”

“And you think you can do it?”

“I think I’m going to have a big try at it.”

Breton shrugged his shoulders again.

“What?—by going up to every man who answers the description, and saying ‘Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the Anglo——”

Spargo suddenly interrupted him.

“Look here!” he said. “Didn’t you say that you knew a man who lives in that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?”

“No, I didn’t,” answered Breton. “It was Mr. Elphick who said that. All the same, I do know that man—he’s Mr. Cardlestone, another barrister. He and Mr. Elphick are friends—they’re both enthusiastic philatelists—stamp collectors, you know—and I dare say Mr. Elphick was round there last night examining something new Cardlestone’s got hold of. Why?”

“I’d like to go round there and make some enquiries,” replied Spargo. “If you’d be kind enough to——”

“Oh, I’ll go with you!” responded Breton, with alacrity. “I’m just as keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to know who this man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on him. Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know, why—”

“Yes,” said Spargo, as they got into a cab, “yes, that would have explained a lot. It seems to me that we’ll get at the murderer through that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury’s line. Yes, that’s what I think.”

Breton looked at his companion with interest.

“But—you don’t know what Rathbury’s line is,” he remarked.

“Yes, I do,” said Spargo. “Rathbury’s gone off to discover who the man is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last night. That’s his line.”

“And you want——?”

“I want to find out the full significance of that bit of paper, and who wrote it,” answered Spargo. “I want to know why that old man was coming to you when he was murdered.”

Breton started.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “I—I never thought of that. You—you really think he was coming to me when he was struck down?”

“Certain. Hadn’t he got an address in the Temple? Wasn’t he in the Temple? Of course, he was trying to find you.”

“But—the late hour?”

“No matter. How else can you explain his presence in the Temple? I think he was asking his way. That’s why I want to make some enquiries in this block.”

It appeared to Spargo that a considerable number of people, chiefly of the office-boy variety, were desirous of making enquiries about the dead man. Being luncheon-hour, that bit of Middle Temple Lane where the body was found, was thick with the inquisitive and the sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder had spread, and though there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which the body had lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the entry than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so great that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a policeman to move the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion presented themselves at the entry this policeman was being lectured as to his duties by a little weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and old-fashioned garments, and an ancient silk hat, who was obviously greatly exercised by the unwonted commotion.

“Drive them all out into the street!” exclaimed this personage. “Drive them all away, constable—into Fleet Street or upon the Embankment—anywhere, so long as you rid this place of them. This is a disgrace, and an inconvenience, a nuisance, a——”

“That’s old Cardlestone,” whispered Breton. “He’s always irascible, and I don’t suppose we’ll get anything out of him. Mr. Cardlestone,” he continued, making his way up to the old gentleman who was now retreating up the stone steps, brandishing an umbrella as ancient as himself. “I was just coming to see you, sir. This is Mr. Spargo, a journalist, who is much interested in this murder. He——”

“I know nothing about the murder, my dear sir!” exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone. “And I never talk to journalists—a pack of busybodies, sir, saving your presence. I am not aware that any murder has been committed, and I object to my doorway being filled by a pack of office boys and street loungers. Murder indeed! I suppose the man fell down these steps and broke his neck—drunk, most likely.”

He opened his outer door as he spoke, and Breton, with a reassuring smile and a nod at Spargo, followed him into his chambers on the first landing, motioning the journalist to keep at their heels.

“Mr. Elphick tells me that he was with you until a late hour last evening, Mr. Cardlestone,” he said. “Of course, neither of you heard anything suspicious?”

“What should we hear that was suspicious in the Temple, sir?” demanded Mr. Cardlestone, angrily. “I hope the Temple is free from that sort of thing, young Mr. Breton. Your respected guardian and myself had a quiet evening on our usual peaceful pursuits, and when he went away all was as quiet as the grave, sir. What may have gone on in the chambers above and around me I know not! Fortunately, our walls are thick, sir—substantial. I say, sir, the man probably fell down and broke his neck. What he was doing here, I do not presume to say.”

“Well, it’s guess, you know, Mr. Cardlestone,” remarked Breton, again winking at Spargo. “But all that was found on this man was a scrap of paper on which my name and address were written. That’s practically all that was known of him, except that he’d just arrived from Australia.”

Mr. Cardlestone suddenly turned on the young barrister with a sharp, acute glance.

“Eh?” he exclaimed. “What’s this? You say this man had your name and address on him, young Breton!—yours? And that he came from—Australia?”

“That’s so,” answered Breton. “That’s all that’s known.”

Mr. Cardlestone put aside his umbrella, produced a bandanna handkerchief of strong colours, and blew his nose in a reflective fashion.

“That’s a mysterious thing,” he observed. “Um—does Elphick know all that?”

Breton looked at Spargo as if he was asking him for an explanation of Mr. Cardlestone’s altered manner. And Spargo took up the conversation.

“No,” he said. “All that Mr. Elphick knows is that Mr. Ronald Breton’s name and address were on the scrap of paper found on the body. Mr. Elphick”—here Spargo paused and looked at Breton—“Mr. Elphick,” he presently continued, slowly transferring his glance to the old barrister, “spoke of going to view the body.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Cardlestone, eagerly. “It can be seen? Then I’ll go and see it. Where is it?”

Breton started.

“But—my dear sir!” he said. “Why?”

Mr. Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.

“I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very door,” he said. “Also, I have known more than one man who went to Australia. This might—I say might, young gentlemen—might be a man I had once known. Show me where this body is.”

Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not understand the turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to seize an opportunity. In another minute he was conducting Mr. Cardlestone through the ins and outs of the Temple towards Blackfriars. And as they turned into Tudor Street they encountered Mr. Elphick.

“I am going to the mortuary,” he remarked. “So, I suppose, are you, Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?”

Spargo tried a chance shot—at what he did not know. “The man’s name was Marbury,” he said. “He was from Australia.”

He was keeping a keen eye on Mr. Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr. Elphick showed any of the surprise which Mr. Cardlestone had exhibited. Rather, he seemed indifferent.

“Oh?” he said—“Marbury? And from Australia. Well—I should like to see the body.”

Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they reappeared.

“We don’t know the man,” said Mr. Elphick, calmly. “As Mr. Cardlestone, I understand, has said to you already—we have known men who went to Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the Temple, we thought it might have been one of them, come back. But—we don’t recognize him.”

“Couldn’t recognize him,” said Mr. Cardlestone. “No!”

They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.

“As if anybody on earth ever fancied they’d recognize him!” he said. “Well—what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must go.”

Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the pavement, came out of a fit of abstraction.

“I?” he said. “Oh—I’m going to the office.” And he turned abruptly away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at the Watchman, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the editor. “Try to get me a few minutes with the chief,” he said.

The private secretary looked up.

“Really important?” he asked.

“Big!” answered Spargo. “Fix it.”

Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty well by that time, Spargo lost no time.

“You’ve heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?” he suggested.

“The mere facts,” replied the editor, tersely.

“I was there when the body was found,” continued Spargo, and gave a brief résumé of his doings. “I’m certain this is a most unusual affair,” he went on. “It’s as full of mystery as—as it could be. I want to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can make such a story of it as we haven’t had for some time—ages. Let me have it. And to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning. I’ll make it—big!”

The editor looked across his desk at Spargo’s eager face.

“Your other work?” he said.

“Well in hand,” replied Spargo. “I’m ahead a whole week—both articles and reviews. I can tackle both.”

The editor put his finger tips together.

“Have you got some idea about this, young man?” he asked.

“I’ve got a great idea,” answered Spargo. He faced the great man squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the editorial face. “That’s why I want to do it,” he added. “And—it’s not mere boasting nor over-confidence—I know I shall do it better than anybody else.”

The editor considered matters for a brief moment.

“You mean to find out who killed this man?” he said at last.

Spargo nodded his head—twice.

“I’ll find that out,” he said doggedly.

The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.

“All right,” he said. “Go ahead. You shall have your two columns.”

Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a block of paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do things.

CHAPTER SIX
WITNESS TO A MEETING

Ronald Breton walked into the Watchman office and into Spargo’s room next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved it at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.

“I say!” he exclaimed. “That’s the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulate you. Yes, that’s the way—certain!”

Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.

“What way?” he asked indifferently.

“The way you’ve written this thing up,” said Breton. “It’s a hundred thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried account of a murder. It’s—it’s like a—a romance!”

“Merely a new method of giving news,” said Spargo. He picked up a copy of the Watchman, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering, the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a critical eye. “Yes—merely a new method,” he continued. “The question is—will it achieve its object?”

“What’s the object?” asked Breton.

Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it over to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put his feet on his desk.

“The object?” he said, drily. “Oh, well, the object is the ultimate detection of the murderer.”

“You’re after that?”

“I’m after that—just that.”

“And not—not simply out to make effective news?”

“I’m out to find the murderer of John Marbury,” said Spargo deliberately slow in his speech. “And I’ll find him.”

“Well, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of clues, so far,” remarked Breton. “I see—nothing. Do you?”

Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.

“I want to know an awful lot,” he said. “I’m hungering for news. I want to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himself between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with his skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of paper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he’d got to do with you!”

He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I confess that’s a corker. But I think——”

“Well?” said Spargo.

“I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or in prospect, and had been recommended to—me,” said Breton.

Spargo smiled—a little sardonically.

“That’s good!” he said. “You had your very first brief—yesterday. Come—your fame isn’t blown abroad through all the heights yet, my friend! Besides—don’t intending clients approach—isn’t it strict etiquette for them to approach?—barristers through solicitors?”

“Quite right—in both your remarks,” replied Breton, good-humouredly. “Of course, I’m not known a bit, but all the same I’ve known several cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a good turn may have given this man my address.”

“Possible,” said Spargo. “But he wouldn’t have come to consult you at midnight. Breton!—the more I think of it, the more I’m certain there’s a tremendous mystery in this affair! That’s why I got the chief to let me write it up as I have done—here. I’m hoping that this photograph—though to be sure, it’s of a dead face—and this facsimile of the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can——”

Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble pillared vestibule of the Watchman office came into the room with the unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.

“I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is,” muttered Spargo in an aside. “Well?” he said to the boy. “What is it?”

The messenger came up to the desk.

“Mr. Spargo,” he said, “there’s a man downstairs who says that he wants to see somebody about that murder case that’s in the paper this morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you.”

“Who is the man?” asked Spargo.

“Won’t say, sir,” replied the boy. “I gave him a form to fill up, but he said he wouldn’t write anything—said all he wanted was to see the man who wrote the piece in the paper.”

“Bring him here,” commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy had gone, and he smiled. “I knew we should have somebody here sooner or later,” he said. “That’s why I hurried over my breakfast and came down at ten o’clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this chap’s information proving valuable?”

“Nothing,” replied Breton. “He’s probably some crank or faddist who’s got some theory that he wants to ventilate.”

