Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni and PG DistributedProofreaders
THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER
BY
J. S. FLETCHER
1919
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
II HIS FIRST BRIEF
III THE CLUE OF THE CAP
IV THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL
V SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE
VI WITNESS TO A MEETING
VII MR. AYLMORE
VIII THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT
IX THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS
X THE LEATHER BOX
XI MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED
XII THE NEW WITNESS
XIII UNDER SUSPICION
XIV THE SILVER TICKET
XV MARKET MILCASTER
XVI THE "YELLOW DRAGON"
XVII MR. QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK
XVIII AN OLD NEWSPAPER
XIX THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY
XX MAITLAND _alias_ MARBURY
XXI ARRESTED
XXII THE BLANK PAST
XXIII MISS BAYLIS
XXIV MOTHER GUTCH
XXV REVELATIONS
XXVI STILL SILENT
XXVII MR. ELPHICK'S CHAMBERS
XXVIII OF PROVED IDENTITY
XXIX THE CLOSED DOORS
XXX REVELATION
XXXI THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER
XXXII THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
XXXIII FORESTALLED
XXXIV THE WHIP HAND
XXXV MYERST EXPLAINS
XXXVI THE FINAL TELEGRAM
CHAPTER ONE
THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER
As a rule, Spargo left the _Watchman_ office at two o'clock. The paperhad then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted toa sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he wasresponsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before themachines began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling,until two o'clock came. On this occasion, the morning of the 22nd ofJune, 1912, he stopped longer than usual, chatting with Hacket, who hadcharge of the foreign news, and who began telling him about a telegramwhich had just come through from Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell wasinteresting: Spargo lingered to hear all about it, and to discuss it.Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of theoffice, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the thresholdthe last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight.In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the firstgrey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence ofSt. Paul's.
Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Everynight and every morning he walked to and from the _Watchman_ office bythe same route--Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street.He came to know several faces, especially amongst the police; he formedthe habit of exchanging greetings with various officers whom heencountered at regular points as he went slowly homewards, smoking hispipe. And on this morning, as he drew near to Middle Temple Lane, hesaw a policeman whom he knew, one Driscoll, standing at the entrance,looking about him. Further away another policeman appeared, sauntering.Driscoll raised an arm and signalled; then, turning, he saw Spargo. Hemoved a step or two towards him. Spargo saw news in his face.
"What is it?" asked Spargo.
Driscoll jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the partly open doorof the lane. Within, Spargo saw a man hastily donning a waistcoat andjacket.
"He says," answered Driscoll, "him, there--the porter--that there's aman lying in one of them entries down the lane, and he thinks he'sdead. Likewise, he thinks he's murdered."
Spargo echoed the word.
"But what makes him think that?" he asked, peeping with curiositybeyond Driscoll's burly form. "Why?"
"He says there's blood about him," answered Driscoll. He turned andglanced at the oncoming constable, and then turned again to Spargo."You're a newspaper man, sir?" he suggested.
"I am," replied Spargo.
"You'd better walk down with us," said Driscoll, with a grin. "There'llbe something to write pieces in the paper about. At least, there maybe." Spargo made no answer. He continued to look down the lane,wondering what secret it held, until the other policeman came up. Atthe same moment the porter, now fully clothed, came out.
"Come on!" he said shortly. "I'll show you."
Driscoll murmured a word or two to the newly-arrived constable, andthen turned to the porter.
"How came you to find him, then?" he asked
The porter jerked his head at the door which they were leaving.
"I heard that door slam," he replied, irritably, as if the fact whichhe mentioned caused him offence. "I know I did! So I got up to lookaround. Then--well, I saw that!"
He raised a hand, pointing down the lane. The three men followed hisoutstretched finger. And Spargo then saw a man's foot, booted,grey-socked, protruding from an entry on the left hand.
"Sticking out there, just as you see it now," said the porter. "I ain'ttouched it. And so--"
He paused and made a grimace as if at the memory of some unpleasantthing. Driscoll nodded comprehendingly.
"And so you went along and looked?" he suggested. "Just so--just to seewho it belonged to, as it might be."
"Just to see--what there was to see," agreed the porter. "Then I sawthere was blood. And then--well, I made up the lane to tell one of youchaps."
"Best thing you could have done," said Driscoll. "Well, now then--"
The little procession came to a halt at the entry. The entry was a coldand formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, havingglazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring;something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested toSpargo the idea of a mortuary. And that the man whose foot projectedover the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his posecertified to it.
For a moment none of the four men moved or spoke. The two policemenunconsciously stuck their thumbs in their belts and made play withtheir fingers; the porter rubbed his chin thoughtfully--Spargoremembered afterwards the rasping sound of this action; he himself puthis hands in his pockets and began to jingle his money and his keys.Each man had his own thoughts as he contemplated the piece of humanwreckage which lay before him.
"You'll notice," suddenly observed Driscoll, speaking in a hushedvoice, "You'll notice that he's lying there in a queer way--same asif--as if he'd been put there. Sort of propped up against that wall, atfirst, and had slid down, like."
