“I’m afraid there won’t be much sleep for me, darling,” said Joan. “Sir Vernon was told today about poor George. He kept asking for him, and in the end Marian had to tell him all about it. Of course it has made him worse. Now, he keeps asking to see the police, and insisting that they must find the murderers. But he knows nothing at all about it—he has no idea who did it. Someone must be with him all the time, of course. Mary is with him now, and I have to take her place at midnight. She is tired out, poor thing.”
“And what about you, poor thing?” said Ellery; for he could see that she was almost at the end of her strength. He drew her head down on to his shoulder, and tried to persuade her to give up the idea of coming to Thomas’s office in the morning. But Joan was firm: she must see the thing through. She would be all right: she could get plenty of sleep later in the day. Ellery had to consent to her coming, and the lovers sat together till midnight, when they bade each other farewell, as lovers do, for all the world as if their parting were, not for a few hours, but for an eternity.
It was getting on for one o’clock when Ellery reached home; and he was surprised as he went up the steps, to see a light in his sitting-room. He let himself in with his key, and found his landlady sitting bolt upright on the hall chair. “Lord, Mr. Ellery,” she said, “how late you are. There’s a person in your room been waiting for you more than an hour. I wouldn’t go to bed with him there—not for worlds, I wouldn’t. He said he must see you, and would wait.”
“What sort of a man?”
“Oh, not a nice man. He looks to me more like a tramp, sir, than anything else. I was afraid he might steal something if I left him.”
Ellery opened the door and went in. He at once recognised the man who had followed Walter Brooklyn on Tuesday from Trafalgar Square to Jermyn Street—one of the witnesses whom the Spaniard had found. The visitor lost no time.
“Look ’ere, mister,” he said, “it’s off.”
“What’s off? What do you mean?”
“What I mean is you don’t catch me givin’ hevidence in this ’ere case. You treated me like a gent, and I thought I’d let you know. But tomorrow I shan’t be there. You gotter understand that.”
“Do you mean you won’t help to clear Mr. Brooklyn? Why, what’s the matter?”
“Well, mister, I may not be what I oughter be—leastways, some folks says I ain’t. But I got views o’ my own as to what’s right, same as others. And I’ve found out a thing or two about this Mr. Brooklyn of yours. He can swing, s’far as I’m concerned.”
“My good fellow, the man’s innocent of this crime, whatever you may know about him. You must say what you know.”
“Not so much ‘good fellow,’ and there’s no ‘must’ about it, mister. That chap deserves hangin’ for things he’s done, and I don’t care if they hangs ’im on the right charge or the wrong ’un. I know a girl what …”
“I don’t mind telling you that I don’t like Mr. Brooklyn any better than you do. But I want to see him cleared. He didn’t commit these murders, I know that.”
“Come, come, mister, why not let ’im hang? What’s it matter to you, anyway? He’d be a good riddance, from what I ’ear of ’im.”
“But you can’t see a man condemned when you know he’s innocent.”
“Why not, mister? I says, Why not? It’s not as if you had any personal interest in the fellow, so to speak.”
“But I have. He’s the stepfather of the girl I’m engaged to marry. She would never get over it if he were convicted.”
The pickpocket’s manner changed from sullenness to interest. “Eh, what’s that you say?” he said. “Nah, if you’d told me that at once, I’m not one to stand between a man and his girl.”
“You’ll come, won’t you?”
The man hesitated. “I don’t say as I won’t,” he said. “But, if I do come, ’twon’t be for any love of your Mr. Brooklyn. I’d see ’im hanged, and glad too, along of what I know.”
“I don’t care why you come, as long as you do come.”
“Well, mister, I’ll come. If yer want to know why, it’s because I’ve took a bit of a fancy to yer. But I’ll ’ave a bit of me own back on that Brooklyn gent, if he gets off bein’ ’ung. I didn’t lift ’is watch off ’im that night; but I will when ’e gets out.”
“Oh, you’re welcome there. Pick his pockets as much as you like.”
“In course yer won’t let on ter the police what I’ve been sayin’. I’ve bin treatin’ yer as if yer was a pal, yer know.”
Ellery promised that his visitor’s calling should be kept a dead secret. Then he gave him a drink and showed him out, after obtaining a renewal of the promise that he would attend in the morning. The man slouched out into the night.
Love did not keep Ellery awake. He was tired, and he slept soundly, only waking in time to snatch a hasty breakfast, and to call for Joan early enough to take her straight round with him to their appointment at Thomas’s office.
XXIII
Walter Brooklyn Goes Free
The business transacted at Thomas’s office that morning was protracted; but the result of it was never in doubt. Thomas had before long to admit that he had been suspecting an innocent man, and that man his own client. At first he was inclined to be incredulous; but, when witness after witness was produced, he had to admit absolutely that Joan and Ellery had proved their case. The testimony of one, or even two,