The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton’s prognostication. He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man, yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of the Watchman building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious footing in Spargo’s room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern newspaper-office accommodation.

“How do you do, sir?” said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the easy-chairs for which the Watchman office is famous. “I understand that you wish to see me?”

The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the chair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to hang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.

“What I want to see, sir,” he observed in a rustic accent, “is the gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murder in Middle Temple Lane.”

“You see him,” said Spargo. “I am that man.”

The caller smiled—generously.

“Indeed, sir?” he said. “A very nice bit of reading, I’m sure. And what might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk free-er to a man when I know what his name is.”

“So can I,” answered Spargo. “My name is Spargo—Frank Spargo. What’s yours?”

“Name of Webster, sir—William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife,” continued Mr. Webster, again smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, “is at present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it—weather and all.”

“That’s right,” said Spargo. “And—you wanted to see me about this murder, Mr. Webster?”

“I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that’ll do for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about in this fashion—happen you’ll be for me to tell it in my own way.”

“That,” answered Spargo, “is precisely what I desire.”

“Well, to be sure, I couldn’t tell it in no other,” declared Mr. Webster. “You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I was waiting for my breakfast—they take their breakfasts so late in them hotels—and when I’d read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to my wife ‘As soon as I’ve had my breakfast,’ I says, ‘I’m going to where they print this newspaper to tell ’em something.’ ‘Aye?’ she says, ‘Why, what have you to tell, I should like to know?’ just like that, Mr. Spargo.”

“Mrs. Webster,” said Spargo, “is a lady of businesslike principles. And what have you to tell?”

Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and smiled knowingly.

“Well, sir,” he continued, “Last night, my wife, she went out to a part they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of hers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk, like, I didn’t go. So thinks I to myself, I’ll go and see this here House of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all you’d got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted to see your own Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told ’em that I wanted to see our M.P., Mr. Stonewood—you’ll have heard tell of him, no doubt; he knows me very well—and they passed me, and I wrote out a ticket for him, and they told me to sit down while they found him. So I sat down in a grand sort of hall where there were a rare lot of people going and coming, and some fine pictures and images to look at, and for a time I looked at them, and then I began to take a bit of notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know, like myself. And as sure as I’m a christened man, sir, the gentleman whose picture you’ve got in your paper—him as was murdered—was sitting next to me! I knew that picture as soon as I saw it this morning.”

Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper, suddenly looked at his visitor.

“What time was that?” he asked.

“It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir,” answered Mr. Webster. “It might ha’ been twenty past—it might ha’ been twenty-five past.”

“Go on, if you please,” said Spargo.

“Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I made mention of the fact that I hadn’t been in there before. ‘Neither have I!’ he says, ‘I came in out of curiosity,’ he says, and then he laughed, sir—queer-like. And it was just after that that what I’m going to tell you about happened.”

“Tell,” commanded Spargo.

“Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that we were sitting in—a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard. He’d no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a sudden this here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and an exclamation, and——”

Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.

“Now, you’re absolutely sure about what you heard him exclaim?” he asked. “Quite sure about it? Because I see you are going to tell us what he did exclaim.”

“I’ll tell you naught but what I’m certain of, sir,” replied Webster. “What he said as he jumped up was ‘Good God!’ he says, sharp-like—and then he said a name, and I didn’t right catch it, but it sounded like Danesworth, or Painesworth, or something of that sort—one of them there, or very like ’em, at any rate. And then he rushed up to this here gentleman, and laid his hand on his arm—sudden-like.”

“And—the gentleman?” asked Spargo, quietly.

“Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at the man. Then they shook hands. And then, after they’d spoken a few words together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no more of ’em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that picture in it, I said to myself ‘That’s the man I sat next to in that there hall at the House of Commons!’ Oh, there’s no doubt of it, sir!”

“And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the grey beard?” suggested Spargo. “Could you recognize him from that?”

“Make no doubt of it, sir,” answered Mr. Webster. “I observed him particular.”

Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume, the leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.

“Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster,” he said.

The farmer went across the room.

“There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House of Commons here,” said Spargo. “Now, pick out the one you saw. Take your time—and be sure.”

He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.

“There!” he whispered. “Getting nearer—a bit nearer—eh?”

“To what?” asked Breton. “I don’t see—”

A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton’s remark.

“This is him, sir!” answered Mr. Webster. “That’s the gentleman—know him anywhere!”

The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby finger to a photograph, beneath which was written Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P. for Brookminster.

CHAPTER SEVEN
MR. AYLMORE

Spargo, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton start; he himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere glance at the photograph to which Mr. Webster was pointing.

“Oh!” he said. “That he?”

“That’s the gentleman, sir,” replied Webster. “Done to the life, that is. No difficulty in recognizing of that, Mr. Spargo.”

“You’re absolutely sure?” demanded Spargo. “There are a lot of men in the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the beards are grey.”

But Webster wagged his head.

“That’s him, sir!” he repeated. “I’m as sure of that as I am that my name’s William Webster. That’s the man I saw talking to him whose picture you’ve got in your paper. Can’t say no more, sir.”

“Very good,” said Spargo. “I’m much obliged to you. I’ll see Mr. Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr. Webster. How long do you remain in town?”

“My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be there for another week,” answered the farmer. “Hope I’ve been of some use, Mr. Spargo. As I says to my wife——”

Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He turned to Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.

“There!—what did I tell you?” he said. “Didn’t I say I should get some news? There it is.”

Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, I say, Spargo!”

“Well?”

“Mr. Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know.”

“Quite aware of it. Didn’t you introduce me to his daughters—only yesterday?”

“But—how did you know they were his daughters?”

Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.

“Instinct—intuition,” he answered. “However, never mind that, just now. Well—I’ve found something out. Marbury—if that is the dead man’s real name, and anyway, it’s all we know him by—was in the company of Mr. Aylmore that night. Good!”

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Breton.

“Do? See Mr. Aylmore, of course.”

He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand had already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.

“Look here,” said Breton. “I know where Mr. Aylmore is always to be found at twelve o’clock. At the A. and P.—the Atlantic and Pacific Club, you know, in St. James’s. If you like, I’ll go with you.”

Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.

“All right,” he said. “Eleven o’clock, now. I’ve something to do. I’ll meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly noon.”

“I’ll be there,” agreed Breton. He made for the door, and with his hand on it, turned. “What do you expect from—from what we’ve just heard?” he asked.

Spargo shrugged his shoulders.

“Wait—until we hear what Mr. Aylmore has to say,” he answered. “I suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance.”

Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to mutter to himself.

“Good God!” he says. “Dainsworth—Painsworth—something of that sort—one of the two. Excellent—that our farmer friend should have so much observation. Ah!—and why should Mr. Stephen Aylmore be recognized as Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort. Now, who is Mr. Stephen Aylmore—beyond being what I know him to be?”

Spargo’s fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness to a page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:

“AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23, St. Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member Atlantic and Pacific and City Venturers’ Clubs. Interested in South American enterprise.”

“Um!” muttered Spargo, putting the book away. “That’s not very illuminating. However, we’ve got one move finished. Now we’ll make another.”

Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of Mr. Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and, leaving the office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take him to the Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which he had spoken to Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.

Mrs. Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the hall; she recognized him at once and motioned him into her parlour.

“I remember you,” said Mrs. Walters; “you came with the detective—Mr. Rathbury.”

“Have you seen him, since?” asked Spargo.

“Not since,” replied Mrs. Walters. “No—and I was wondering if he’d be coming round, because——” She paused there and looked at Spargo with particular enquiry—“You’re a friend of his, aren’t you?” she asked. “I suppose you know as much as he does—about this?”

“He and I,” replied Spargo, with easy confidence, “are working this case together. You can tell me anything you’d tell him.”

The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an inner compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in tissue paper.

“Well,” she said, unwrapping the paper, “we found this in Number 20 this morning—it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl that found it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but Walters, he says as how he shouldn’t be surprised if it’s a diamond. And since we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after Mr. Marbury came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he went into the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of things like this. So there?”

Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.

“That’s a diamond—right enough,” he said. “Put it away, Mrs. Walters—I shall see Rathbury presently, and I’ll tell him about it. Now, that other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you recognize him—I mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?”

Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs. Walters’ face that she had no more doubt than Webster had.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “That’s the gentleman who came in with Mr. Marbury—I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would recognize him from that—perhaps you’d let our hall-porter and the waiter I mentioned just now look at it?”

“I’ll see them separately and see if they’ve ever seen a man who resembles this,” replied Spargo.

The two men recognized the photograph at once, without any prompting, and Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the Atlantic and Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the steps. He made no reference to his recent doings, and together they went into the house and asked for Mr. Aylmore.

Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently came to them in the visitors’ room. He was already familiar with Mr. Aylmore’s photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life; the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and unobtrusively, doing yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest of the party whips, without forcing themselves into the limelight or seizing every opportunity to air their opinions. Now that Spargo met him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what the journalist had expected—a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man, who looked as if he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and taught not to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid interests in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation —purposely shortened—of his object in calling upon him.

“Yes,” he said indifferently. “Yes, it is quite true that I met Marbury and spent a little time with him on the evening your informant spoke of. I met him, as he told you, in the lobby of the House. I was much surprised to meet him. I had not seen him for—I really don’t know how many years.”

He paused and looked at Spargo as if he was wondering what he ought or not to say to a newspaper man. Spargo remained silent, waiting. And presently Mr. Aylmore went on.

“I read your account in the Watchman this morning,” he said. “I was wondering, when you called just now, if I would communicate with you or with the police. The fact is—I suppose you want this for your paper, eh?” he continued after a sudden breaking off.

“I shall not print anything that you wish me not to print,” answered Spargo. “If you care to give me any information——”

“Oh, well!” said Mr. Aylmore. “I don’t mind. The fact is, I knew next to nothing. Marbury was a man with whom I had some—well, business relations, of a sort, a great many years ago. It must be twenty years—perhaps more—since I lost sight of him. When he came up to me in the lobby the other night, I had to make an effort of memory to recall him. He wished me, having once met me, to give him some advice, and as there was little doing in the House that night, and as he had once been—almost a friend—I walked to his hotel with him, chatting. He told me that he had only landed from Australia that morning, and what he wanted my advice about, principally, was—diamonds. Australian diamonds.”

“I was unaware,” remarked Spargo, “that diamonds were ever found in Australia.”

Mr. Aylmore smiled—a little cynically.

“Perhaps so,” he said. “But diamonds have been found in Australia from time to time, ever since Australia was known to Europeans, and in the opinion of experts, they will eventually be found there in quantity. Anyhow, Marbury had got hold of some Australian diamonds, and he showed them to me at his hotel—a number of them. We examined them in his room.”

“What did he do with them—afterwards?” asked Spargo.

“He put them in his waistcoat pocket—in a very small wash-leather bag, from which he had taken them. There were, in all, sixteen or twenty stones—not more, and they were all small. I advised him to see some expert—I mentioned Streeter’s to him. Now, I can tell you how he got hold of Mr. Breton’s address.”

