Part 37 (1/2)

”You could, perhaps, throw some light, then, upon his death?”

”Perhaps I could,” she answered. ”I can tell you one thing, at any rate, Mr. Laverick, if it is news to you. At the time when he was murdered, he was carrying a very large sum of money with him. This is a fact which has not been spoken of in the Press.”

Once again Laverick was thankful for those nerves of his. He sat quite still. His face exhibited nothing more than the blank amazement which he certainly felt.

”This is marvelous,” he said. ”Have you told the police?”

”I have not,” she answered. ”I wish, if I can, to avoid telling the police.”

”But the money? To whom did it belong?”

”Not to the murdered man.”

”To any one whom you know of?” he inquired.

”I wonder,” she said, after a moment of hesitation, ”whether I am telling you too much.”

”You are telling me a good deal,” he admitted frankly.

”I wonder how far,” she asked, ”you will be inclined to reciprocate?”

”I reciprocate!” he exclaimed. ”But what can I do? What do I know of these things?”

She stretched out her hand lazily, and drew towards her a wonderful gold purse set with emeralds. Carefully opening it, she drew from the interior a small flat pocketbook, also of gold, with a great uncut emerald set into its centre. This, too, she opened, and drew out several sheets of foreign note-paper pinned together at the top.

These she glanced through until she came to the third or fourth.

Then she bent it down and pa.s.sed it across the table to Laverick.

”You may read that,” she said. ”It is part of a report which I have had in my pos session since Wednesday morning.”

Laverick drew the sheet towards him and read, in thin, angular characters, very distinct and plain:

Some ten minutes after the a.s.sault, a policeman pa.s.sed down the street but did not glance toward the pa.s.sage. The next person to appear was a gentleman who left some offices on the same side as the pa.s.sage, and walked down evidently on his homeward way. He glanced up the pa.s.sage and saw the body lying there. He disappeared for a moment and struck a match.

A minute afterwards he emerged from the pa.s.sage, looked up and down the street, and finding it empty returned to the office from which he had issued, let himself in with his latchkey, and closed the door behind him. He was there for about ten minutes. When he reappeared, he walked quickly down the street and for obvious reasons I was unable to follow him.

The address of the offices which he left and re-entered was Messrs. Laverick & Morrison, Stockbrokers.

”That interests you, Mr. Laverick?” she asked softly.

He handed it back to her.

”It interests me very much,” he answered. ”Who was this unseen person who wrote from the clouds?”

”I may not tell you all my secrets, Mr. Laverick,” she declared.

”What have you done with that twenty thousand pounds?”

Laverick helped himself to champagne. He listened for a moment to the music, and looked into the wonderful eyes which shone from that beautiful face a few feet away. Her lips were slightly parted, her forehead wrinkled. There was nothing of the accuser in her countenance; a gentle irony was its most poignant expression.