The Middle Temple Murder

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Mr Cardlestone, eagerly. ‘It can be seen? Then I’ll go and see it. Where is it?’

Breton started.

‘But—my dear sir!’ he said. ‘Why?’

Mr Cardlestone picked up his umbrella again.

‘I feel a proper curiosity about a mystery which occurs at my very door,’ he said. ‘Also, I have known more than one man who went to Australia. This might—I say might, young gentlemen—might be a man I had once known. Show me where this body is.’

Breton looked helplessly at Spargo: it was plain that he did not understand the turn that things were taking. But Spargo was quick to seize an opportunity. In another minute he was conducting Mr Cardlestone through the ins and outs of the Temple towards Blackfriars. And as they turned into Tudor Street they encountered Mr Elphick.

‘I am going to the mortuary,’ he remarked. ‘So, I suppose, are you, Cardlestone? Has anything more been discovered, young man?’

Spargo tried a chance shot—at what he did not know. ‘The man’s name was Marbury,’ he said. ‘He was from Australia.’

He was keeping a keen eye on Mr Elphick, but he failed to see that Mr Elphick showed any of the surprise which Mr Cardlestone had exhibited. Rather, he seemed indifferent.

‘Oh?’ he said—’Marbury? And from Australia. Well—I should like to see the body.’

Spargo and Breton had to wait outside the mortuary while the two elder gentlemen went in. There was nothing to be learnt from either when they reappeared.

‘We don’t know the man,’ said Mr Elphick, calmly. ‘As Mr Cardlestone, I understand, has said to you already—we have known men who went to Australia, and as this man was evidently wandering about the Temple, we thought it might have been one of them, come back. But—we don’t recognise him.’

‘Couldn’t recognise him,’ said Mr Cardlestone. ‘No!’

They went away together arm in arm, and Breton looked at Spargo.

‘As if anybody on earth ever fancied they’d recognise him!’ he said. ‘Well—what are you going to do now, Spargo? I must go.’

Spargo, who had been digging his walking-stick into a crack in the pavement, came out of a fit of abstraction.

‘I?’ he said. ‘Oh—I’m going to the office.’ And he turned abruptly away, and walking straight off to the editorial rooms at the Watchman, made for one in which sat the official guardian of the editor. ‘Try to get me a few minutes with the chief,’ he said.

The private secretary looked up.

‘Really important?’ he asked.

‘Big!’ answered Spargo. ‘Fix it.’

Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty well by that time, Spargo lost no time.

‘You’ve heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?’ he suggested.

‘The mere facts,’ replied the editor, tersely.

‘I was there when the body was found,’ continued Spargo, and gave a brief résumé of his doings. ‘I’m certain this is a most unusual affair,’ he went on. ‘It’s as full of mystery as—as it could be. I want to give my attention to it. I want to specialise on it. I can make such a story of it as we haven’t had for some time—ages. Let me have it. And to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning. I’ll make it—big!’

The editor looked across his desk at Spargo’s eager face.

‘Your other work?’ he said.

‘Well in hand,’ replied Spargo. ‘I’m ahead a whole week—both articles and reviews. I can tackle both.’

The editor put his finger tips together.

‘Have you got some idea about this, young man?’ he asked.

‘I’ve got a great idea,’ answered Spargo. He faced the great man squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the editorial face. ‘That’s why I want to do it,’ he added. ‘And—it’s not mere boasting nor over-confidence—I know I shall do it better than anybody else.’

The editor considered matters for a brief moment.

‘You mean to find out who killed this man?’ he said at last.

Spargo nodded his head—twice.

‘I’ll find that out,’ he said doggedly.

The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Go ahead. You shall have your two columns.’

Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a block of paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do things.

CHAPTER VI

WITNESS TO A MEETING

RONALD BRETON walked into the Watchman office and into Spargo’s room next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved it at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.

‘I say!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulate you. 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 hundred thousand 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 copy of the Watchman, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering, the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a critical eye. ‘Yes—merely a new method,’ he continued. ‘The question is—will it achieve its object?’

‘What’s the object?’ asked Breton.

Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it over to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put his feet on his desk.