The two young men pricked up their ears. Spargo unconsciously tightened his hold on the pencil with which he was making notes.

“He got it from me,” continued Mr. Aylmore. “The handwriting on the scrap of paper is mine, hurriedly scrawled. He wanted legal advice. As I knew very little about lawyers, I told him that if he called on Mr. Breton, Mr. Breton would be able to tell him of a first-class, sharp solicitor. I wrote down Mr. Breton’s address for him, on a scrap of paper which he tore off a letter that he took from his pocket. By the by, I observe that when his body was found there was nothing on it in the shape of papers or money. I am quite sure that when I left him he had a lot of gold on him, those diamonds, and a breast-pocket full of letters.”

“Where did you leave him, sir?” asked Spargo. “You left the hotel together, I believe?”

“Yes. We strolled along when we left it. Having once met, we had much to talk of, and it was a fine night. We walked across Waterloo Bridge and very shortly afterwards he left me. And that is really all I know. My own impression——” He paused for a moment and Spargo waited silently.

“My own impression—though I confess it may seem to have no very solid grounds—is that Marbury was decoyed to where he was found, and was robbed and murdered by some person who knew he had valuables on him. There is the fact that he was robbed, at any rate.”

“I’ve had a notion,” said Breton, diffidently. “Mayn’t be worth much, but I’ve had it, all the same. Some fellow-passenger of Marbury’s may have tracked him all day—Middle Temple Lane’s pretty lonely at night, you know.”

No one made any comment upon this suggestion, and on Spargo looking at Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament rose and glanced at the door.

“Well, that’s all I can tell you, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “You see, it’s not much, after all. Of course, there’ll be an inquest on Marbury, and I shall have to re-tell it. But you’re welcome to print what I’ve told you.”

Spargo left Breton with his future father-in-law and went away towards New Scotland Yard. He and Rathbury had promised to share news—now he had some to communicate.

CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT

Spargo found Rathbury sitting alone in a small, somewhat dismal apartment which was chiefly remarkable for the business-like paucity of its furnishings and its indefinable air of secrecy. There was a plain writing-table and a hard chair or two; a map of London, much discoloured, on the wall; a few faded photographs of eminent bands in the world of crime, and a similar number of well-thumbed books of reference. The detective himself, when Spargo was shown in to him, was seated at the table, chewing an unlighted cigar, and engaged in the apparently aimless task of drawing hieroglyphics on scraps of paper. He looked up as the journalist entered, and held out his hand.

“Well, I congratulate you on what you stuck in the Watchman this morning,” he said. “Made extra good reading, I thought. They did right to let you tackle that job. Going straight through with it now, I suppose, Mr. Spargo?”

Spargo dropped into the chair nearest to Rathbury’s right hand. He lighted a cigarette, and having blown out a whiff of smoke, nodded his head in a fashion which indicated that the detective might consider his question answered in the affirmative.

“Look here,” he said. “We settled yesterday, didn’t we, that you and I are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job? That’s all right,” he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly. “Very well—have you made any further progress?”

Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning back in his chair, shook his head.

“Frankly, I haven’t,” he replied. “Of course, there’s a lot being done in the usual official-routine way. We’ve men out making various enquiries. We’re enquiring about Marbury’s voyage to England. All that we know up to now is that he was certainly a passenger on a liner which landed at Southampton in accordance with what he told those people at the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way and was understood to take the train to town—as he did. That’s all. There’s nothing in that. We’ve cabled to Melbourne for any news of him from there. But I expect little from that.”

“All right,” said Spargo. “And—what are you doing—you, yourself? Because, if we’re to share facts, I must know what my partner’s after. Just now, you seemed to be—drawing.”

Rathbury laughed.

“Well, to tell you the truth,” he said, “when I want to work things out, I come into this room—it’s quiet, as you see—and I scribble anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step, and—”

“Do you see it?” asked Spargo, quickly.

“Well—I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that hotel,” replied Rathbury. “It seems to me—”

Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.

“I’ve found him,” he said. “That’s what I wrote that article for—to find him. I knew it would find him. I’ve never had any training in your sort of work, but I knew that article would get him. And it has got him.”

Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.

“Good!” he said. “And—who is he?”

“I’ll tell you the story,” answered Spargo, “and in a summary. This morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came to me at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night he witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a Member of Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an album of photographs of the present members, and he immediately recognized the portrait of one of them as the man in question. I thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient Hotel—Mrs. Walters also at once recognized it as that of the man who came to the hotel with Marbury, stopped with him a while in his room, and left with him. The man is Mr. Stephen Aylmore, the member for Brookminster.”

Rathbury expressed his feelings in a sharp whistle.

“I know him!” he said. “Of course—I remember Mrs. Walters’s description now. But his is a familiar type—tall, grey-bearded, well-dressed. Um!—well, we’ll have to see Mr. Aylmore at once.”

“I’ve seen him,” said Spargo. “Naturally! For you see, Mrs. Walters gave me a bit more evidence. This morning they found a loose diamond on the floor of Number 20, and after it was found the waiter who took the drinks up to Marbury and his guest that night remembered that when he entered the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of similar objects. So then I went on to see Mr. Aylmore. You know young Breton, the barrister?—you met him with me, you remember?”

“The young fellow whose name and address were found on Marbury,” replied Rathbury. “I remember.”

“Breton is engaged to Aylmore’s daughter,” continued Spargo. “Breton took me to Aylmore’s club. And Aylmore gives a plain, straightforward account of the matter which he’s granted me leave to print. It clears up a lot of things. Aylmore knew Marbury over twenty years ago. He lost sight of him. They met accidentally in the lobby of the House on the evening preceding the murder. Marbury told him that he wanted his advice about those rare things, Australian diamonds. He went back with him to his hotel and spent a while with him; then they walked out together as far as Waterloo Bridge, where Aylmore left him and went home. Further, the scrap of grey paper is accounted for. Marbury wanted the address of a smart solicitor; Aylmore didn’t know of one but told Marbury that if he called on young Breton, he’d know, and would put him in the way to find one. Marbury wrote Breton’s address down. That’s Aylmore’s story. But it’s got an important addition. Aylmore says that when he left Marbury, Marbury had on him a quantity of those diamonds in a wash-leather bag, a lot of gold, and a breast-pocket full of letters and papers. Now—there was nothing on him when he was found dead in Middle Temple Lane.”

Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.

“That’s all I know,” he said. “What do you make of it?”

Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude and stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.

“Don’t know,” he said. “It brings things up to a point, certainly. Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge—very late. Waterloo Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But—how did Marbury get into the Temple, unobserved? We’ve made every enquiry, and we can’t trace him in any way as regards that movement. There’s a clue for his going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton’s address, but even a Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at midnight, eh?”

“Well,” said Spargo, “I’ve thought of one or two things. He may have been one of those men who like to wander around at night. He may have seen—he would see—plenty of lights in the Temple at that hour; he may have slipped in unobserved—it’s possible, it’s quite possible. I once had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself after midnight, and had no difficulty about walking in and out, either. But—if Marbury was murdered for the sake of what he had on him—how did he meet with his murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don’t hang about Middle Temple Lane.”

The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making more hieroglyphics.

“What’s your theory, Mr. Spargo?” he asked suddenly. “I suppose you’ve got one.”

“Have you?” asked Spargo, bluntly.

“Well,” returned Rathbury, hesitatingly, “I hadn’t, up to now. But now—now, after what you’ve told me, I think I can make one. It seems to me that after Marbury left Aylmore he probably mooned about by himself, that he was decoyed into the Temple, and was there murdered and robbed. There are a lot of queer ins and outs, nooks and corners in that old spot, Mr. Spargo, and the murderer, if he knew his ground well, could easily hide himself until he could get away in the morning. He might be a man who had access to chambers or offices—think how easy it would be for such a man, having once killed and robbed his victim, to lie hid for hours afterwards? For aught we know, the man who murdered Marbury may have been within twenty feet of you when you first saw his dead body that morning. Eh?”

Before Spargo could reply to this suggestion an official entered the room and whispered a few words in the detective’s ear.

“Show him in at once,” said Rathbury. He turned to Spargo as the man quitted the room and smiled significantly. “Here’s somebody wants to tell something about the Marbury case,” he remarked. “Let’s hope it’ll be news worth hearing.”

Spargo smiled in his queer fashion.

“It strikes me that you’ve only got to interest an inquisitive public in order to get news,” he said. “The principal thing is to investigate it when you’ve got it. Who’s this, now?”

The official had returned with a dapper-looking gentleman in a frock-coat and silk hat, bearing upon him the unmistakable stamp of the city man, who inspected Rathbury with deliberation and Spargo with a glance, and being seated turned to the detective as undoubtedly the person he desired to converse with.

“I understand that you are the officer in charge of the Marbury murder case,” he observed. “I believe I can give you some valuable information in respect to that. I read the account of the affair in the Watchman newspaper this morning, and saw the portrait of the murdered man there, and I was at first inclined to go to the Watchman office with my information, but I finally decided to approach the police instead of the Press, regarding the police as being more—more responsible.”

“Much obliged to you, sir,” said Rathbury, with a glance at Spargo. “Whom have I the pleasure of——”

“My name,” replied the visitor, drawing out and laying down a card, “is Myerst—Mr. E.P. Myerst, Secretary of the London and Universal Safe Deposit Company. I may, I suppose, speak with confidence,” continued Mr. Myerst, with a side-glance at Spargo. “My information is—confidential.”

Rathbury inclined his head and put his fingers together.

“You may speak with every confidence, Mr. Myerst,” he answered. “If what you have to tell has any real bearing on the Marbury case, it will probably have to be repeated in public, you know, sir. But at present it will be treated as private.”

“It has a very real bearing on the case, I should say,” replied Mr. Myerst. “Yes, I should decidedly say so. The fact is that on June 21st at about—to be precise—three o’clock in the afternoon, a stranger, who gave the name of John Marbury, and his present address as the Anglo-Orient Hotel, Waterloo, called at our establishment, and asked if he could rent a small safe. He explained to me that he desired to deposit in such a safe a small leather box—which, by the by, was of remarkably ancient appearance—that he had brought with him. I showed him a safe such as he wanted, informed him of the rent, and of the rules of the place, and he engaged the safe, paid the rent for one year in advance, and deposited his leather box—an affair of about a foot square—there and then. After that, having exchanged a remark or two about the altered conditions of London, which, I understood him to say, he had not seen for a great many years, he took his key and his departure. I think there can be no doubt about this being the Mr. Marbury who was found murdered.”

“None at all, I should say, Mr. Myerst,” said Rathbury. “And I’m much obliged to you for coming here. Now you might tell me a little more, sir. Did Marbury tell you anything about the contents of the box?”

“No. He merely remarked that he wished the greatest care to be taken of it,” replied the secretary.

