One is enough!”
“I feel sure you are right,” said Sir Richard.
“You know, sir, I must ask you some questions about this extraordinary affair!” said Philips, recollecting his errand.
“So you shall, sir, so you shall. Would you like to ask them now, or after you have disposed of the body?”
“I shall first repair to the scene of the murder,” declared Philips.
“Good!” said Sir Richard. “I will engage to have the punch ready against your return.”
Mr Philips felt that this casual way of treating the affair was quite out of order, but the prospect of returning to a bowl of hot rum punch was so agreeable that he decided to overlook any trifling irregularity. When he returned to the inn, half an hour later, he was feeling chilled, for it was now past midnight and he had not taken his overcoat with him. Sir Richard had caused a fire to be kindled in the wainscoted parlour, and from the bowl on the table, which he was stirring with a long-handled spoon, there arose a very fragrant and comforting aroma. Mr Philips rubbed his hands together, and could not refrain from ejaculating: “Ha!”
Sir Richard looked up, and smiled. His smile had won more hearts than Mr Philips’, and it had a visible effect on that gentleman.
“Well, well, well! I won’t deny that’s a very welcome smell, Sir Richard! A fire, too! Upon my word, I’m glad to see it! Gets chilly at night, very chilly! A bad business, sir! a very bad business!”
Sir Richard ladled the steaming brew into two glasses, and gave one to the magistrate. “Draw up a chair to the fire, Mr Philips. It is, as you say, a very bad business. I should tell you that I am intimately acquainted with the family of the deceased.”
Mr Philips fished Sir Richard’s note out of his pocket. “Yes, yes, just as I supposed, sir. I do not know how you would otherwise have furnished me with the poor man’s name. You know him, in fact. Precisely! He was travelling in your company, perhaps?”
“No,” said Sir Richard, taking a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. “He was staying with a friend who lives in the neighbourhood. The name was, I think, Luttrell.”
“Indeed! This becomes more and more—But pray continue, sir! You were not, then, together?”
“No, nothing of the sort. I came into the west country in family affairs. I need not burden you with them, I think.”
“Quite, quite! Family affairs: yes! Go on, sir! How came you to discover Mr Brandon’s body?”
“Oh, by accident! But it will be better, perhaps, if I recount my share in this affair from its start.”
“Certainly! Yes! Pray do so, sir! This is a remarkably good bowl of punch, I may say.”
“I am generally thought to have something of a knack with a punch bowl,” bowed Sir Richard. “To go back, then, to the start! You have no doubt heard, Mr Philips, of the Brandon diamonds?”
From the startled expression in the magistrate’s eyes, and the slight dropping of his jaw, it was apparent that he had not. He said: “Diamonds? Really, I fear—No, I must confess that I had not heard of the Brandon diamonds.”
“Then, I should explain that they make up a certain famous necklace, worth, I dare say, anything you like.”
“Upon my word! An heirloom! Yes, yes, but in what way—”
“While on my way to Bristol with a young relative of mine, a slight accident befell our coach, and we were forced to put up for the night at a small inn near Wroxhall. There, sir, I encountered an individual who seemed to me—but I am not very well-versed in these matters—a somewhat questionable character. How questionable I did not know until the following morning, when a Bow Street Runner arrived at the inn.”
“Good God, sir! This is the most—But I interrupt you!”
“Not at all,” said Sir Richard politely. “I left the inn while the Runner was interrogating this individual. It was not until my young cousin and I had proceeded some way on our journey that I discovered in my pocket a purse containing the Brandon necklace.”
The magistrate sat bolt upright in his chair. “You amaze me, sir! You astonish me! The necklace in your pocket? Really, I do not know what to say!”
“No,” agreed Sir Richard, rising and refilling his guest’s glass. “I was rather taken aback myself. In fact, it was some time before I could think how it came to be there.”
“No wonder, no wonder! Most understandable, indeed! You recognized the necklace?”
“Yes,” said Sir Richard, returning to his chair. “I recognized it, but—really, I am amazed at my own stupidity!—I did not immediately connect it with the individual encountered near Wroxhall. The question was then not so much how it came, to be in my possession, as how to restore it to Lord Saar with the least possible delay. I could picture Lady Saar’s dismay at such an irreparable loss! Ah—a lady of exquisite sensibility, you understand!”
The magistrate nodded his comprehension. The rum punch was warming him quite as much as the fire, and he had a not unpleasant sensation of mixing with exalted persons.
“Happily—or perhaps I should say, in the light of future events,
The magistrate set down his glass. “You gave the necklace to him? Did he know that it had been stolen?”
“By no means. He was as astonished as I was, but engaged himself to restore it immediately to his father. I considered the matter satisfactorily settled—Saar, you know, having the greatest dislike of any kind of notoriety, such as must accrue from the theft, and the subsequent proceedings.”
“Sir!” said Mr Philips, “do you mean to imply that this unfortunate young man was murdered for the sake of the necklace?”
“That,” said Sir Richard, “is what I fear may have happened.”
“But this is shocking! Upon my word, sir, I am quite dumbfounded!—what—who can have known that the necklace was in his possession?”
“I should have said that no one could have known it, but, upon consideration, I imagine that the individual who hid it in my pocket may well have followed me to this place, waiting for an opportunity to get it back into his possession.”
“True! very true! You have been spied upon! Yet you have not seen that man in Queen Charlton?”
“Do you think he would—er—let me see him?” enquired Sir Richard, evading this question.
“No. No, indeed! Certainly not! But this must be looked to!”
“Yes,” agreed Sir Richard, pensively swinging his eyeglass on the end of its ribbon. “And I think you might, with advantage, look to the sudden disappearance from this inn of a flashy person calling himself Captain Trimble, Mr Philips.”
“Really, sir! This becomes more and more—Pray, what reason have you for supposing that this man may be implicated in the murder?”
“Well,” said Sir Richard slowly, “some chance words which I let fall on the subject of—ah—waistcoats, sent Captain Trimble off hot-foot to Bristol.”
The magistrate blinked, and directed an accusing glance towards his half-empty glass. A horrid suspicion that the rum punch had affected his understanding was dispelled, however, by Sir Richard’s next words.
“My acquaintance at the inn near Wroxhall wore a catskin waistcoat. A casual reference to this circumstance had the surprising effect of arousing the Captain’s curiosity. He asked me in what direction the man in the catskin waistcoat had been travelling, and upon my saying that I believed him to be bound for Bristol, he left the inn—er— incontinent.”
“I see! yes, yes, I see! An accomplice!”
“My own feeling,” said Sir Richard, “is that he was an accomplice who had been—er—bubbled.”
The magistrate appeared to be much struck by this. “Yes! I see it all! Good God, this is a terrible affair! I have never been called upon to—But you say this Captain Trimble went off to Bristol, sir?”
“He did. But I have since learned, Mr Philips, that he was back at this inn at six o’clock this evening. Ah! I should, I see, say
