“Precisely. Then your friend, the watercolour painter, parted from you at about a quarter-past twelve?”
“It struck the quarter while we were wishing each other good night.”
“Within five minutes’ walk of your lodging. No chance of an alibi here, I fear, Mr. Treverton; unless you met anyone on Hampstead Heath, which, in the middle of the night, was not very likely.”
“I neither met nor spoke to a mortal, except a man at a coffee stall near the Mother Redcap, on my way back.”
“Oh! you talked to a man at a coffee-stall, did you?”
“Yes, I stopped to take a cup of coffee at ten minutes past two. If the same man is to be found there he ought to remember me. He was a loquacious fellow, something of a wag, and we had quite a political discussion. There had been an important division in the House the night before, and my friend at the coffee stall was well posted in his Daily Telegraph.”
Mr. Leopold made a note of the circumstance while John Treverton was talking.
“So far so good. Now we come to another point. Is there anybody whom you suspect as implicated in this murder? Can you trace a motive anywhere for such an act?”
“No,” answered Treverton, decidedly.
“Yet you see the murder must have been done by someone, and that someone must have had a motive. It was not a case of suicide. The medical evidence at the inquest clearly demonstrated that.”
“You remember the inquest?”
“Yes, I was present.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Treverton, surprised.
“Yes, I was there. Now to continue my argument, you as the husband of the victim, must have been familiar with all her surroundings. You must know better than anyone else whether there was anyone connected with her who could have a motive for this crime.”
“I cannot conceive any reason for the act. I cannot suspect any one person more than another.”
“Are you positive that your wife had no valuables in her possession—money, for instance?”
“She spent her money faster than she earned it. We were always in debt. The little jewellery she had ever possessed had been pledged.”
“Are you sure that she had no valuable jewellery in her possession at the time of her death?”
“To my knowledge she had none.”
“That’s curious,” said Mr. Leopold. “I heard a rumour at the time of a diamond necklace, which had been seen round her throat two or three evenings before the murder by the dresser at the theatre. Your wife wore a broad band of black velvet round her neck when she was dressed for the stage, which entirely concealed the diamonds, and it was only by accident the dresser saw them.’
“This must be a fable,” said Treverton. “My wife never possessed a diamond necklace. She was never in a position to buy one.”
“She may have been in a position to receive one as a gift,” suggested Mr. Leopold, quietly.
“She was an honest woman.”
“Granted. Such gifts are given to honest women. Not often, perhaps, but the thing is possible. Her possession of that diamond necklace may have become known to the murderer, and may have tempted him to the crime.”
Treverton was silent. He remembered his wife’s anonymous admirer, the giver of the bracelet. He had dismissed the man from his thoughts after his interview with the jeweller. No other gifts had appeared, and he had felt no further uneasiness on the subject.
“Have you thought of all the people in the house?” asked Mr. Leopold.
John Treverton shrugged his shoulders.
“What can I think about them? No one in the house could have had any motive for murdering my wife.”
“It is pretty clear that the murder was not done by anyone outside the house,” said Mr. Leopold, “unless, indeed, the street door had been left open in the course of the evening, so as to enable the murderer to slip in quietly, and hide himself until everyone had gone to bed. At what time did your wife generally return from the theatre?”
“About twelve o’clock; oftener before twelve than after.”
“The murderer may have followed her into the house. She had a latch key, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“She may have been careless in closing the door, and left it unfastened. It is quite possible that someone may have entered the house after her, and left it quietly when his work was done.”
“Quite,” answered Treverton, with a bitter smile. “But if we do not know who that someone was, the fact won’t help us.”
“How about this man who occupied the second floor—this Desrolles? What is he?”
“A broken-down gentleman,” answered Treverton, with a troubled look.
He had a peculiar reluctance in speaking of Desrolles.
“He could not be anything worse,” said Mr. Leopold, sententiously. “This Desrolles was in the house at the time of the murder. Strange that he should have heard nothing of the struggle.”
“Mrs. Rawber heard nothing, yet she was on the floor below, and was more likely to hear any movement in my wife’s room.”
“I should like to know all you can tell me about Desrolles,” said Mr. Leopold, frowning over his pocketbook.
Honest Tom Sampson sat and listened, open eyed and silent. To him the famous criminal lawyer was as a god, a being made up of wisdom and knowledge.
“I can tell you very little,” answered John Treverton. “I know nothing to his discredit, except that he was poor, and too fond of brandy for his own welfare.”
“I see,” answered Leopold, quickly. “The kind of man who would do anything for money.”
Treverton started. He could not deny that this was in somewise true of Mr. Desrolles, alias Mansfield, alias Malcolm. It horrified him to remember that this man was Laura’s father, and that at any moment the disgrace of that relationship might be made known, should Desrolles’ presence at the police court be insisted upon. Happily Desrolles was on the other side of the Channel, where only the solicitor who received his income knew where to find him.
Mr. Leopold asked a good many more questions, some of