“Didn’t give you any hint as to what was in it?” asked Rathbury.

“None. But he was very particular to assure himself that it could not be burnt, nor burgled, nor otherwise molested,” replied Mr. Myerst. “He appeared to be greatly relieved when he found that it was impossible for anyone but himself to take his property from his safe.”

“Ah!” said Rathbury, winking at Spargo. “So he would, no doubt. And Marbury himself, sir, now? How did he strike you?”

Mr. Myerst gravely considered this question.

“Mr. Marbury struck me,” he answered at last, “as a man who had probably seen strange places. And before leaving he made, what I will term, a remarkable remark. About—in fact, about his leather box.”

“His leather box?” said Rathbury. “And what was it, sir?”

“This,” replied the secretary. “‘That box,’ he said, ‘is safe now. But it’s been safer. It’s been buried—and deep-down, too—for many and many a year!’”

CHAPTER NINE
THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS

“Buried—and deep-down, too—for many and many a year,” repeated Mr. Myerst, eyeing his companions with keen glances. “I consider that, gentlemen, a very remarkable remark—very remarkable!”

Rathbury stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat again and began swaying backwards and forwards in his chair. He looked at Spargo. And with his knowledge of men, he knew that all Spargo’s journalistic instincts had been aroused, and that he was keen as mustard to be off on a new scent.

“Remarkable—remarkable, Mr. Myerst!” he assented. “What do you say, Mr. Spargo?”

Spargo turned slowly, and for the first time since Myerst had entered made a careful inspection of him. The inspection lasted several seconds; then Spargo spoke.

“And what did you say to that?” he asked quietly.

Myerst looked from his questioner to Rathbury. And Rathbury thought it time to enlighten the caller.

“I may as well tell you, Mr. Myerst,” he said smilingly, “that this is Mr. Spargo, of the Watchman. Mr. Spargo wrote the article about the Marbury case of which you spoke when you came in. Mr. Spargo, you’ll gather, is deeply interested in this matter—and he and I, in our different capacities, are working together. So—you understand?” Myerst regarded Spargo in a new light. And while he was so looking at him. Spargo repeated the question he had just put.

“I said—What did you say to that?”

Myerst hesitated.

“Well—er—I don’t think I said anything,” he replied. “Nothing that one might call material, you know.”

“Didn’t ask him what he meant?” suggested Spargo.

“Oh, no—not at all,” replied Myerst.

Spargo got up abruptly from his chair.

“Then you missed one of the finest opportunities I ever heard of!” he said, half-sneeringly. “You might have heard such a story—”

He paused, as if it were not worth while to continue, and turned to Rathbury, who was regarding him with amusement.

“Look here, Rathbury,” he said. “Is it possible to get that box opened?”

“It’ll have to be opened,” answered Rathbury, rising. “It’s got to be opened. It probably contains the clue we want. I’m going to ask Mr. Myerst here to go with me just now to take the first steps about having it opened. I shall have to get an order. We may get the matter through today, but at any rate we’ll have it done tomorrow morning.”

“Can you arrange for me to be present when that comes off?” asked Spargo. “You can—certain? That’s all right, Rathbury. Now I’m off, and you’ll ring me up or come round if you hear anything, and I’ll do the same by you.”

And without further word, Spargo went quickly away, and just as quickly returned to the Watchman office. There the assistant who had been told off to wait upon his orders during this new crusade met him with a business card.

“This gentleman came in to see you about an hour ago, Mr. Spargo,” he said. “He thinks he can tell you something about the Marbury affair, and he said that as he couldn’t wait, perhaps you’d step round to his place when you came in.”

Spargo took the card and read:

MR. JAMES CRIEDIR,
DEALER IN PHILATELIC RARITIES,
2,021, STRAND.

Spargo put the card in his waistcoat pocket and went out again, wondering why Mr. James Criedir could not, would not, or did not call himself a dealer in rare postage stamps, and so use plain English. He went up Fleet Street and soon found the shop indicated on the card, and his first glance at its exterior showed that whatever business might have been done by Mr. Criedir in the past at that establishment there was to be none done there in the future by him, for there were newly-printed bills in the window announcing that the place was to let. And inside he found a short, portly, elderly man who was superintending the packing-up and removal of the last of his stock. He turned a bright, enquiring eye on the journalist.

“Mr. Criedir?” said Spargo.

“The same, sir,” answered the philatelist. “You are—?”

“Mr. Spargo, of the Watchman. You called on me.”

Mr. Criedir opened the door of a tiny apartment at the rear of the very little shop and motioned his caller to enter. He followed him in and carefully closed the door.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Spargo,” he said genially. “Take a seat, sir—I’m all in confusion here—giving up business, you see. Yes, I called on you. I think, having read the Watchman account of that Marbury affair, and having seen the murdered man’s photograph in your columns, that I can give you a bit of information.”

“Material?” asked Spargo, tersely.

Mr. Criedir cocked one of his bright eyes at his visitor. He coughed drily.

“That’s for you to decide—when you’ve heard it,” he said. “I should say, considering everything, that it was material. Well, it’s this—I kept open until yesterday—everything as usual, you know—stock in the window and so on—so that anybody who was passing would naturally have thought that the business was going on, though as a matter of fact, I’m retiring—retired,” added Mr. Criedir with a laugh, “last night. Now—but won’t you take down what I’ve got to tell you?”

“I am taking it down,” answered Spargo. “Every word. In my head.”

Mr. Criedir laughed and rubbed his hands.

“Oh!” he said. “Ah, well, in my young days journalists used to pull out pencil and notebook at the first opportunity. But you modern young men—”

“Just so,” agreed Spargo. “This information, now?”

“Well,” said Mr. Criedir, “we’ll go on then. Yesterday afternoon the man described as Marbury came into my shop. He—”

“What time—exact time?” asked Spargo.

“Two—to the very minute by St. Clement Danes clock,” answered Mr. Criedir. “I’d swear twenty affidavits on that point. He was precisely as you’ve described him—dress, everything—I tell you I knew his photo as soon as I saw it. He was carrying a little box—”

“What sort of box?” said Spargo.

“A queer, old-fashioned, much-worn leather box—a very miniature trunk, in fact,” replied Mr. Criedir. “About a foot square; the sort of thing you never see nowadays. It was very much worn; it attracted me for that very reason. He set it on the counter and looked at me. ‘You’re a dealer in stamps—rare stamps?’ he said. ‘I am,’ I replied. ‘I’ve something here I’d like to show you,’ he said, unlocking the box. ‘It’s—’”

“Stop a bit,” said Spargo. “Where did he take the key from with which he unlocked the box?”

“It was one of several which he carried on a split ring, and he took the bunch out of his left-hand trousers pocket,” replied Mr. Criedir. “Oh, I keep my eyes open, young gentleman! Well—he opened his box. It seemed to me to be full of papers—at any rate there were a lot of legal-looking documents on the top, tied up with red tape. To show you how I notice things I saw that the papers were stained with age, and that the red tape was faded to a mere washed-out pink.”

“Good—good!” murmured Spargo. “Excellent! Proceed, sir.”

“He put his hand under the topmost papers and drew out an envelope,” continued Mr. Criedir. “From the envelope he produced an exceedingly rare, exceedingly valuable set of Colonial stamps—the very-first ever issued. ‘I’ve just come from Australia,’ he said. ‘I promised a young friend of mine out there to sell these stamps for him in London, and as I was passing this way I caught sight of your shop. Will you buy ’em, and how much will you give for ’em?’”

“Prompt,” muttered Spargo.

“He seemed to me the sort of man who doesn’t waste words,” agreed Mr. Criedir. “Well, there was no doubt about the stamps, nor about their great value. But I had to explain to him that I was retiring from business that very day, and did not wish to enter into even a single deal, and that, therefore, I couldn’t do anything. ‘No matter,’ he says, ‘I daresay there are lots of men in your line of trade—perhaps you can recommend me to a good firm?’ ‘I could recommend you to a dozen extra-good firms,’ I answered. ‘But I can do better for you. I’ll give you the name and address of a private buyer who, I haven’t the least doubt, will be very glad to buy that set from you and will give you a big price.’ ‘Write it down,’ he says, ‘and thank you for your trouble.’ So I gave him a bit of advice as to the price he ought to get, and I wrote the name and address of the man I referred to on the back of one of my cards.”

“Whose name and address?” asked Spargo.

“Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, 2, Pilcox Buildings, Middle Temple Lane,” replied Mr. Criedir. “Mr. Cardlestone is one of the most enthusiastic and accomplished philatelists in Europe. And I knew he didn’t possess that set of stamps.”

“I know Mr. Cardlestone,” remarked Spargo. “It was at the foot of his stairs that Marbury was found murdered.”

“Just so,” said Mr. Criedir. “Which makes me think that he was going to see Mr. Cardlestone when he was set upon, murdered, and robbed.”

Spargo looked fixedly at the retired stamp-dealer.

“What, going to see an elderly gentleman in his rooms in the Temple, to offer to sell him philatelic rarities at—past midnight?” he said. “I think—not much!”

“All right,” replied Mr. Criedir. “You think and argue on modern lines—which are, of course, highly superior. But—how do you account for my having given Marbury Mr. Cardlestone’s address and for his having been found dead—murdered—at the foot of Cardlestone’s stairs a few hours later?”

“I don’t account for it,” said Spargo. “I’m trying to.”

Mr. Criedir made no comment on this. He looked his visitor up and down for a moment; gathered some idea of his capabilities, and suddenly offered him a cigarette. Spargo accepted it with a laconic word of thanks, and smoked half-way through it before he spoke again.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m trying to account. And I shall account. And I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Criedir, for what you’ve told me. Now, then, may I ask you a question or two?”

“A thousand!” responded Mr. Criedir with great geniality.

“Very well. Did Marbury say he’d call on Cardlestone?”

“He did. Said he’d call as soon as he could—that day.”

“Have you told Cardlestone what you’ve just told me?”

“I have. But not until an hour ago—on my way back from your office, in fact. I met him in Fleet Street and told him.”

“Had he received a call from Marbury?”

“No! Never heard of or seen the man. At least, never heard of him until he heard of the murder. He told me he and his friend, Mr. Elphick, another philatelist, went to see the body, wondering if they could recognize it as any man they’d ever known, but they couldn’t.”

“I know they did,” said Spargo. “I saw ’em at the mortuary. Um! Well—one more question. When Marbury left you, did he put those stamps in his box again, as before?”

“No,” replied Mr. Criedir. “He put them in his right-hand breast pocket, and he locked up his old box, and went off swinging it in his left hand.”

Spargo went away down Fleet Street, seeing nobody. He muttered to himself, and he was still muttering when he got into his room at the office. And what he muttered was the same thing, repeated over and over again:

“Six hours—six hours—six hours! Those six hours!”

