Alcorn mechanically noted these details, but it was not on them that his attention was first concentrated. Before the safe lay the body of a man, hunched forward in a heap, as if he had collapsed when stooping to take something out. Though the face was hidden, there was that in the attitude which left no doubt that he was dead. And the cause of death was equally obvious. On the back of the bald head, just above the fringe of white hair, was an ugly wound, as if from a blow of some blunt but heavy weapon.
With an oath, Alcorn stepped forward and touched the cheek.
“Cold,” he exclaimed. “He must have been dead some time. When did you find him?”
“Just now,” the young man answered. “I came in for a book, and found him lying there. I ran for help at once.”
The constable nodded.
“We’d best have a doctor anyway,” he decided. A telephone stood on the top of the desk, and he called up his headquarters, asking that an officer and a doctor be sent at once. Then he turned to his companion.
“Now, sir, what’s all this about? Who are you, and how do you come to be here?”
The young man, though obviously agitated and ill at ease, answered collectedly enough.
“My name is Orchard, William Orchard, and I am a clerk in this office—Duke & Peabody’s, diamond merchants. As I have just said, I called in for a book I had forgotten, and I found—what you see.”
“And what did you do?”
“Do? I did what anyone else would have done in the same circumstances. I looked to see if Mr. Gething was dead, and when I saw he was I didn’t touch the body, but ran for help. You were the first person I saw.”
“Mr. Gething?” the constable repeated sharply. “Then you know the dead man?”
“Yes. It is Mr. Gething, our head clerk.”
“What about the safe? Is there anything missing from that?”
“I don’t know,” the young man answered. “I believe there were a lot of diamonds in it, but I don’t know what amount, and I’ve not looked what’s there now.”
“Who would know about it?”
“I don’t suppose anyone but Mr. Duke, now Mr. Gething’s dead. He’s the chief, the only partner I’ve ever seen.”
Constable Alcorn paused, evidently at a loss as to his next move. Finally, following precedent, he took a somewhat dog’s-eared notebook from his pocket, and with a stumpy pencil began to note the particulars he had gleaned.
“Gething, you say the dead man’s name was? What was his first name?”
“Charles.”
“Charles Gething, deceased,” the constable repeated presently, evidently reading his entry. “Yes. And his address?”
“12 Monkton Street, Fulham.”
“Twelve—Monkton—Street—Fulham. Yes. And your name is William Orchard?”
Slowly the tedious catechism proceeded. The two men formed a contrast. Alcorn calm and matter of fact, though breathing heavily from the effort of writing, was concerned only with making a satisfactory statement for his superior. His informant, on the other hand, was quivering with suppressed excitement, and acutely conscious of the silent and motionless form on the floor. Poor old Gething! A kindly old fellow, if ever there was one! It seemed a shame to let his body lie there in that shapeless heap, without showing even the respect of covering the injured head with a handkerchief. But the matter was out of his hands. The police would follow their own methods, and he, Orchard, could not interfere.
Some ten minutes passed of question, answer, and laborious caligraphy, then voices and steps were heard on the stairs, and four men entered the room.
“What’s all this, Alcorn?” cried the first, a stout, clean-shaven man with the obvious stamp of authority, in the same phrase that his subordinate had used to the clerk, Orchard. He had stepped just inside the door, and stood looking sharply round the room, his glance passing from the constable to the body, to the open safe, with inimical interest to the young clerk, and back again to Alcorn.
The constable stiffened to attention, and replied in a stolid, unemotional tone, as if reciting formal evidence in court.
“I was on my beat, sir, and at about ten-fifteen was just turning the corner from Charles Street into Hatton Garden, when I observed this young man,” he indicated Orchard with a gesture, “run out of the door of this house. He called me that there was something wrong up here, and I came up to see, and found that body lying as you see it. Nothing has been touched, but I have got some information here for you.” He held up the notebook.
The newcomer nodded and turned to one of his companions, a tall man with the unmistakable stamp of the medical practitioner.
“If you can satisfy yourself the man’s dead, Doctor, I don’t think we shall disturb the body in the meantime. It’ll probably be a case for the Yard, and if so we’ll leave everything for whoever they send.”
The doctor crossed the room and knelt by the remains.
“He’s dead all right,” he announced, “and not so long ago either. If I could turn the body over I could tell you more about that. But I’ll leave it if you like.”
“Yes, leave it for the moment, if you please. Now, Alcorn, what else do you know?”
A few seconds sufficed to put the constable’s information at his superior’s disposal. The latter turned to the doctor.
“There’s more than murder here, Dr. Jordan, I’ll be bound. That safe is the key to the affair. Thank the Lord, it’ll be a job for the Yard. I shall phone them now, and there should be a man here in half an hour. Sorry, Doctor, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.” He turned to Orchard. “You’ll have to wait, too, young man, but the Yard inspector probably won’t keep you long. Now, what about this old man’s family? Was he married?”
“Yes, but his wife is an invalid, bedridden. He has two daughters. One lives at home
