"No; I heard nothing but the rustle, as I told you. But it may have been the wind, or my fear."

"Did you catch a glimpse of the person in the room-whoever it was-when you were caught by the throat?"

"No. I only felt the hand. It was quite dark, and I could see nothing."

"You are quite sure this happened to you? You are sure it is not imagination?"

"Oh, no, it was too terribly real."

"Did you observe anything about the revolver when you picked it up?" said Merrington after a pause.

"No, except that it was bright and shining."

"Nor when you placed it in your dress to carry it downstairs?"

"I do not know anything about fire-arms. When I got downstairs I locked it away as quickly as I could."

"So you picked up a revolver which had just been fired, without noticing whether the barrel was hot or cold. Is that what you wish me to believe?"

"I picked it up by the handle. I seem to remember now that it was warm, but I cannot be sure. I hardly knew what I was doing at the time."

Her confusion was so evident that Merrington did not think it worth while to pursue the point.

"If your story is true, why have you not told it before?" he said. "If you are merely the unfortunate victim of circ.u.mstances that you claim to be, why did you not announce your innocence when I was questioning you at the moat-house on the day after the murder?"

The girl hesitated perceptibly before answering the question.

"Perhaps I might have done so but for your recognition of my mother," she said at length, in a low tone.

"I fail to see how that affected your own position."

"It seemed to me then that it did," she responded in a firmer tone. "I knew that my story sounded improbable, but after learning what you knew about my mother it seemed to me that you would be even less likely to believe me, so I thought the best thing I could do was to keep silence, and trust to the truth coming to light in some other way."

The recollection of the incidents of his visit to the moat-house came thronging into Merrington's mind at this reply.

"Did you see your mother when you got downstairs on the night of the murder?" he asked.

"Not at first. She came in afterwards."

"How long afterwards?"

The girl, struck by a new note in his voice, looked at him with horror in her widened eyes.

"I understand what you mean," she replied, "but you are wrong-quite wrong. My mother knows nothing whatever about it. She did not even know that I had been upstairs. She is as innocent as I am."

"That does not carry us very far," said Merrington coldly, rising to his feet and touching a bell in front of him. "I do not believe you have told all."

CHAPTER XXIV

Strong in his conviction that the story of Hazel Rath was largely the product of an hysterical imagination, Merrington dismissed it from his mind and devoted all his energies to the search for Nepcote. The task looked a difficult one, but Merrington did not despair of accomplishing it before the day came round for the adjourned hearing of the charge against the girl. He knew that it was a difficult matter for a wanted man to remain uncaptured in a civilized community for any length of time if the pursuit was determined enough, and in this instance the military police were a.s.sisting the criminal authorities.

Merrington's own plans for Nepcote's capture were based on the belief that he had not the means to get away from London unless the Heredith necklace was still in his possession. As that seemed likely enough, Nepcote's description was circulated among the p.a.w.n-brokers and jewellers, with a request that anyone offering the necklace should be detained until a policeman could be called in. He also had Nepcote's former haunts watched in case the young man endeavoured to approach any of his friends or acquaintances for a loan. Having taken these steps in the hope of starving Nepcote into surrender if he was not caught in the meantime, Merrington next directed the resources at his command to putting London through a fine-tooth comb, as he expressed it, in the effort to get hold of his man.

But it was to chance that he owed his first indication of Nepcote's movements since his disappearance. He was dictating official correspondence in his private room at Scotland Yard three days after his visit to Lewes, when a subordinate officer entered to say that a man had called who wished to see somebody in authority. It was Merrington's custom to interview callers who visited Scotland Yard on mysterious errands which they refused to disclose in the outer office. The information he received from such sources more than compensated for the occasional intrusion of criminals with grudges or bores with public grievances.

The man who followed the janitor into the room was neither the one nor the other, but a weazened white-faced Londoner, with a shrewd eye and the false, cringing smile of a small shopkeeper. He explained in the strident vernacular of the c.o.c.kney that his name was Henry Hobbs-"Enery Obbs" was his own version of it-and he kept a p.a.w.nbroker's shop in the Caledonian Road. It was his intention to have called at Scotland Yard earlier, he explained, but his arrangements had been upset by a domestic event in his own household.

"They've kep' me runnin' about ever since it happened," he added, bestowing a wink of subtle meaning upon the pretty typist who had been taking Merrington's correspondence. "The ladies-bless their 'earts-always make a fuss over a little one."

"When it is legitimate," Merrington gruffly corrected. "Miss Benson," he said, turning to the typist, who sat in a state of suspended animation over the typewriter at the word where he had left off dictating, "you can leave me for a little while and come back later. Now my man," he went on, as the door closed behind her, "I've no time to waste discussing babies. Tell me the object of your visit."

The little man stood his ground with the imperturbable a.s.surance of the c.o.c.kney.

"We thought of calling it Victory 'Aig. Victory, because our London lads seem likely to finish off the war in double-quick time, and 'Aig after our commander, good old Duggie 'Aig, whose name is every bit good enough for my baby. What do you think? Don't get your 'air off, guv'nor," Mr. Hobbs hastily protested, in some alarm at the expression of Merrington's face, "I'm coming to it fast enough, but my head is so full of this here kiddy that I hardly know whether I'm standing on my 'ead or my 'eels. It's like this 'ere: a few days ago there was a young man come into my shop to p.a.w.n his weskit. I lent him arf-a-crown on it and he goes away. But, yesterday afternoon he comes back to p.a.w.n, a little pencil-case, on which I lends him a shilling. Now, I shouldn't be surprised if this young man wasn't the young man we was warned to look out for as likely to offer a pearl necklace."