Next morning the Watchman came out with four leaded columns of up-to-date news about the Marbury Case, and right across the top of the four ran a heavy double line of great capitals, black and staring:—WHO SAW JOHN MARBURY BETWEEN 3.15 P.M. AND 9.15 P.M. ON THE DAY PRECEDING HIS MURDER?

CHAPTER TEN
THE LEATHER BOX

Whether Spargo was sanguine enough to expect that his staring headline would bring him information of the sort he wanted was a secret which he kept to himself. That a good many thousands of human beings must have set eyes on John Marbury between the hours which Spargo set forth in that headline was certain; the problem was—What particular owner or owners of a pair or of many pairs of those eyes would remember him? Why should they remember him? Walters and his wife had reason to remember him; Criedir had reason to remember him; so had Myerst; so had William Webster. But between a quarter past three, when he left the London and Universal Safe Deposit, and a quarter past nine, when he sat down by Webster’s side in the lobby of the House of Commons, nobody seemed to have any recollection of him except Mr. Fiskie, the hatter, and he only remembered him faintly, and because Marbury had bought a fashionable cloth cap at his shop. At any rate, by noon of that day, nobody had come forward with any recollection of him. He must have gone West from seeing Myerst, because he bought his cap at Fiskie’s; he must eventually have gone South-West, because he turned up at Westminster. But where else did he go? What did he do? To whom did he speak? No answer came to these questions.

“That shows,” observed young Mr. Ronald Breton, lazing an hour away in Spargo’s room at the Watchman at that particular hour which is neither noon nor afternoon, wherein even busy men do nothing, “that shows how a chap can go about London as if he were merely an ant that had strayed into another ant-heap than his own. Nobody notices.”

“You’d better go and read up a little elementary entomology, Breton,” said Spargo. “I don’t know much about it myself, but I’ve a pretty good idea that when an ant walks into the highways and byways of a colony to which he doesn’t belong he doesn’t survive his intrusion by many seconds.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” said Breton. “London’s an ant-heap, isn’t it? One human ant more or less doesn’t count. This man Marbury must have gone about a pretty tidy lot during those six hours. He’d ride on a ’bus—almost certain. He’d get into a taxi-cab—I think that’s much more certain, because it would be a novelty to him. He’d want some tea—anyway, he’d be sure to want a drink, and he’d turn in somewhere to get one or the other. He’d buy things in shops—these Colonials always do. He’d go somewhere to get his dinner. He’d—but what’s the use of enumeration in this case?”

“A mere piling up of platitudes,” answered Spargo.

“What I mean is,” continued Breton, “that piles of people must have seen him, and yet it’s now hours and hours since your paper came out this morning, and nobody’s come forward to tell anything. And when you come to think of it, why should they? Who’d remember an ordinary man in a grey tweed suit?”

“‘An ordinary man in a grey tweed suit,’” repeated Spargo. “Good line. You haven’t any copyright in it, remember. It would make a good cross-heading.”

Breton laughed. “You’re a queer chap, Spargo,” he said. “Seriously, do you think you’re getting any nearer anything?”

“I’m getting nearer something with everything that’s done,” Spargo answered. “You can’t start on a business like this without evolving something out of it, you know.”

“Well,” said Breton, “to me there’s not so much mystery in it. Mr. Aylmore’s explained the reason why my address was found on the body; Criedir, the stamp-man, has explained—”

Spargo suddenly looked up.

“What?” he said sharply.

“Why, the reason of Marbury’s being found where he was found,” replied Breton. “Of course, I see it all! Marbury was mooning around Fleet Street; he slipped into Middle Temple Lane, late as it was, just to see where old Cardlestone hangs out, and he was set upon and done for. The thing’s plain to me. The only thing now is to find who did it.”

“Yes, that’s it,” agreed Spargo. “That’s it.” He turned over the leaves of the diary which lay on his desk. “By the by,” he said, looking up with some interest, “the adjourned inquest is at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Are you going?”

“I shall certainly go,” answered Breton. “What’s more, I’m going to take Miss Aylmore and her sister. As the gruesome details were over at the first sitting, and as there’ll be nothing but this new evidence tomorrow, and as they’ve never been in a coroner’s court——”

“Mr. Aylmore’ll be the principal witness tomorrow,” interrupted Spargo. “I suppose he’ll be able to tell a lot more than he told—me.”

Breton shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t see that there’s much more to tell,” he said. “But,” he added, with a sly laugh, “I suppose you want some more good copy, eh?”

Spargo glanced at his watch, rose, and picked up his hat. “I’ll tell you what I want,” he said. “I want to know who John Marbury was. That would make good copy. Who he was—twenty—twenty-five—forty years ago. Eh?”

“And you think Mr. Aylmore can tell?” asked Breton.

“Mr. Aylmore,” answered Spargo as they walked towards the door, “is the only person I have met so far who has admitted that he knew John Marbury in the—past. But he didn’t tell me—much. Perhaps he’ll tell the coroner and his jury—more. Now, I’m off Breton—I’ve an appointment.”

And leaving Breton to find his own way out, Spargo hurried away, jumped into a taxi-cab and speeded to the London and Universal Safe Deposit. At the corner of its building he found Rathbury awaiting him.

“Well?” said Spargo, as he sprang out: “How is it?”

“It’s all right,” answered Rathbury. “You can be present: I got the necessary permission. As there are no relations known, there’ll only be one or two officials and you, and the Safe Deposit people, and myself. Come on—it’s about time.”

“It sounds,” observed Spargo, “like an exhumation.”

Rathbury laughed. “Well, we’re certainly going to dig up a dead man’s secrets,” he said. “At least, we may be going to do so. In my opinion, Mr. Spargo, we’ll find some clue in this leather box.”

Spargo made no answer. They entered the office, to be shown into a room where were already assembled Mr. Myerst, a gentleman who turned out to be the chairman of the company, and the officials of whom Rathbury had spoken. And in another moment Spargo heard the chairman explaining that the company possessed duplicate keys to all safes, and that the proper authorization having been received from the proper authorities, those present would now proceed to the safe recently tenanted by the late Mr. John Marbury, and take from it the property which he himself had deposited there, a small leather box, which they would afterwards bring to that room and cause to be opened in each other’s presence.

It seemed to Spargo that there was an unending unlocking of bolts and bars before he and his fellow-processionists came to the safe so recently rented by the late Mr. John Marbury, now undoubtedly deceased. And at first sight of it, he saw that it was so small an affair that it seemed ludicrous to imagine that it could contain anything of any importance. In fact, it looked to be no more than a plain wooden locker, one amongst many in a small strong room: it reminded Spargo irresistibly of the locker in which, in his school days, he had kept his personal belongings and the jam tarts, sausage rolls, and hardbake smuggled in from the tuck-shop. Marbury’s name had been newly painted upon it; the paint was scarcely dry. But when the wooden door—the front door, as it were, of this temple of mystery, had been solemnly opened by the chairman, a formidable door of steel was revealed, and expectation still leapt in the bosoms of the beholders.

“The duplicate key, Mr. Myerst, if you please,” commanded the chairman, “the duplicate key!”

Myerst, who was fully as solemn as his principal, produced a curious-looking key: the chairman lifted his hand as if he were about to christen a battleship: the steel door swung slowly back. And there, in a two-foot square cavity, lay the leather box.

It struck Spargo as they filed back to the secretary’s room that the procession became more funereal-like than ever. First walked the chairman, abreast with the high official, who had brought the necessary authorization from the all-powerful quarter; then came Myerst carrying the box: followed two other gentlemen, both legal lights, charged with watching official and police interests; Rathbury and Spargo brought up the rear. He whispered something of his notions to the detective; Rathbury nodded a comprehensive understanding.

“Let’s hope we’re going to see—something!” he said.

In the secretary’s room a man waited who touched his forelock respectfully as the heads of the procession entered. Myerst set the box on the table: the man made a musical jingle of keys: the other members of the procession gathered round.

“As we naturally possess no key to this box,” announced the chairman in grave tones, “it becomes our duty to employ professional assistance in opening it. Jobson!”

He waved a hand, and the man of the keys stepped forward with alacrity. He examined the lock of the box with a knowing eye; it was easy to see that he was anxious to fall upon it. While he considered matters, Spargo looked at the box. It was pretty much what it had been described to him as being; a small, square box of old cow-hide, very strongly made, much worn and tarnished, fitted with a handle projecting from the lid, and having the appearance of having been hidden away somewhere for many a long day.

There was a click, a spring: Jobson stepped back.

“That’s it, if you please, sir,” he said.

The chairman motioned to the high official.

“If you would be good enough to open the box, sir,” he said. “Our duty is now concluded.”

As the high official laid his hand on the lid the other men gathered round with craning necks and expectant eyes. The lid was lifted: somebody sighed deeply. And Spargo pushed his own head and eyes nearer.

The box was empty!

Empty, as anything that can be empty is empty! thought Spargo: there was literally nothing in it. They were all staring into the interior of a plain, time-worn little receptacle, lined out with old-fashioned chintz stuff, such as our Mid-Victorian fore-fathers were familiar with, and containing—nothing.

“God bless my soul!” exclaimed the chairman. “This is—dear me!—why, there is nothing in the box!”

“That,” remarked the high official, drily, “appears to be obvious.”

The chairman looked at the secretary.

“I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst,” he said, with the half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of an exceptionally fine treat. “Valuable!”

Myerst coughed.

“I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin,” he answered. “The—er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he placed it in the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest value.”

“But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the Watchman newspaper, that it was full of papers and—and other articles,” said the chairman. “Criedir saw papers in it about an hour before it was brought here.”

Myerst spread out his hands.

“I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin,” he answered. “I know nothing more.”

“But why should a man deposit an empty box?” began the chairman. “I—”

The high official interposed.

“That the box is empty is certain,” he observed. “Did you ever handle it yourself, Mr. Myerst?”

Myerst smiled in a superior fashion.

“I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he rented, the box was never out of his hands,” he replied.

Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the chairman.

“Very well,” he said. “We’ve made the enquiry. Rathbury, take the box away with you and lock it up at the Yard.”

So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if mystifying, material for the article which had already become the daily feature of his paper.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED

It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the adjourned inquest next day that the whole story of what was now world-famous as the Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated before him for the thousandth time. There was not a detail of the story with which he had not become familiar to fulness. The first proceeding before the coroner had been of a merely formal nature; these were thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and twelve good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John Marbury came by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo found himself tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and noting how each successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter to the story. The story itself ran quite easily, naturally, consecutively—you could make it in sections. And Spargo, sitting merely to listen, made them:

1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the body.

2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death—the man had been struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow—from some heavy instrument, and had died immediately.

3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was examined nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous scrap of grey paper.

4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man’s new fashionable cloth cap, bought at Fiskie’s well-known shop in the West-End, he traced Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.

5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.

6. The purser of the ss. Wambarino proved that Marbury sailed from Melbourne to Southampton on that ship, excited no remark, behaved himself like any other well-regulated passenger, and left the Wambarino at Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the last day of his life in just the ordinary manner.

