CHAPTER SIX
WITNESS TO A MEETING
Ronald Breton walked into the _Watchman_ office and into Spargo's roomnext morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He wavedit at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
"I say!" he exclaimed. "That's the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulateyou. Yes, that's the way--certain!"
Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
"What way?" he asked indifferently.
"The way you've written this thing up," said Breton. "It's a hundredthousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried account of a murder.It's--it's like a--a romance!"
"Merely a new method of giving news," said Spargo. He picked up a copyof the _Watchman_, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehowmanaged to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering,the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in MiddleTemple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with acritical eye. "Yes--merely a new method," he continued. "The questionis--will it achieve its object?"
"What's the object?" asked Breton.
Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed itover to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, puthis feet on his desk.
"The object?" he said, drily. "Oh, well, the object is the ultimatedetection of the murderer."
"You're after that?"
"I'm after that--just that."
"And not--not simply out to make effective news?"
"I'm out to find the murderer of John Marbury," said Spargodeliberately slow in his speech. "And I'll find him."
"Well, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of clues, so far,"remarked Breton. "I see--nothing. Do you?"
Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
"I want to know an awful lot," he said. "I'm hungering for news. I wantto know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himselfbetween the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, aliveand well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, withhis skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap ofpaper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he'd got to dowith you!"
He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
"Yes," he said. "I confess that's a corker. But I think----"
"Well?" said Spargo.
"I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, orin prospect, and had been recommended to--me," said Breton.
Spargo smiled--a little sardonically.
"That's good!" he said. "You had your very first brief--yesterday.Come--your fame isn't blown abroad through all the heights yet, myfriend! Besides--don't intending clients approach--isn't it strictetiquette for them to approach?--barristers through solicitors?"
"Quite right--in both your remarks," replied Breton, good-humouredly."Of course, I'm not known a bit, but all the same I've known severalcases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance andasked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a goodturn may have given this man my address."
"Possible," said Spargo. "But he wouldn't have come to consult you atmidnight. Breton!--the more I think of it, the more I'm certain there'sa tremendous mystery in this affair! That's why I got the chief to letme write it up as I have done--here. I'm hoping that thisphotograph--though to be sure, it's of a dead face--and this facsimileof the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can----"
Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marblepillared vestibule of the _Watchman_ office came into the room with theunmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
"I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is," mutteredSpargo in an aside. "Well?" he said to the boy. "What is it?"
The messenger came up to the desk.
"Mr. Spargo," he said, "there's a man downstairs who says that he wantsto see somebody about that murder case that's in the paper thismorning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you."
"Who is the man?" asked Spargo.
"Won't say, sir," replied the boy. "I gave him a form to fill up, buthe said he wouldn't write anything--said all he wanted was to see theman who wrote the piece in the paper."
"Bring him here," commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boyhad gone, and he smiled. "I knew we should have somebody here sooner orlater," he said. "That's why I hurried over my breakfast and came downat ten o'clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of thischap's information proving valuable?"
"Nothing," replied Breton. "He's probably some crank or faddist who'sgot some theory that he wants to ventilate."
The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed frompreliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton's prognostication.He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man,yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array ofpearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which wereseveral distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur ofthe _Watchman_ building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as hefollowed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men ashe stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxuriousfooting in Spargo's room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, lookedround him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modernnewspaper-office accommodation.
"How do you do, sir?" said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of theeasy-chairs for which the _Watchman_ office is famous. "I understandthat you wish to see me?"
The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of thechair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured tohang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.
"What I want to see, sir," he observed in a rustic accent, "is thegentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murderin Middle Temple Lane."
"You see him," said Spargo. "I am that man."
The caller smiled--generously.
"Indeed, sir?" he said. "A very nice bit of reading, I'm sure. And whatmight your name be, now, sir? I can always talk free-er to a man when Iknow what his name is."
"So can I," answered Spargo. "My name is Spargo--Frank Spargo. What'syours?"
"Name of Webster, sir--William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, atGosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife," continued Mr. Webster, againsmiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, "is atpresent in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it--weatherand all."
"That's right," said Spargo. "And--you wanted to see me about thismurder, Mr. Webster?"
