The two men occupied a table set against the wall, not far from the
entrance to the restaurant, and throughout the progress of the earlier
part of their meal were able to watch the constant incoming stream of
their fellow-guests. They were, in their way, an interesting contrast
physically, neither of them good-looking according to ordinary
standards, but both with many pleasant characteristics. Andrew Wilmore,
slight and dark, with sallow cheeks and brown eyes, looked very much
what he was--a moderately successful journalist and writer of stories,
a keen golfer, a bachelor who preferred a pipe to cigars, and lived
at Richmond because he could not find a flat in London which he could
afford, large enough for his somewhat expansive habits. Francis Ledsam
was of a sturdier type, with features perhaps better known to the world
owing to the constant activities of the cartoonist. His reputation
during the last few years had carried him, notwithstanding his
comparative youth--he was only thirty-five years of age--into the very
front ranks of his profession, and his income was one of which men spoke
with bated breath. He came of a family of landed proprietors, whose
younger sons for generations had drifted always either to the Bar or the
Law, and his name was well known in the purlieus of Lincoln's Inn
before he himself had made it famous. He was a persistent refuser
of invitations, and his acquaintances in the fashionable world were
comparatively few. Yet every now and then he felt a mild interest in the
people whom his companion assiduously pointed out to him.
“A fashionable restaurant, Francis, is rather like your Law Courts--it
levels people up,” the latter remarked. “Louis, the head-waiter, is the
judge, and the position allotted in the room is the sentence. I wonder
who is going to have the little table next but one to us. Some favoured
person, evidently.”
Francis glanced in the direction indicated without curiosity. The
table in question was laid for two and was distinguished by a wonderful
cluster of red roses.
“Why is it,” the novelist continued speculatively, “that, whenever we
take another man's wife out, we think it necessary to order red roses?”
“And why is it,” Francis queried, a little grimly, “that a dear fellow
like you, Andrew, believes it his duty to talk of trifles for his pal's
sake, when all the time he is thinking of something else? I know you're
dying to talk about the Hilditch case, aren't you? Well, go ahead.”
“I'm only interested in this last development,” Wilmore confessed.
“Of course, I read the newspaper reports. To tell you the truth, for a
murder trial it seemed to me to rather lack colour.”
“It was a very simple and straightforward case,” Francis said slowly.
“Oliver Hilditch is the principal partner in an American financial
company which has recently opened offices in the West End. He seems to
have arrived in England about two years ago, to have taken a house in
Hill Street, and to have spent a great deal of money. A month or so ago,
his partner from New York arrived in London, a man named Jordan of whom
nothing was known. It has since transpired, however, that his journey
to Europe was undertaken because he was unable to obtain certain figures
relating to the business, from Hilditch. Oliver Hilditch met him at
Southampton, travelled with him to London and found him a room at the
Savoy. The next day, the whole of the time seems to have been spent in
the office, and it is certain, from the evidence of the clerk, that
some disagreement took place between the two men. They dined together,
however, apparently on good terms, at the Cafe Royal, and parted in
Regent Street soon after ten. At twelve o'clock, Jordan's body was
picked up on the pavement in Hill Street, within a few paces of
Heidrich's door. He had been stabbed through the heart with some
needle-like weapon, and was quite dead.”
“Was there any vital cause of quarrel between them?” Wilmore enquired.
“Impossible to say,” Francis replied. “The financial position of
the company depends entirely upon the value of a large quantity of
speculative bonds, but as there was only one clerk employed, it was
impossible to get at any figures. Hilditch declared that Jordan had only
a small share in the business, from which he had drawn a considerable
income for years, and that he had not the slightest cause for
complaint.”
“What were Hilditch's movements that evening?” Wilmore asked.
“Not a soul seems to have seen him after he left Regent Street,” was the
somewhat puzzled answer. “His own story was quite straightforward
and has never been contradicted. He let himself into his house with a
latch-key after his return from the Cafe Royal, drank a whisky and
soda in the library, and went to bed before half-past eleven. The whole
affair--”
Francis broke off abruptly in the middle of his sentence. He sat with
his eyes fixed upon the door, silent and speechless.
“What in Heaven's name is the matter, old fellow?” Wilmore demanded,
gazing at his companion in blank amazement.
The latter pulled himself together with an effort. The sight of the two
new arrivals talking to Louis on the threshold of the restaurant, seemed
for the moment to have drawn every scrap of colour from his cheeks.
Nevertheless, his recovery was almost instantaneous.
“If you want to know any more,” he said calmly, “you had better go and
ask him to tell you the whole story himself. There he is.”
“And the woman with him?” Wilmore exclaimed under his breath.
“His wife!”