7. Mr. Criedir gave evidence of his rencontre with Marbury in the matter of the stamps.

8. Mr. Myerst told of Marbury’s visit to the Safe Deposit, and further proved that the box which he placed there proved, on official examination, to be empty.

9. William Webster re-told the story of his encounter with Marbury in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons, and of his witnessing the meeting between him and the gentleman whom he (Webster) now knew to be Mr. Aylmore, a Member of Parliament.

All this led up to the appearance of Mr. Aylmore, M.P., in the witness-box. And Spargo knew and felt that it was that appearance for which the crowded court was waiting. Thanks to his own vivid and realistic specials in the Watchman, everybody there had already become well and thoroughly acquainted with the mass of evidence represented by the nine witnesses who had been in the box before Mr. Aylmore entered it. They were familiar, too, with the facts which Mr. Aylmore had permitted Spargo to print after the interview at the club, which Ronald Breton arranged. Why, then, the extraordinary interest which the Member of Parliament’s appearance aroused? For everybody was extraordinarily interested; from the Coroner downwards to the last man who had managed to squeeze himself into the last available inch of the public gallery, all who were there wanted to hear and see the man who met Marbury under such dramatic circumstances, and who went to his hotel with him, hobnobbed with him, gave him advice, walked out of the hotel with him for a stroll from which Marbury never returned. Spargo knew well why the interest was so keen—everybody knew that Aylmore was the only man who could tell the court anything really pertinent about Marbury; who he was, what he was after; what his life had been.

He looked round the court as the Member of Parliament entered the witness-box—a tall, handsome, perfectly-groomed man, whose beard was only slightly tinged with grey, whose figure was as erect as a well-drilled soldier’s, who carried about him an air of conscious power. Aylmore’s two daughters sat at a little distance away, opposite Spargo, with Ronald Breton in attendance upon them; Spargo had encountered their glance as they entered the court, and they had given him a friendly nod and smile. He had watched them from time to time; it was plain to him that they regarded the whole affair as a novel sort of entertainment; they might have been idlers in some Eastern bazaar, listening to the unfolding of many tales from the professional tale-tellers. Now, as their father entered the box, Spargo looked at them again; he saw nothing more than a little heightening of colour in their cheeks, a little brightening of their eyes.

“All that they feel,” he thought, “is a bit of extra excitement at the idea that their father is mixed up in this delightful mystery. Um! Well—now how much is he mixed up?”

And he turned to the witness-box and from that moment never took his eyes off the man who now stood in it. For Spargo had ideas about the witness which he was anxious to develop.

The folk who expected something immediately sensational in Mr. Aylmore’s evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and asked a question or two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell, in his own way, what he knew of the dead man and of this sad affair; and having received that permission, he went on in a calm, unimpassioned manner to repeat precisely what he had told Spargo. It sounded a very plain, ordinary story. He had known Marbury many years ago. He had lost sight of him for—oh, quite twenty years. He had met him accidentally in one of the vestibules of the House of Commons on the evening preceding the murder. Marbury had asked his advice. Having no particular duty, and willing to do an old acquaintance a good turn, he had gone back to the Anglo-Orient Hotel with Marbury, had remained awhile with him in his room, examining his Australian diamonds, and had afterwards gone out with him. He had given him the advice he wanted; they had strolled across Waterloo Bridge; shortly afterwards they had parted. That was all he knew.

The court, the public, Spargo, everybody there, knew all this already. It had been in print, under a big headline, in the Watchman. Aylmore had now told it again; having told it, he seemed to consider that his next step was to leave the box and the court, and after a perfunctory question or two from the Coroner and the foreman of the jury he made a motion as if to step down. But Spargo, who had been aware since the beginning of the enquiry of the presence of a certain eminent counsel who represented the Treasury, cocked his eye in that gentleman’s direction, and was not surprised to see him rise in his well-known, apparently indifferent fashion, fix his monocle in his right eye, and glance at the tall figure in the witness-box.

“The fun is going to begin,” muttered Spargo.

The Treasury representative looked from Aylmore to the Coroner and made a jerky bow; from the Coroner to Aylmore and straightened himself. He looked like a man who is going to ask indifferent questions about the state of the weather, or how Smith’s wife was last time you heard of her, or if stocks are likely to rise or fall. But Spargo had heard this man before, and he knew many signs of his in voice and manner and glance.

“I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Aylmore, about your acquaintanceship with the dead man. It was an acquaintanceship of some time ago?” began the suave, seemingly careless voice.

“A considerable time ago,” answered Aylmore.

“How long—roughly speaking?”

“I should say from twenty to twenty-two or three years.”

“Never saw him during that time until you met accidentally in the way you have described to us?”

“Never.”

“Ever heard from him?”

“No.”

“Ever heard of him?”

“No.”

“But when you met, you knew each other at once?”

“Well—almost at once.”

“Almost at once. Then, I take it, you were very well known to each other twenty or twenty-two years ago?”

“We were—yes, well known to each other.”

“Close friends?”

“I said we were acquaintances.”

“Acquaintances. What was his name when you knew him at that time?”

“His name? It was—Marbury.”

“Marbury—the same name. Where did you know him?”

“I—oh, here in London.”

“What was he?”

“Do you mean—what was his occupation?”

“What was his occupation?”

“I believe he was concerned in financial matters.”

“Concerned in financial matters. Had you dealings with him?”

“Well, yes—on occasions.”

“What was his business address in London?”

“I can’t remember that.”

“What was his private address?”

“That I never knew.”

“Where did you transact your business with him?”

“Well, we met, now and then.”

“Where? What place, office, resort?”

“I can’t remember particular places. Sometimes—in the City.”

“In the City. Where in the City? Mansion House, or Lombard Street, or St. Paul’s Churchyard, or the Old Bailey, or where?”

“I have recollections of meeting him outside the Stock Exchange.”

“Oh! Was he a member of that institution?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Were you?”

“Certainly not!”

“What were the dealings that you had with him?”

“Financial dealings—small ones.”

“How long did your acquaintanceship with him last—what period did it extend over?”

“I should say about six months to nine months.”

“No more?”

“Certainly no more.”

“It was quite a slight acquaintanceship, then?”

“Oh, quite!”

“And yet, after losing sight of this merely slight acquaintance for over twenty years, you, on meeting him, take great interest in him?”

“Well, I was willing to do him a good turn, I was interested in what he told me the other evening.”

“I see. Now you will not object to my asking you a personal question or two. You are a public man, and the facts about the lives of public men are more or less public property. You are represented in this work of popular reference as coming to this country in 1902, from Argentina, where you made a considerable fortune. You have told us, however, that you were in London, acquainted with Marbury, about the years, say 1890 to 1892. Did you then leave England soon after knowing Marbury?”

“I did. I left England in 1891 or 1892—I am not sure which.”

“We are wanting to be very sure about this matter, Mr. Aylmore. We want to solve the important question—who is, who was John Marbury, and how did he come by his death? You seem to be the only available person who knows anything about him. What was your business before you left England?”

“I was interested in financial affairs.”

“Like Marbury. Where did you carry on your business?”

“In London, of course.”

“At what address?”

For some moments Aylmore had been growing more and more restive. His brow had flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared his shoulders and faced his questioner defiantly.

“I resent these questions about my private affairs!” he snapped out.

“Possibly. But I must put them. I repeat my last question.”

“And I refuse to answer it.”

“Then I ask you another. Where did you live in London at the time you are telling us of, when you knew John Marbury?”

“I refuse to answer that question also!”

The Treasury Counsel sat down and looked at the Coroner.

CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NEW WITNESS

The voice of the Coroner, bland, suave, deprecating, broke the silence. He was addressing the witness.

“I am sure, Mr. Aylmore,” he said, “there is no wish to trouble you with unnecessary questions. But we are here to get at the truth of this matter of John Marbury’s death, and as you are the only witness we have had who knew him personally—”

Aylmore turned impatiently to the Coroner.

“I have every wish to respect your authority, sir!” he exclaimed. “And I have told you all that I know of Marbury and of what happened when I met him the other evening. But I resent being questioned on my private affairs of twenty years ago—I very much resent it! Any question that is really pertinent I will answer, but I will not answer questions that seem to me wholly foreign to the scope of this enquiry.”

The Treasury Counsel rose again. His manner had become of the quietest, and Spargo again became keenly attentive.

“Perhaps I can put a question or two to Mr. Aylmore which will not yield him offence,” he remarked drily. He turned once more to the witness, regarding him as if with interest. “Can you tell us of any person now living who knew Marbury in London at the time under discussion—twenty to twenty-two or three years ago?” he asked.

Aylmore shook his head angrily.

“No, I can’t,” he replied.

“And yet you and he must have had several business acquaintances at that time who knew you both!”

“Possibly—at that time. But when I returned to England my business and my life lay in different directions to those of that time. I don’t know of anybody who knew Marbury then—anybody.”

The Counsel turned to a clerk who sat behind him, whispered to him; Spargo saw the clerk make a sidelong motion of his head towards the door of the court. The Counsel looked again at the witness.

“One more question. You told the court a little time since that you parted with Marbury on the evening preceding his death at the end of Waterloo Bridge—at, I think you said, a quarter to twelve.”

“About that time.”

“And at that place?”

“Yes.”

“That is all I want to ask you, Mr. Aylmore—just now,” said the Counsel. He turned to the Coroner. “I am going to ask you, sir, at this point to call a witness who has volunteered certain evidence to the police authorities this morning. That evidence is of a very important nature, and I think that this is the stage at which it ought to be given to you and the jury. If you would be pleased to direct that David Lyell be called—”

Spargo turned instinctively to the door, having seen the clerk who had sat behind the Treasury Counsel make his way there. There came into view, ushered by the clerk, a smart-looking, alert, self-confident young man, evidently a Scotsman, who, on the name of David Lyell being called, stepped jauntily and readily into the place which the member of Parliament just vacated. He took the oath—Scotch fashion—with the same readiness and turned easily to the Treasury Counsel. And Spargo, glancing quickly round, saw that the court was breathless with anticipation, and that its anticipation was that the new witness was going to tell something which related to the evidence just given by Aylmore.

“Your name is David Lyell?”

“That is my name, sir.”

“And you reside at 23, Cumbrae Side, Kilmarnock, Scotland?”

“I do.”

“What are you, Mr. Lyell?”

“Traveller, sir, for the firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Robertson & Soutar, distillers, of Kilmarnock.”

“Your duties take you, I think, over to Paris occasionally?”

“They do—once every six weeks I go to Paris.”

“On the evening of June 21st last were you in London on your way to Paris?”

“I was.”

“I believe you stayed at De Keyser’s Hotel, at the Blackfriars end of the Embankment?”

“I did—it’s handy for the continental trains.”

“About half-past eleven, or a little later, that evening, did you go along the Embankment, on the Temple Gardens side, for a walk?”