"What makes you think so?"

"By the description. I didn't notice him much at first, but I did the second time, perhaps because I'd just been reading over the 'andbill before he come in. He looks a bit the worse for wear since it was drawn up-hadn't been shaved and seemed down on his luck-but I should say it was the same man, even to the bits of grey on the temples. Bin a bit of a dandy and a gentleman before he run to seed, I should say."

"What makes you think that?" asked Merrington, who had scant belief in the theory that gentility has a hallmark of its own.

"Not his white hands-they're nothing to go by. It was his clothes. I was a tailor in Windmill Street before I went in for p.a.w.nbroking, and I know. This chap's suit hadn't been 'acked out in the City or in one of those places in Cheapside where they put notices in the window to say that the foreman cutter is the only man in the street who gets twelve quid a week. They hadn't come from Crouch End, neither. They was first-cla.s.s West End garments. It's the same with clothes as it is with thoroughbred hosses and women-you can always tell them, no matter how they've come down in the world. And it's like that with boots too. This chap's boots hadn't been cleaned for days, but they were boots, and not holes to put your feet into, like most people wear."

"You made no effort to detain him?"

"How could I? He didn't offer the necklace, or say anything about jewels, so I had no reason for stopping him. I could see 'e was as nervous as a lady the whole time he was in the shop, so before I gave him a shilling for his pencil I marked it with a cross as something to 'elp the police get on his tracks in case he is the man you're after. When he left I went to my door to see if there was a policeman in sight, but of course there wasn't. I doubt if he'd have got him, though. He was off like a shot as soon as he got the shilling-down a side street and then up another, going towards King's Cross. Here's the pencil-case he p.a.w.ned. I didn't bring the weskit, but you can 'ave it if it's any good to you."

Merrington glanced carelessly at the little silver pencil-case, and after asking the p.a.w.nbroker a few questions he permitted him to depart. Then he touched his bell and sent for Detective Caldew.

Half an hour later Caldew emerged from his chief's room in possession of the p.a.w.nbroker's story, with the addition of as much authoritative counsel as the mind of Merrington could suggest for its investigation. Caldew did not relish the task of following up the slender clue. He had not been impressed by the relation of Mr. Hobbs' supposed recognition of Nepcote, although as a detective he was aware that unlikely statements were sometimes followed by important results. But the element of luck entered largely into the elucidation of chance testimony. There were some men in Scotland Yard who could turn a seeming fairy tale into a startling fact, but there were others who failed when the probabilities were stronger. Caldew accounted himself one of these unlucky ones.

But luck was with him that day. At least, it seemed so to him that evening, as he returned to Holborn after a long and trying afternoon spent in the squalid streets and slums of St Pancras and Islington. The G.o.ddess of Chance, bestowing her favours with true feminine caprice, had taken it into her wanton head, at the last moment, to accomplish for him the seemingly impossible feat of tracing the p.a.w.nbroker's marked shilling, through various dirty hands, to the pocket of the man who had p.a.w.ned the pencil-case. Whether she would grant him the last favour of all, by enabling him to prove whether this man and Nepcote were identical, was a point Caldew intended to put to the proof that night.

Caldew was in high good humour with himself at such a successful day's work, and he alighted from the tram with the intention of pa.s.sing a couple of hours pleasantly by treating himself to a little dinner in town before returning to Islington to complete his investigations. He wandered along from New Oxford Street to Charing Cross by way of Soho, scanning the restaurant menus as he pa.s.sed with the indecisive air of a poor man unused to the privilege of paying high rates for bad food in strange surroundings.

The foreign smells and greasy messes of Old Compton Street repelled his English appet.i.te, and he did not care to mingle with the herds of suburban dwellers who were celebrating the fact that they were alive by making uncouth merriment over three-and-sixpenny tables d'hotes and crude Burgundy and Chianti in the cheap glitter of Wardour Street. As a disciplined husband and father, Caldew's purse did not permit of his going further West for his refection, so when he reached Charing Cross he turned his face in the direction of Fleet Street. He had almost made up his mind in favour of a small English eating-house half-way down the Strand, when he encountered Colwyn.

The private detective was wearing a worn tweed-suit and soft hat, which had the effect of making a considerable alteration in his appearance. He was about to enter the eating-house, but stopped at the sight of Caldew looking in the window, and advanced to shake hands with him.

"Thinking of dining here, Caldew?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Caldew. "It seems a quiet place."

"It certainly has that merit," responded Colwyn, glancing into the empty interior of the little restaurant. "You had better dine with me if you have nothing better to do. I should like to have a talk with you."

Caldew expressed a pleased acquiescence. He had not seen the private detective since he had taken him a copy of Merrington's notes of his interview with Hazel Rath, and he wished to know whether Colwyn had made any fresh discoveries in the Heredith case.

At their entrance, a waiter reclining against the cash desk sprang into supple life, and with a smile of prospective grat.i.tude sped ahead up the staircase, casting backward glances of invitation like a gustatory siren enticing them to a place of bliss. He led them into a room overlooking the Thames Embankment, hung up their hats, took the wine card from the frame of the mirror over the mantelpiece, wrote down the order for the dinner, and disappeared downstairs to get the dishes.