Nigel Moss - The Middle Temple Murder

‘There you are!’ he said, making an end of his task. ‘You see, it’s just the same with these things as with the clothes he had on him. There are no papers—there’s nothing to tell who he was, what he was after, where he’d come from—though that we may find out in other ways. But it’s not often that a man travels without some clue to his identity. Beyond the fact that some of this linen was, you see, bought in Melbourne, we know nothing of him. Yet he must have had papers and money on him. Did you see anything of his money, now, ma’am?’ he asked, suddenly turning to Mrs Walters. ‘Did he pull out his purse in your presence, now?’

‘Yes,’ answered the landlady, with promptitude. ‘He came into the bar for a drink after he’d been up to his room. He pulled out a handful of gold when he paid for it—a whole handful. There must have been some thirty to forty sovereigns and half-sovereigns.’

‘And he hadn’t a penny piece on him—when found,’ muttered Rathbury.

‘I noticed another thing, too,’ remarked the landlady. ‘He was wearing a very fine gold watch and chain, and had a splendid ring on his left hand—little finger—gold, with a big diamond in it.’

‘Yes,’ said the detective, thoughtfully, ‘I noticed that he’d worn a ring, and that it had been a bit tight for him. Well—now there’s only one thing to ask about. Did your chambermaid notice if he left any torn paper around—tore any letters up, or anything like that?’

But the chambermaid, produced, had not noticed anything of the sort; on the contrary, the gentleman of Number 20 had left his room very tidy indeed. So Rathbury intimated that he had no more to ask, and nothing further to say, just then, and he bade the landlord and landlady of the Anglo-Orient Hotel good morning, and went away, followed by the two young men.

‘What next?’ asked Spargo, as they gained the street.

‘The next thing,’ answered Rathbury, ‘is to find the man with whom Marbury left this hotel last night.’

‘And how’s that to be done?’ asked Spargo.

‘At present,’ replied Rathbury, ‘I don’t know.’

And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being alone.

THE barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a crowded pavement, looked at each other. Breton laughed.

‘We don’t seem to have gained much information,’ he remarked. ‘I’m about as wise as ever.’

‘No—wiser,’ said Spargo. ‘At any rate, I am. I know now that this dead man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia; that he only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the company last night of a man whom we have had described to us—a tall, grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman.’

Breton shrugged his shoulders.

‘I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in London,’ he remarked.

‘Exactly—so it would,’ answered Spargo. ‘But we know that it was one of the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like. The thing is to find that one—the one.’

‘And you think you can do it?’

‘I think I’m going to have a big try at it.’

Breton shrugged his shoulders again.

‘What?—by going up to every man who answers the description, and saying “Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the Anglo—”’

Spargo suddenly interrupted him.

‘Look here!’ he said. ‘Didn’t you say that you knew a man who lives in that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ answered Breton. ‘It was Mr Elphick who said that. All the same, I do know that man—he’s Mr Cardlestone, another barrister. He and Mr Elphick are friends—they’re both enthusiastic philatelists—stamp collectors, you know—and I dare say Mr Elphick was round there last night examining something new Cardlestone’s got hold of. Why?’

‘I’d like to go round there and make some enquiries,’ replied Spargo. ‘If you’d be kind enough to—’

‘Oh, I’ll go with you!’ responded Breton, with alacrity. ‘I’m just as keen about this business as you are, Spargo! I want to know who this man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on him. Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know, why—’

‘Yes,’ said Spargo, as they got into a cab, ‘yes, that would have explained a lot. It seems to me that we’ll get at the murderer through that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury’s line. Yes, that’s what I think.’

Breton looked at his companion with interest.

‘But—you don’t know what Rathbury’s line is,’ he remarked.