“I did, sir. I’m a bad sleeper, and it’s a habit of mine to take a walk of half an hour or so last thing before I go to bed.”

“How far did you walk?”

“As far as Waterloo Bridge.”

“Always on the Temple side?”

“Just so, sir—straight along on that side.”

“Very good. When you got close to Waterloo Bridge, did you meet anybody you knew?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament.”

Spargo could not avoid a glance at the two sisters. The elder’s head was averted; the younger was staring at the witness steadily. And Breton was nervously tapping his fingers on the crown of his shining silk hat.

“Mr. Aylmore, the Member of Parliament,” repeated the Counsel’s suave, clear tones. “Oh! And how did you come to recognize Mr. Aylmore, Member of Parliament?”

“Well, sir, in this way. At home, I’m the secretary of our Liberal Ward Club, and last year we had a demonstration, and it fell to me to arrange with the principal speakers. I got Mr. Aylmore to come and speak, and naturally I met him several times, in London and in Scotland.”

“So that you knew him quite well?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Do you see him now, Mr. Lyell?”

Lyell smiled and half turned in the box.

“Why, of course!” he answered. “There is Mr. Aylmore.”

“There is Mr. Aylmore. Very good. Now we go on. You met Mr. Aylmore close to Waterloo Bridge? How close?”

“Well, sir, to be exact, Mr. Aylmore came down the steps from the bridge on to the Embankment.”

“Alone?”

“No.”

“Who was with him?”

“A man, sir.”

“Did you know the man?”

“No. But seeing who he was with. I took a good look at him. I haven’t forgotten his face.”

“You haven’t forgotten his face. Mr. Lyell—has anything recalled that face to you within this last day or two?”

“Yes, sir, indeed!”

“What?”

“The picture of the man they say was murdered—John Marbury.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I’m as certain, sir, as that my name’s what it is.”

“It is your belief that Mr. Aylmore, when you met him, was accompanied by the man who, according to the photographs, was John Marbury?”

“It is, sir!”

“Very well. Now, having seen Mr. Aylmore and his companion, what did you do?”

“Oh, I just turned and walked after them.”

“You walked after them? They were going eastward, then?”

“They were walking by the way I’d come.”

“You followed them eastward?”

“I did—I was going back to the hotel, you see.”

“What were they doing?”

“Talking uncommonly earnestly, sir.”

“How far did you follow them?”

“I followed them until they came to the Embankment lodge of Middle Temple Lane, sir.”

“And then?”

“Why, sir, they turned in there, and I went straight on to De Keyser’s, and to my bed.”

There was a deeper silence in court at that moment than at any other period of the long day, and it grew still deeper when the quiet, keen voice put the next question.

“You swear on your oath that you saw Mr. Aylmore take his companion into the Temple by the Embankment entrance of Middle Temple Lane on the occasion in question?”

“I do! I could swear no other, sir.”

“Can you tell us, as near as possible, what time that would be?”

“Yes. It was, to a minute or so, about five minutes past twelve.”

The Treasury Counsel nodded to the Coroner, and the Coroner, after a whispered conference with the foreman of the jury, looked at the witness.

“You have only just given this information to the police, I understand?” he said.

“Yes, sir. I have been in Paris, and in Amiens, and I only returned by this morning’s boat. As soon as I had read all the news in the papers—the English papers—and seen the dead man’s photographs I determined to tell the police what I knew, and I went to New Scotland Yard as soon as I got to London this morning.”

Nobody else wanted to ask Mr. David Lyell any questions, and he stepped down. And Mr. Aylmore suddenly came forward again, seeking the Coroner’s attention.

“May I be allowed to make an explanation, sir?” he began. “I—”

But the Treasury Counsel was on his feet, this time stern and implacable. “I would point out, sir, that you have had Mr. Aylmore in the box, and that he was not then at all ready to give explanations, or even to answer questions,” he said. “And before you allow him to make any explanation now, I ask you to hear another witness whom I wish to interpose at this stage. That witness is——”

Mr. Aylmore turned almost angrily to the Coroner.

“After the evidence of the last witness, I think I have a right to be heard at once!” he said with emphasis. “As matters stand at present, it looks as if I had trifled, sir, with you and the jury, whereas if I am allowed to make an explanation—”

“I must respectfully ask that before Mr. Aylmore is allowed to make any explanation, the witness I have referred to is heard,” said the Treasury Counsel sternly. “There are weighty reasons.”

“I am afraid you must wait a little, Mr. Aylmore, if you wish to give an explanation,” said the Coroner. He turned to the Counsel. “Who is this other witness?” he asked.

Aylmore stepped back. And Spargo noticed that the younger of his two daughters was staring at him with an anxious expression. There was no distrust of her father in her face; she was anxious. She, too, slowly turned to the next witness. This man was the porter of the Embankment lodge of Middle Temple Lane. The Treasury Counsel put a straight question to him at once.

“You see that gentleman,” he said, pointing to Aylmore. “Do you know him as an inmate of the Temple?”

The man stared at Aylmore, evidently confused.

“Why, certainly, sir!” he answered. “Quite well, sir.”

“Very good. And now—what name do you know him by?”

The man grew evidently more bewildered.

“Name, sir. Why, Mr. Anderson, sir!” he replied. “Mr. Anderson!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
UNDER SUSPICION

A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed court as this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified many things—that there were people present who had expected some such dramatic development; that there were others present who had not; that the answer itself was only a prelude to further developments. And Spargo, looking narrowly about him, saw that the answer had aroused different feelings in Aylmore’s two daughters. The elder one had dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the younger was sitting bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine bewilderment. And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.

But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no stopping the Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in his own merciless fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the Coroner, had whispered a word to the solicitor who sat close by him, and now he turned again to the witness.

“So you know that gentleman—make sure now—as Mr. Anderson, an inmate of the Temple?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t know him by any other name?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“How long have you known him by that name?”

“I should say two or three years, sir.”

“See him go in and out regularly?”

“No, sir—not regularly.”

“How often, then?”

“Now and then, sir—perhaps once a week.”

“Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson’s goings-in-and-out.”

“Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn’t see him again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir.”

“You say ‘nights.’ Do I understand that you never see Mr. Anderson except at night?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve never seen him except at night. Always about the same time, sir.”

“What time?”

“Just about midnight, sir.”

“Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?”

“I do, sir.”

“Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?”

“Yes, sir, just after twelve.”

“Was he alone?”

“No, sir; there was another gentleman with him.”

“Remember anything about that other gentleman?”

“Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the other gentleman had grey clothes on.”

“Had grey clothes on. You didn’t see his face?”

“Not to remember it, sir. I don’t remember anything but what I’ve told you, sir.”

“That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr. Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they’d passed through?”

“Straight up the Lane, sir.”

“Do you know where Mr. Anderson’s rooms in the Temple are?”

“Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court.”

“Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your lodge?”

“No, sir.”

“You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple Lane next morning?”

“I did, sir.”

“Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?”

“No, sir, I didn’t. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen who live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the matter any particular thought.”

“Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to come here?”

“No, sir, never, to anybody.”

“And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but Mr. Anderson?”

“No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson.”

The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.

“I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give the explanation he offered a few minutes ago,” he said. “Do you suggest anything?”

“I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination again on his oath,” replied the Counsel. “The matter is in your hands.”

The Coroner turned to Aylmore.

“Do you object to that?” he asked.

Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.

“I object to nothing,” he said in clear tones, “except to being asked to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you like, arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will answer them so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me questions about matters of twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or not as I see fit. And I may as well say that I will take all the consequences of my silence or my speech.”

The Treasury Counsel rose again.

“Very well, Mr. Aylmore,” he said. “I will put certain questions to you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?”

“I did.”

“Was that quite true as regards yourself?”

“Quite true—absolutely true.”

“And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!”

“Equally true.”

“Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these witnesses came on the scene, was not true?”

“No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true.”

“True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on Waterloo Bridge!”

“Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the Anglo-Orient Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly afterwards we parted—I did not say where we parted. I see there is a shorthand writer here who is taking everything down—ask him if that is not exactly what I said?”

A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the Treasury Counsel showed plain annoyance.

“Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open streets after crossing Waterloo Bridge,” he said. “Now—?”

Aylmore smiled.

“I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten any more than I am for your understanding,” he said, with a sneer. “I said what I now repeat—Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge, and shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth.”

“Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely correct, perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did part?”

“I will—willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain Court.”

“Then—to reiterate—it was you who took Marbury into the Temple that night?”

“It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night.”

There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate was fact—solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible course of events which he had not anticipated.

“That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain danger to yourself in making it.”

“I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it.”

“Very good. Why did you not make it before?”

“For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for the purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I asked to be allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as soon as Mr. Lyell had left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am willing to make it now.”

“Make it then.”

“It is simply this,” said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. “I have found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set of chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally—very occasionally, as a rule—go late at night. I also found it convenient, for my own reasons—with which, I think, no one has anything to do—to rent those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my chambers that Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight with which we are dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at the very outside: I parted from him at my outer door, and I understood that he would leave the Temple by the way we had entered and would drive or walk straight back to his hotel. That is the whole truth. I wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told all this at first. I had reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered necessary, that I parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after midnight.”

“What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all this at first?” asked the Treasury Counsel.

“Reasons which are private to me.”

“Will you tell them to the court?”

“No!”

“Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?”

“Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for him for twenty years or more.”

“A document of importance?”

“Of very great importance.”

“He would have it on him when he was—as we believe he was—murdered and robbed?”

“He had it on him when he left me.”

“Will you tell us what it was?”

“Certainly not!”

“In fact, you won’t tell us any more than you choose to tell?”

“I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night.”

“Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told this court?”

“That I shall not answer.”

“Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years ago?”

“I also decline to answer that.”

The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned to the Coroner.

“I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry,” he said quietly.

“For a week,” assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.

The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming— spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all mixed up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily reckoning up the value of the new complexions put on everything by the day’s work, suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found himself gazing at Jessie Aylmore.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SILVER TICKET

With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl aside from the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a quiet by-street. He looked down at her as she stood recovering her breath.

“Yes?” he said quietly.

Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.

“I want to speak to you,” she said. “I must speak to you.”

“Yes,” said Spargo. “But—the others? Your sister?—Breton?”

“I left them on purpose to speak to you,” she answered. “They knew I did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself.”

Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with him.

“Tea,” he said, “is what you want. I know a queer, old-fashioned place close by here where you can get the best China tea in London. Come and have some.”

Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo said nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, his fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had installed himself and his companion in a quiet nook in the old tea-house he had told her of, and had given an order for tea and hot tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him. Then he turned to her.

“You want,” he said, “to talk to me about your father.”

“Yes,” she answered. “I do.”

“Why?” asked Spargo.

The girl gave him a searching look.

“Ronald Breton says you’re the man who’s written all those special articles in the Watchman about the Marbury case,” she answered. “Are you?”

