“Which of the two men do you mean!” interrupted Lord Ellingham. “I may as well say that they had just left me.”
“The clean-shaven man,” answered Viner.
“Whom Mr. Viner knows for a fact,” continued Mr. Pawle, “to have been in Ashton’s company only an hour or so before Ashton’s murder!”
Lord Ellingham looked at Viner in obvious surprise.
“But you do not know who he is?” he exclaimed.
“No,” replied Viner, “I don’t. But there is no doubt of the truth of what Mr. Pawle has just said. This man was certainly with Mr. Ashton at a tavern in Notting Hill from about nine-thirty to ten-thirty on the evening of Ashton’s death. In fact, they left the tavern together.”
The young nobleman suddenly pulled open a drawer in his desk, produced a box of cigarettes and silently offered it to his visitors. He lighted a cigarette himself, and for a moment smoked in silence—it seemed to Viner that his youthful face had grown unusually grave and thoughtful.
“Mr. Pawle,” he said at last, “I’m immensely surprised by what you’ve told me, and all the more so because this is the second surprise I’ve had this afternoon. I may as well tell you that the two gentlemen whom you saw going away just now brought me some very astonishing news—yours comes right on top of it! And, if you please, I’d rather not say any more about it, just now, but I’m going to make a proposal to you. Will you—and Mr. Viner, if he’ll be so good—meet me tomorrow morning, say at noon, at my solicitors’ offices?”
“With pleasure!” responded Mr. Pawle. “Your lordship’s solicitors are—”
“Carless and Driver, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” answered Lord Ellingham.
“Friends of ours,” said Mr. Pawle. “We will meet your lordship there at twelve o’clock to the minute.”
“And—you’ll bring that with you?” suggested Lord Ellingham, pointing to the packet of letters which Mr. Pawle held in his hand.
“Just so, my lord,” assented Mr. Pawle. “And we’ll be ready to tell all we know—for there are further details.”
Outside the house the old lawyer gripped Viner’s elbow.
“That boy knows something!” he said with a meaning smile. “He’s astute enough for his age—smart youngster! But—what does he know? Those two men have told him something. Viner, we must find out who that clean-shaven man is. I have some idea that I have seen him before—I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s a solicitor, may have seen him in some court or other. But in that case I wonder he didn’t recognize me.”
“He didn’t look at you,” replied Viner. “He and the other man were too much absorbed in whatever it was they were talking about. I have been wondering since I first saw him at the tavern,” he continued, “if I ought not to tell the police what I know about him—I mean, that he was certainly in Ashton’s company on the evening of the murder. What do you think?”
“I think not, at present,” replied Mr. Pawle. “It seems evident—unless, indeed, it was all a piece of bluff, and it may have been—that this man is, or was when you saw him, just as ignorant as the landlord of that place was that the man who used to drop in there and Ashton were one and the same person. No, let the police go on their own lines—we’re on others. We shall hear of this man again, whoever he is. Now I must get back to my office—come there at half-past eleven tomorrow morning, Viner, and we’ll go on to Carless and Driver’s.”
Viner went thoughtfully homeward, ruminating over the events of the day, and entered his house to find his two guests, the sisters of the unlucky Hyde, in floods of tears, and Miss Penkridge looking unusually grave. The elder Miss Hyde sprang up at sight of him and held a tear-soaked handkerchief towards him in pantomimic appeal.
“Oh, Mr. Viner,” she exclaimed, “you are so kind, and so clever. I’m sure you’ll see a way out of this! It looks, oh, so very black, and so very much against him; but oh, dear Mr. Viner, there must be some explanation!”
“But what is it?” asked Viner, looking from one to the other. “What has happened! Has anyone been here?”
Miss Penkridge silently handed to her nephew an early edition of one of the evening newspapers and pointed to a paragraph in large type. And Viner rapidly read it over, to the accompaniment of the younger Miss Hyde’s sobs.
A sensational discovery in connection with the recent murder of Mr. Ashton in Lonsdale Passage, Bayswater, was made in the early hours of this morning. Charles Fisher, a greengrocer, carrying on business in the Harrow Road, found in his woodshed, concealed in a nook in the wall, a parcel containing Mr. Ashton’s gold watch and chain and a diamond ring. He immediately communicated with the police, and these valuables are now in their possession. It will be remembered that Langton Hyde, the young actor who is charged with the crime, and who is now on remand, stated at the coroner’s inquest that he passed the night on which the crime was committed in a shed in this neighbourhood.
Viner read this news twice over. Then a sudden idea occurred to him, and he turned to leave the room.
“I don’t think you need be particularly alarmed about this,” he said to the weeping sisters. “Cheer up, till I return—I am going round to the police.”
XVI
The Outhouse
Near the police-station Viner fell in with his solicitor, Felpham, who turned a corner in a great hurry. Felpham’s first glance showed his client that their purposes were in common.
“Seen that paragraph in the evening papers?” said Felpham without preface. “By George! that’s serious news! What a pity that Hyde ever made that statement about his doings on the night of the murder! It would have been far better if