‘The object?’ he said, drily. ‘Oh, well, the object is the ultimate detection 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 Spargo deliberately 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 want to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himself between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with his skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of paper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he’d got to do with 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, or in 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, my friend! Besides—don’t intending clients approach—isn’t it strict etiquette 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 several cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a good turn may have given this man my address.’

‘Possible,’ said Spargo. ‘But he wouldn’t have come to consult you at midnight. Breton!—the more I think of it, the more I’m certain there’s a tremendous mystery in this affair! That’s why I got the chief to let me write it up as I have done—here. I’m hoping that this photograph—though to be sure, it’s of a dead face—and this facsimile of the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can—’

Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble pillared vestibule of the Watchman office came into the room with the unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.

‘I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is,’ muttered Spargo 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 wants to see somebody about that murder case that’s in the paper this morning, 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, but he said he wouldn’t write anything—said all he wanted was to see the man who wrote the piece in the paper.’

‘Bring him here,’ commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy had gone, and he smiled. ‘I knew we should have somebody here sooner or later,’ he said. ‘That’s why I hurried over my breakfast and came down at ten o’clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this chap’s information proving valuable?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Breton. ‘He’s probably some crank or faddist who’s got some theory that he wants to ventilate.’

The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from preliminary 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 of pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of the Watchman building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious footing in Spargo’s room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern newspaper-office accommodation.

‘How do you do, sir?’ said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the easy-chairs for which the Watchman office is famous. ‘I understand that you wish to see me?’

The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of the chair, put his hat on the floor, picked it up again, and endeavoured to hang it on his knee, and looked at Spargo innocently and shyly.

‘What I want to see, sir,’ he observed in a rustic accent, ‘is the gentleman as wrote that piece in your newspaper about this here murder in 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 what might your name be, now, sir? I can always talk free-er to a man when I know what his name is.’

‘So can I,’ answered Spargo. ‘My name is Spargo—Frank Spargo. What’s yours?’

‘Name of Webster, sir—William Webster. I farm at One Ash Farm, at Gosberton, in Oakshire. Me and my wife,’ continued Mr Webster, again smiling and distributing his smile between both his hearers, ‘is at present in London on a holiday. And very pleasant we find it—weather and all.’

‘That’s right,’ said Spargo. ‘And—you wanted to see me about this murder, Mr Webster?’

‘I did, sir. Me, I believe, knowing, as I think, something that’ll do for you to put in your paper. You see, Mr Spargo, it come about in this 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 was waiting for my breakfast—they take their breakfasts so late in them hotels—and when I’d read it, and looked at the pictures, I says to my wife “As soon as I’ve had my breakfast,” I says, “I’m going to where they 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. And what have you to tell?’

Mr Webster looked into the crown of his hat, looked out of it, and smiled knowingly.

‘Well, sir,’ he continued, ‘Last night, my wife, she went out to a part they call Clapham, to take her tea and supper with an old friend of hers 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 here House of Commons. There was a neighbour of mine as had told me that all you’d got to do was to tell the policeman at the door that you wanted to see your own Member of Parliament. So when I got there I told ’em that I wanted to see our M.P., Mr Stonewood—you’ll have heard tell of him, no doubt; he knows me very well—and they passed me, and I wrote out a ticket for him, and they told me to sit down while they found him. So I sat down in a grand sort of hall where there were a rare lot of people going and coming, and some fine pictures and images to look at, and for a time I looked at them, and then I began to take a bit of notice of the folk near at hand, waiting, you know, like myself. And as sure as I’m a christened man, sir, the gentleman whose picture you’ve got in your paper—him as was murdered—was sitting next to me! I knew that 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-five past.’

‘Go on, if you please,’ said Spargo.

‘Well, sir, me and this here dead gentleman talked a bit. About what a long time it took to get a member to attend to you, and such-like. I made mention of the fact that I hadn’t been in there before. “Neither have I!” he says, “I came in out of curiosity,” he says, and then he laughed, sir—queer-like. And it was just after that that what I’m going to tell you about happened.’

‘Tell,’ commanded Spargo.

