This sudden and surprising revelation, made in ordinary matter-of-fact tones, produced different effects on the two people to whom it was made. Viner, after a start and a smothered exclamation, stared silently at Drillford as if he scarcely comprehended his meaning. But Miss Wickham, with a quick flush which evidently denoted suddenly-awakened recollection, broke into words.
“Dr. Cortelyon!” she exclaimed. “Ah—I remember now. Mr. Ashton once told me, in quite a casual way as we were passing through the square, that he had known Dr. Cortelyon in Australia, years and years ago!”
Drillford glanced at Viner and smiled.
“I wish you’d remembered that little matter before, Miss Wickham!” he said. “It might have saved a lot of trouble. Well—Cortelyon’s the man! And it all came about quite suddenly, this afternoon. Through your aunt, Mr. Viner—Miss Penkridge. Smart lady, sir!”
“My aunt!” exclaimed Viner. “Why, how on earth—”
“Some of your gentlemen had a conference with that fellow Cave at your house, after you left court this morning,” said Drillford. “Miss Penkridge was present. Cave told more of his cock-and-bull story, and produced a certain letter which he said had been handed to him at the hotel he’d put up at. All that, and all the stuff he told at the police-court, was bluff—carefully concocted by himself and Cortelyon in case Cave was ever put in a tight corner. Now, according to what she tells me, Miss Penkridge immediately spotted something about that letter which none of you gentlemen were clever enough to see—”
“I know!” interrupted Viner. “She saw that the envelope and paper had been supplied by Bigglesforth, of Craven Gardens, and that a certain letter in the typewriter which had been used was defective.”
“Just so,” laughed Drillford, “and so, being, as I say, a smart woman, she went round to Bigglesforth, got him to herself, and made some inquiries. And—it’s very queer, Mr. Viner, how some of these apparently intricate cases are easily solved by one chance discovery!—she hadn’t been talking to Bigglesforth ten minutes before she was on the right track. Bigglesforth, when he’d got to know the main features of the case, was willing enough to help, and your aunt immediately brought him round here to see me. And I knew at once that we’d got right there!”
“Yes—but how, exactly?” asked Viner.
“Bigglesforth,” answered Drillford, “told me that he’d supplied stationery to Dr. Cortelyon for some time, and he’d no doubt that the paper and envelope described by Miss Penkridge was some which he’d specially secured for the Doctor. But he told something far more important: Six months ago Cortelyon went to Bigglesforth and asked him if he could get him a good secondhand typewriter. Now, Bigglesforth had a very good one for which he’d no use, and he at once sold it to Cortelyon. Bigglesforth didn’t mention the matter to his customer, for the machine was perfect in all other respects, but one of the letters was defective—broken. That was the same letter, Mr. Viner, which was defective in the document which Cave showed to you gentlemen and spoke of previously in court!”
“Extraordinary!” muttered Viner. “What a piece of luck!”
“No, sir!” said Drillford, stoutly. “No luck at all—just a bit of good commonsense thinking on the part of a shrewd woman. But you’ll want to know what we did. I was so absolutely certain of the truth of Miss Penkridge’s theory that I immediately made preparations for a descent on Cortelyon’s house. I got a number of our best men—detectives, of course—and we went round to Markendale Square, back and front. Inquiry showed that Cortelyon was out, but we’d scarcely got that fact ascertained when he drove up in a taxicab with Cave himself. They hurriedly entered the house—I myself was watching from a good point of vantage, and I saw that both men were, to say the least, anxious and excited. Then I began to make final preparations. But before I’d finished telling my men exactly what to do, another party drove up—your companion, Miss Wickham, Mrs. Killenhall. She too entered. Then I moved—quick. Some of us went to the front—I with the others went in by the back. We made straight for Cortelyon’s surgery, and we were on him and the other two before they’d time to move, literally. The two men certainly tried to draw revolvers, but we were too many for ’em, and as they’d tried that game, I had ’em handcuffed there and then. It was all an affair of a moment—and of course, they saw it was all up. Now, equally of course, Mr. Viner, in all these cases, in my experience, the subordinates immediately try to save their own skins by denouncing the principal, and it was so in this instance. Mrs. Killenhall and Cave at once denounced Cortelyon as the mainspring, and the woman, who’s a regular coward, got me aside and offered to turn King’s evidence, and whispered that Cortelyon actually killed Ashton himself, unaided, as he let him out of his back door into Lonsdale Passage!”
“So—that’s settled!” exclaimed Viner.
“Yes, I think so,” agreed Drillford. “Well, we brought ’em all here, and charged ’em, and examined ’em. Nothing much on Cave, who, of course, is precisely what Hyde said he was—a man named Nugent Starr, an old actor—if he was as good a performer on the stage as he is in private life, he ought to have done well. But on Mrs. Killenhall we found ten thousand pounds in Bank of England notes, and one or two letters from Cortelyon, which she was a fool for keeping, for they clearly prove that she was an accessory. And on Cortelyon we’d a big find! That diamond that Ashton used to carry about, the other ring that Ashton was wearing when he was murdered, and—perhaps most important of all—certain papers which he’d no doubt taken from Ashton’s body.”
“What are they?” demanded Viner.
Drillford glanced at Miss Wickham.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve only just had time to glance at them,