"I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that'll dofor you to put in your paper. You see, Mr. Spargo, it come about inthis fashion--happen you'll be for me to tell it in my own way."
"That," answered Spargo, "is precisely what I desire."
"Well, to be sure, I couldn't tell it in no other," declared Mr.Webster. "You see, sir, I read your paper this morning while I waswaiting for my breakfast--they take their breakfasts so late in themhotels--and when I'd read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to mywife 'As soon as I've had my breakfast,' I says, 'I'm going to wherethey print this newspaper to tell 'em something.' 'Aye?' she says,'Why, what have you to tell, I should like to know?' just like that,Mr. Spargo."
"Mrs. Webster," said Spargo, "is a lady of businesslike principles. Andwhat have you to tell?"
Mr. Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, andsmiled knowingly.
"Well, sir," he continued, "Last night, my wife, she went out to a partthey call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend ofhers as lives there, and as they wanted to have a bit of woman-talk,like, I didn't go. So thinks I to myself, I'll go and see this hereHouse of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that allyou'd got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wantedto see your own Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told 'emthat I wanted to see our M.P., Mr. Stonewoo
d--you'll have heard tell ofhim, no doubt; he knows me very well--and they passed me, and I wroteout a ticket for him, and they told me to sit down while they foundhim. So I sat down in a grand sort of hall where there were a rare lotof people going and coming, and some fine pictures and images to lookat, and for a time I looked at them, and then I began to take a bit ofnotice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know, like myself. And assure as I'm a christened man, sir, the gentleman whose picture you'vegot in your paper--him as was murdered--was sitting next to me! I knewthat picture as soon as I saw it this morning."
Spargo, who had been making unmeaning scribbles on a block of paper,suddenly looked at his visitor.
"What time was that?" he asked.
"It was between a quarter and half-past nine, sir," answered Mr.Webster. "It might ha' been twenty past--it might ha' been twenty-fivepast."
"Go on, if you please," said Spargo.
"Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what along time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. Imade mention of the fact that I hadn't been in there before. 'Neitherhave I!' he says, 'I came in out of curiosity,' he says, and then helaughed, sir--queer-like. And it was just after that that what I'mgoing to tell you about happened."
"Tell," commanded Spargo.
"Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall thatwe were sitting in--a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard. He'dno hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in hishand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of asudden this here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start andan exclamation, and----"
Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.
"Now, you're absolutely sure about what you heard him exclaim?" heasked. "Quite sure about it? Because I see you are going to tell uswhat he did exclaim."
"I'll tell you naught but what I'm certain of, sir," replied Webster."What he said as he jumped up was 'Good God!' he says, sharp-like--andthen he said a name, and I didn't right catch it, but it sounded likeDanesworth, or Painesworth, or something of that sort--one of themthere, or very like 'em, at any rate. And then he rushed up to thishere gentleman, and laid his hand on his arm--sudden-like."
"And--the gentleman?" asked Spargo, quietly.
"Well, he seemed taken aback, sir. He jumped. Then he stared at theman. Then they shook hands. And then, after they'd spoken a few wordstogether-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw nomore of 'em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and thatpicture in it, I said to myself 'That's the man I sat next to in thatthere hall at the House of Commons!' Oh, there's no doubt of it, sir!"
"And supposing you saw a photograph of the tall gentleman with the greybeard?" suggested Spargo. "Could you recognize him from that?"
"Make no doubt of it, sir," answered Mr. Webster. "I observed himparticular."
Spargo rose, and going over to a cabinet, took from it a thick volume,the leaves of which he turned over for several minutes.
"Come here, if you please, Mr. Webster," he said.
The farmer went across the room.
"There is a full set of photographs of members of the present House ofCommons here," said Spargo. "Now, pick out the one you saw. Take yourtime--and be sure."
He left his caller turning over the album and went back to Breton.
"There!" he whispered. "Getting nearer--a bit nearer--eh?"
"To what?" asked Breton. "I don't see--"
A sudden exclamation from the farmer interrupted Breton's remark.
"This is him, sir!" answered Mr. Webster. "That's the gentleman--knowhim anywhere!"
The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubbyfinger to a photograph, beneath which was written _Stephen Aylmore,Esq., M.P. for Brookminster_.