‘Well, sir, there was a gentleman came along, down this grand hall that we were sitting in—a tall, handsome gentleman, with a grey beard. He’d no hat on, and he was carrying a lot of paper and documents in his hand, so I thought he was happen one of the members. And all of a sudden this here man at my side, he jumps up with a sort of start and an exclamation, and—’

Spargo lifted his hand. He looked keenly at his visitor.

‘Now, you’re absolutely sure about what you heard him exclaim?’ he asked. ‘Quite sure about it? Because I see you are going to tell us what 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—and then he said a name, and I didn’t right catch it, but it sounded like Danesworth, or Painesworth, or something of that sort—one of them there, or very like ’em, at any rate. And then he rushed up to this here 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 the man. Then they shook hands. And then, after they’d spoken a few words together-like, they walked off, talking. And, of course, I never saw no more of ’em. But when I saw your paper this morning, sir, and that picture in it, I said to myself “That’s the man I sat next to in that there 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 grey beard?’ suggested Spargo. ‘Could you recognise him from that?’

‘Make no doubt of it, sir,’ answered Mr Webster. ‘I observed him particular.’

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 of Commons here,’ said Spargo. ‘Now, pick out the one you saw. Take your time—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—know him anywhere!’

The two young men crossed the room. The farmer was pointing a stubby finger to a photograph, beneath which was written:

Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P. for Brookminster.

CHAPTER VII

MR AYLMORE

SPARGO, keenly observant and watchful, felt, rather than saw, Breton start; he himself preserved an imperturbable equanimity. He gave a mere glance at the photograph to which Mr Webster was pointing.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘That he?’

‘That’s the gentleman, sir,’ replied Webster. ‘Done to the life, that is. No difficulty in recognising of that, Mr Spargo.’

‘You’re absolutely sure?’ demanded Spargo. ‘There are a lot of men in the House of Commons, you know, who wear beards, and many of the beards are grey.’

But Webster wagged his head.

‘That’s him, sir!’ he repeated. ‘I’m as sure of that as I am that my name’s William Webster. That’s the man I saw talking to him whose picture you’ve got in your paper. Can’t say no more, sir.’

‘Very good,’ said Spargo. ‘I’m much obliged to you. I’ll see Mr Aylmore. Leave me your address in London, Mr Webster. How long do you remain in town?’

‘My address is the Beachcroft Hotel, Bloomsbury, sir, and I shall be there for another week,’ answered the farmer. ‘Hope I’ve been of some use, Mr Spargo. As I says to my wife—’

Spargo cut his visitor short in polite fashion and bowed him out. He turned to Breton, who still stood staring at the album of portraits.

‘There!—what did I tell you?’ he said. ‘Didn’t I say I should get some news? There it is.’

Breton nodded his head. He seemed thoughtful.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Yes, I say, Spargo!’

‘Well?’

‘Mr Aylmore is my prospective father-in-law, you know.’

‘Quite aware of it. Didn’t you introduce me to his daughters—only yesterday?’

‘But—how did you know they were his daughters?’

Spargo laughed as he sat down to his desk.

‘Instinct—intuition,’ he answered. ‘However, never mind that, just now. Well—I’ve found something out. Marbury—if that is the dead man’s real name, and anyway, it’s all we know him by—was in the company of Mr Aylmore that night. Good!’

‘What are you going to do about it?’ asked Breton.

‘Do? See Mr Aylmore, of course.’

He was turning over the leaves of a telephone address-book; one hand had already picked up the mouthpiece of the instrument on his desk.

‘Look here,’ said Breton. ‘I know where Mr Aylmore is always to be found at twelve o’clock. At the A. and P.—the Atlantic and Pacific Club, you know, in St James’s. If you like, I’ll go with you.’

Spargo glanced at the clock and laid down the telephone.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Eleven o’clock, now. I’ve something to do. I’ll meet you outside the A. and P. at exactly noon.’

‘I’ll be there,’ agreed Breton. He made for the door, and with his hand on it, turned. ‘What do you expect from—from what we’ve just heard?’ he asked.

Spargo shrugged his shoulders.

‘Wait—until we hear what Mr Aylmore has to say,’ he answered. ‘I suppose this man Marbury was some old acquaintance.’

