CHAPTER ONE
THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
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.