Spargo was taking in all the details with a professional eye. He saw athis feet the body of an elderly man; the face was turned away from him,crushed in against the glaze of the wall, but he judged the man to beelderly because of grey hair and whitening whisker; it was clothed in agood, well-made suit of grey check cloth--tweed--and the boots weregood: so, too, was the linen cuff which projected from the sleeve thathung so limply. One leg was half doubled under the body; the other wasstretched straight out across the threshold; the trunk was twisted tothe wall. Over the white glaze of the tiles against which it and theshoulder towards which it had sunk were crushed there were gouts andstains of blood. And Driscoll, taking a hand out of his belt, pointed afinger at them.
"Seems to me," he said, slowly, "seems to me as how he's been struckdown from behind as he came out of here. That blood's from hisnose--gushed out as he fell. What do you say, Jim?" The other policemancoughed.
"Better get the inspector here," he said. "And the doctor and theambulance. Dead--ain't he?"
Driscoll bent down and put a thumb on the hand which lay on thepavement.
"As ever they make 'em," he remarked laconically. "And stiff, too.Well, hurry up, Jim!"
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sp; Spargo waited until the inspector arrived; waited until thehand-ambulance came. More policemen came with it; they moved the bodyfor transference to the mortuary, and Spargo then saw the dead man'sface. He looked long and steadily at it while the police arranged thelimbs, wondering all the time who it was that he gazed at, how he cameto that end, what was the object of his murderer, and many otherthings. There was some professionalism in Spargo's curiosity, but therewas also a natural dislike that a fellow-being should have been sounceremoniously smitten out of the world.
There was nothing very remarkable about the dead man's face. It wasthat of a man of apparently sixty to sixty-five years of age; plain,even homely of feature, clean-shaven, except for a fringe of whitewhisker, trimmed, after an old-fashioned pattern, between the ear andthe point of the jaw. The only remarkable thing about it was that itwas much lined and seamed; the wrinkles were many and deep around thecorners of the lips and the angles of the eyes; this man, you wouldhave said to yourself, has led a hard life and weathered storm, mentalas well as physical.
Driscoll nudged Spargo with a turn of his elbow. He gave him a wink."Better come down to the dead-house," he muttered confidentially.
"Why?" asked Spargo.
"They'll go through him," whispered Driscoll. "Search him, d'ye see?Then you'll get to know all about him, and so on. Help to write thatpiece in the paper, eh?"
Spargo hesitated. He had had a stiff night's work, and until hisencounter with Driscoll he had cherished warm anticipation of the mealwhich would be laid out for him at his rooms, and of the bed into whichhe would subsequently tumble. Besides, a telephone message would send aman from the _Watchman_ to the mortuary. This sort of thing was not inhis line now, now--
"You'll be for getting one o' them big play-cards out with somethingabout a mystery on it," suggested Driscoll. "You never know what liesat the bottom o' these affairs, no more you don't."
That last observation decided Spargo; moreover, the old instinct forgetting news began to assert itself.
"All right," he said. "I'll go along with you."
And re-lighting his pipe he followed the little cortege through thestreets, still deserted and quiet, and as he walked behind he reflectedon the unobtrusive fashion in which murder could stalk about. Here wasthe work of murder, no doubt, and it was being quietly carried along aprincipal London thoroughfare, without fuss or noise, by officials towhom the dealing with it was all a matter of routine. Surely--
"My opinion," said a voice at Spargo's elbow, "my opinion is that itwas done elsewhere. Not there! He was put there. That's what I say."Spargo turned and saw that the porter was at his side. He, too, wasaccompanying the body.
"Oh!" said Spargo. "You think--"
"I think he was struck down elsewhere and carried there," said theporter. "In somebody's chambers, maybe. I've known of some queer gamesin our bit of London! Well!--he never came in at my lodge lastnight--I'll stand to that. And who is he, I should like to know? Fromwhat I see of him, not the sort to be about our place."
"That's what we shall hear presently," said Spargo. "They're going tosearch him."
But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had foundnothing. The police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt,been struck down from behind by a terrible blow which had fractured theskull and caused death almost instantaneously. In Driscoll's opinion,the murder had been committed for the sake of plunder. For there wasnothing whatever on the body. It was reasonable to suppose that a manwho is well dressed would possess a watch and chain, and have money inhis pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But there was nothingvaluable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found thatcould lead to identification--no letters, no papers, nothing. It wasplain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequentlystripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identitylay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have beennewly purchased at a fashionable shop in the West End.
Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate hisfood and he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping.He was not the sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized atlast that the morning's event had destroyed his chance of rest; heaccordingly rose, took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and wentout. He was not sure of any particular idea when he strolled away fromBloomsbury, but it did not surprise him when, half an hour later hefound that he had walked down to the police station near which theunknown man's body lay in the mortuary. And there he met Driscoll, justgoing off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him.
"You're in luck," he said. "'Tisn't five minutes since they found a bitof grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor man's waistcoatpocket--it had slipped into a crack. Come in, and you'll see it."
Spargo went into the inspector's office. In another minute he foundhimself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but anaddress, scrawled in pencil:--Ronald Breton, Barrister, King's BenchWalk, Temple, London.
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