Breton closed the door and went away: left alone, Spargo began to mutter to himself.

‘Good God!’ he says. ‘Dainsworth—Painsworth—something of that sort—one of the two. Excellent—that our farmer friend should have so much observation. Ah!—and why should Mr Stephen Aylmore be recognised as Dainsworth or Painsworth or something of that sort? Now, who is Mr Stephen Aylmore—beyond being what I know him to be?’

Spargo’s fingers went instinctively to one of a number of books of reference which stood on his desk: they turned with practised swiftness to a page over which his eye ran just as swiftly. He read aloud:

‘AYLMORE, STEPHEN, M.P. for Brookminster since 1910. Residences: 23, St Osythe Court, Kensington: Buena Vista, Great Marlow. Member Atlantic and Pacific and City Venturers’ Clubs. Interested in South American enterprise.’

‘Um!’ muttered Spargo, putting the book away. ‘That’s not very illuminating. However, we’ve got one move finished. Now we’ll make another.’

Going over to the album of photographs, Spargo deftly removed that of Mr Aylmore, put it in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket and, leaving the office, hailed a taxi-cab, and ordered its driver to take him to the Anglo-Orient Hotel. This was the something-to-do of which he had spoken to Breton: Spargo wanted to do it alone.

Mrs Walters was in her low-windowed office when Spargo entered the hall; she recognised him at once and motioned him into her parlour.

‘I remember you,’ said Mrs, Walters; ‘you came with the detective—Mr Rathbury.’

‘Have you seen him, since?’ asked Spargo.

‘Not since,’ replied Mrs Walters. ‘No—and I was wondering if he’d be coming round, because—’ She paused there and looked at Spargo with particular enquiry—‘You’re a friend of his, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘I suppose you know as much as he does—about this?’

‘He and I,’ replied Spargo, with easy confidence, ‘are working this case together. You can tell me anything you’d tell him.’

The landlady rummaged in her pocket and produced an old purse, from an inner compartment of which she brought out a small object wrapped in tissue paper.

‘Well,’ she said, unwrapping the paper, ‘we found this in Number 20 this morning—it was lying under the dressing-table. The girl that found it brought it to me, and I thought it was a bit of glass, but Walters, he says as how he shouldn’t be surprised if it’s a diamond. And since we found it, the waiter who took the whisky up to 20, after Mr Marbury came in with the other gentleman, has told me that when he went into the room the two gentlemen were looking at a paper full of things like this. So there?’

Spargo fingered the shining bit of stone.

‘That’s a diamond—right enough,’ he said. ‘Put it away, Mrs Walters—I shall see Rathbury presently, and I’ll tell him about it. Now, that other gentleman! You told us you saw him. Could you recognise him—I mean, a photograph of him? Is this the man?’

Spargo knew from the expression of Mrs Walters’ face that she had no more doubt than Webster had.

‘Oh, yes!’ she said. ‘That’s the gentleman who came in with Mr Marbury—I should have known him in a thousand. Anybody would recognise him from that—perhaps you’d let our hall-porter and the waiter I mentioned just now look at it?’

‘I’ll see them separately and see if they’ve ever seen a man who resembles this,’ replied Spargo.

The two men recognised the photograph at once, without any prompting, and Spargo, after a word or two with the landlady, rode off to the Atlantic and Pacific Club, and found Ronald Breton awaiting him on the steps. He made no reference to his recent doings, and together they went into the house and asked for Mr Aylmore.

Spargo looked with more than uncommon interest at the man who presently came to them in the visitors’ room. He was already familiar with Mr Aylmore’s photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life; the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of legislators whose members are disposed to work quietly and unobtrusively, doing yeoman service on committees, obeying every behest of the party whips, without forcing themselves into the limelight or seizing every opportunity to air their opinions. Now that Spargo met him in the flesh he proved to be pretty much what the journalist had expected—a rather cold-mannered, self-contained man, who looked as if he had been brought up in a school of rigid repression, and taught not to waste words. He showed no more than the merest of languid interests in Spargo when Breton introduced him, and his face was quite expressionless when Spargo brought to an end his brief explanation—purposely shortened—of his object in calling upon him.