“I am,” said Spargo.

“Then you’re a man of great influence,” she went on. “You can stir the public mind. Mr. Spargo—what are you going to write about my father and today’s proceedings?”

Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He seized, without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake, and bit a great lump out of it.

“Frankly,” he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full, “frankly, I don’t know. I don’t know—yet. But I’ll tell you this—it’s best to be candid—I shouldn’t allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making up my conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?”

Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the unconventionality and brusqueness of his manners.

“I’m not wanting to prejudice or bias you,” she said. “All I want is that you should be very sure before you say—anything.”

“I’ll be sure,” said Spargo. “Don’t bother. Is the tea all right?”

“Beautiful!” she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at her again. “Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!—what did you think about—about what has just happened?”

Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally ornamented with butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy hair. Then he ate more tea-cake and gulped more tea.

“Look here!” he said suddenly. “I’m no great hand at talking. I can write pretty decently when I’ve a good story to tell, but I don’t talk an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I’ve got a pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When I write my article this evening, I’ll get all these things marshalled in proper form, and I shall write clearly about ’em. But I’ll tell you one thing I do think—I wish your father had made a clean breast of things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had told everything when he first went into that box.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because he’s now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion around himself. People’ll think—Heaven knows what they’ll think! They already know that he knows more about Marbury than he’ll tell, that—”

“But does he?” she interrupted quickly. “Do you think he does?”

“Yes!” replied Spargo, with emphasis. “I do. A lot more! If he had only been explicit at first—however, he wasn’t. Now it’s done. As things stand—look here, does it strike you that your father is in a very serious position?”

“Serious?” she exclaimed.

“Dangerous! Here’s the fact—he’s admitted that he took Marbury to his rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning Marbury’s found robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards off!”

“Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of robbing him of whatever he had on him?” she laughed scornfully. “My father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo.”

“May be,” answered Spargo. “But millionaires have been known to murder men who held secrets.”

“Secrets!” she exclaimed.

“Have some more tea,” said Spargo, nodding at the teapot. “Look here—this way it is. The theory that people—some people—will build up (I won’t say that it hasn’t suggested itself to me) is this:—There’s some mystery about the relationship, acquaintanceship, connection, call it what you like, of your father and Marbury twenty odd years ago. Must be. There’s some mystery about your father’s life, twenty odd years ago. Must be—or else he’d have answered those questions. Very well. ‘Ha, ha!’ says the general public. ‘Now we have it!’ ‘Marbury,’ says the general public, ‘was a man who had a hold on Aylmore. He turned up. Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him to preserve his own secret, and robbed him of all he had on him as a blind.’ Eh?”

“You think—people will say that?” she exclaimed.

“Cock-sure! They’re saying it. Heard half a dozen of ’em say it, in more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course, they’ll say it. Why, what else could they say?”

For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then she turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new interest in what remained of the tea-cakes.

“Is that what you’re going to say in your article tonight?” she asked, quietly.

“No!” replied Spargo, promptly. “It isn’t. I’m going to sit on the fence tonight. Besides, the case is sub judice. All I’m going to do is to tell, in my way, what took place at the inquest.”

The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on Spargo’s big fist.

“Is it what you think?” she asked in a low voice.

“Honour bright, no!” exclaimed Spargo. “It isn’t—it isn’t! I don’t think it. I think there’s a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of Marbury’s death, and I think your father knows an enormous lot about Marbury that he won’t tell, but I’m certain sure that he neither killed Marbury nor knows anything whatever about his death. And as I’m out to clear this mystery up, and mean to do it, nothing’ll make me more glad than to clear your father. I say, do have some more tea-cake? We’ll have fresh ones—and fresh tea.”

“No, thank you,” she said smiling. “And thank you for what you’ve just said. I’m going now, Mr. Spargo. You’ve done me good.”

“Oh, rot!” exclaimed Spargo. “Nothing—nothing! I’ve just told you what I’m thinking. You must go?…”

He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood vacantly staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the shoulder. Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.

“All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!” he said. “Well, it’s a pleasant change to squire young ladies after being all day in that court. Look here, are you going to start your writing just now?”

“I’m not going to start my writing as you call it, until after I’ve dined at seven o’clock and given myself time to digest my modest dinner,” answered Spargo. “What is it?”

“Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather box,” said Rathbury. “I’ve got it in my room, and I’d like to examine it for myself. Come on!”

“The thing’s empty,” said Spargo.

“There might be a false bottom in it,” remarked Rathbury. “One never knows. Here, jump into this!”

He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the driver go straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and himself into the drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen him before.

“What d’ye think of today’s doings, Spargo?” he asked, as he proceeded to unlock a cupboard.

“I think,” said Spargo, “that some of you fellows must have had your ears set to tingling.”

“That’s so,” assented Rathbury. “Of course, the next thing’ll be to find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since. When a man won’t tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was exactly doing, what his precise relationship with another man was—why, then, you’ve just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at work on the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already—you bet! Well, now, Spargo, here’s the famous box.”

The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which he had been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the lid and looked inside, measuring the inner capacity against the exterior lines.

“No false bottom in that, Rathbury,” he said. “There’s just the outer leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging stuff, and that’s all. There’s no room for any false bottom or anything of that sort, d’you see?”

Rathbury also sized up the box’s capacity.

“Looks like it,” he said disappointedly. “Well, what about the lid, then? I remember there was an old box like this in my grandmother’s farmhouse, where I was reared—there was a pocket in the lid. Let’s see if there’s anything of the sort here?”

He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a sharp exclamation.

“By George, Spargo!” he said. “I don’t know about any pocket, but there’s something under this lining. Feels like—here, you feel. There—and there.”

Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.

“Yes, that’s so,” he agreed. “Feels like two cards—a large and a small one. And the small one’s harder than the other. Better cut that lining out, Rathbury.”

“That,” remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, “is just what I’m going to do. We’ll cut along this seam.”

He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining of the lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects which he dropped on his blotting pad.

“A child’s photograph,” he said, glancing at one of them. “But what on earth is that?”

The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin, much-worn silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it was what seemed to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost obliterated by rubbing; on the other, similarly worn down by friction, was the figure of a horse.

“That’s a curious object,” remarked Spargo, picking it up. “I never saw anything like that before. What can it be?”

“Don’t know—I never saw anything of the sort either,” said Rathbury. “Some old token, I should say. Now this photo. Ah—you see, the photographer’s name and address have been torn away or broken off—there’s nothing left but just two letters of what’s apparently been the name of the town—see. Er—that’s all there is. Portrait of a baby, eh?”

Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a casual glance at the baby’s portrait. He picked up the silver ticket again and turned it over and over.

“Look here, Rathbury,” he said. “Let me take this silver thing. I know where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.”

“All right,” agreed the detective, “but take the greatest care of it, and don’t tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know. No connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember.”

“Oh, all right,” said Spargo. “Trust me.”

He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office, wondering about this singular find. And when he had written his article that evening, and seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street intent on seeking peculiar information.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MARKET MILCASTER

The haunt of well-informed men which Spargo had in view when he turned out of the Watchman office lay well hidden from ordinary sight and knowledge in one of those Fleet Street courts the like of which is not elsewhere in the world. Only certain folk knew of it. It was, of course, a club; otherwise it would not have been what it was. It is the simplest thing in life, in England, at any rate, to form a club of congenial spirits. You get so many of your choice friends and acquaintances to gather round you; you register yourselves under a name of your own choosing; you take a house and furnish it according to your means and your taste: you comply with the very easy letter of the law, and there you are. Keep within that easy letter, and you can do what you please on your own premises. It is much more agreeable to have a small paradise of your own of this description than to lounge about Fleet Street bars.

The particular club to which Spargo bent his steps was called the Octoneumenoi. Who evolved this extraordinary combination of Latin and Greek was a dark mystery: there it was, however, on a tiny brass plate you once reached the portals. The portals were gained by devious ways. You turned out of Fleet Street by an alley so narrow that it seemed as if you might suddenly find yourself squeezed between the ancient walls. Then you suddenly dived down another alley and found yourself in a small court, with high walls around you and a smell of printer’s ink in your nose and a whirring of printing presses in your ears. You made another dive into a dark entry, much encumbered by bales of paper, crates of printing material, jars of printing ink; after falling over a few of these you struck an ancient flight of stairs and went up past various landings, always travelling in a state of gloom and fear. After a lot of twisting and turning you came to the very top of the house and found it heavily curtained off. You lifted a curtain and found yourself in a small entresol, somewhat artistically painted—the whole and sole work of an artistic member who came one day with a formidable array of lumber and paint-pots and worked his will on the ancient wood. Then you saw the brass plate and its fearful name, and beneath it the formal legal notice that this club was duly registered and so on, and if you were a member you went in, and if you weren’t a member you tinkled an electric bell and asked to see a member—if you knew one.

Spargo was not a member, but he knew many members, and he tinkled the bell, and asked the boy who answered it for Mr. Starkey. Mr. Starkey, a young gentleman with the biceps of a prize-fighter and a head of curly hair that would have done credit to Antinous, came forth in due course and shook Spargo by the hand until his teeth rattled.

“Had we known you were coming,” said Mr. Starkey, “we’d have had a brass band on the stairs.”

“I want to come in,” remarked Spargo.

“Sure!” said Mr. Starkey. “That’s what you’ve come for.”

“Well, stand out of the way, then, and let’s get in,” said Spargo. “Look here,” he continued when they had penetrated into a small vestibule, “doesn’t old Crowfoot turn in here about this time every night?”

The Middle Temple Murder

by J.S. Fletcher

1919

Contents

CHAPTER ONETHE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER

CHAPTER TWOHIS FIRST BRIEF

CHAPTER THREETHE CLUE OF THE CAP

CHAPTER FOURTHE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL

CHAPTER FIVESPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE

CHAPTER SIXWITNESS TO A MEETING

CHAPTER SEVENMR. AYLMORE

CHAPTER EIGHTTHE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT

CHAPTER NINETHE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS

CHAPTER TENTHE LEATHER BOX

CHAPTER ELEVENMR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED

CHAPTER TWELVETHE NEW WITNESS

CHAPTER THIRTEENUNDER SUSPICION

CHAPTER FOURTEENTHE SILVER TICKET

CHAPTER FIFTEENMARKET MILCASTER

CHAPTER ONE
THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER

CHAPTER TWO
HIS FIRST BRIEF

CHAPTER THREE
THE CLUE OF THE CAP

CHAPTER FOUR
THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL

CHAPTER FIVE
SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE

CHAPTER SIX
WITNESS TO A MEETING

CHAPTER SEVEN
MR. AYLMORE

CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT

CHAPTER NINE
THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS

CHAPTER TEN
THE LEATHER BOX

CHAPTER ELEVEN
MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED

CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NEW WITNESS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
UNDER SUSPICION

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SILVER TICKET

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MARKET MILCASTER