“No; I can’t.”
“You can’t suggest an explanation?”
“No,” said Mr. Montmorency, rising slowly and yet in such a way as to suggest a sudden situation, “I can’t. And may I, as a busy man, be excused if I ask you, gentlemen, if you have any demand to make of me in connection with my business. What kind of house would you desire me to get for you, sir?”
He opened his blank blue eyes on Rupert, who seemed for the second staggered. Then he recovered himself with perfect common sense and answered:
“I am sorry, Mr. Montmorency. The fascination of your remarks has unduly delayed us from joining our friend outside. Pray excuse my apparent impertinence.”
“Not at all, sir,” said the house-agent, taking a South American spider idly from his waistcoat pocket and letting it climb up the slope of his desk. “Not at all, sir. I hope you will favour me again.”
Rupert Grant dashed out of the office in a gust of anger, anxious to face Lieutenant Keith. He was gone. The dull, starlit street was deserted.
“What do you say now?” cried Rupert to his brother. His brother said nothing now.
We all three strode down the street in silence, Rupert feverish, myself dazed, Basil, to all appearance, merely dull. We walked through grey street after grey street, turning corners, traversing squares, scarcely meeting anyone, except occasional drunken knots of two or three.
In one small street, however, the knots of two or three began abruptly to thicken into knots of five or six and then into great groups and then into a crowd. The crowd was stirring very slightly. But anyone with a knowledge of the eternal populace knows that if the outside rim of a crowd stirs ever so slightly it means that there is madness in the heart and core of the mob. It soon became evident that something really important had happened in the centre of this excitement. We wormed our way to the front, with the cunning which is known only to cockneys, and once there we soon learned the nature of the difficulty. There had been a brawl concerned with some six men, and one of them lay almost dead on the stones of the street. Of the other four, all interesting matters were, as far as we were concerned, swallowed up in one stupendous fact. One of the four survivors of the brutal and perhaps fatal scuffle was the immaculate Lieutenant Keith, his clothes torn to ribbons, his eyes blazing, blood on his knuckles. One other thing, however, pointed at him in a worse manner. A short sword, or very long knife, had been drawn out of his elegant walking-stick, and lay in front of him upon the stones. It did not, however, appear to be bloody.
The police had already pushed into the centre with their ponderous omnipotence, and even as they did so, Rupert Grant sprang forward with his incontrollable and intolerable secret.
“That is the man, constable,” he shouted, pointing at the battered lieutenant. “He is a suspicious character. He did the murder.”
“There’s been no murder done, sir,” said the policeman, with his automatic civility. “The poor man’s only hurt. I shall only be able to take the names and addresses of the men in the scuffle and have a good eye kept on them.”
“Have a good eye kept on that one,” said Rupert, pale to the lips, and pointing to the ragged Keith.
“All right, sir,” said the policeman unemotionally, and went the round of the people present, collecting the addresses. When he had completed his task the dusk had fallen and most of the people not immediately connected with the examination had gone away. He still found, however, one eager-faced stranger lingering on the outskirts of the affair. It was Rupert Grant.
“Constable,” he said, “I have a very particular reason for asking you a question. Would you mind telling me whether that military fellow who dropped his sword-stick in the row gave you an address or not?”
“Yes, sir,” said the policeman, after a reflective pause; “yes, he gave me his address.”
“My name is Rupert Grant,” said that individual, with some pomp. “I have assisted the police on more than one occasion. I wonder whether you would tell me, as a special favour, what address?”
The constable looked at him.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “if you like. His address is: The Elms, Buxton Common, near Purley, Surrey.”
“Thank you,” said Rupert, and ran home through the gathering night as fast as his legs could carry him, repeating the address to himself.
Rupert Grant generally came down late in a rather lordly way to breakfast; he contrived, I don’t know how, to achieve always the attitude of the indulged younger brother. Next morning, however, when Basil and I came down we found him ready and restless.
“Well,” he said sharply to his brother almost before we sat down to the meal. “What do you think of your Drummond Keith now?”
“What do I think of him?” inquired Basil slowly. “I don’t think anything of him.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Rupert, buttering his toast with an energy that was somewhat exultant. “I thought you’d come round to my view, but I own I was startled at your not seeing it from the beginning. The man is a translucent liar and knave.”
“I think,” said Basil, in the same heavy monotone as before, “that I did not make myself clear. When I said that I thought nothing of him I meant grammatically what I said. I meant that I did not think about him; that he did not occupy my mind. You, however, seem to me to think a lot of him, since you think him a knave. I should say he was glaringly good myself.”
“I sometimes think you talk paradox for its own sake,” said Rupert, breaking an egg with unnecessary sharpness. “What the deuce is the sense of it? Here’s a man whose original position was, by our common agreement,
