Part 35 (1/2)
c.o.xon turned away disappointed.
”The murder!” exclaimed the Captain.
”Don't talk to me about it, Perry,” the Chief Justice requested, opening a paper in front of his face. He did not, however, withdraw out of earshot.
”They've got a sort of a clue. A wretched hobbledehoy of a fellow, something in the bookseller's shop at the corner of Kettle Street, has come with a rigmarole about a society that he and a few more belonged to, including this Francois Gaspard, who is missing. He protests that the thing was legal, and all that--only a Radical inner ring--but he says that at the last meeting this fellow was dropping hints about putting somebody out of the way. Dyer--that's the lad's name--swears the rest of them disowned him and said they'd have nothing to do with it, and hoped he'd given up the idea.”
”I suppose he's in a blue funk?” asked the Captain.
”He is no doubt alarmed,” said Sir Robert. ”He gave the police the names of the rest of their precious society, and, oddly enough, Ned Evans, of the House--you know him, c.o.xon?--was one.”
”Heard such an awful lot of debates, poor chap,” observed Captain Heseltine.
”Well, they went to Evans' and collared him. For a time he stuck out that he knew nothing about it, but they threatened him with heaven knows what, and at last he confessed to having seen this Gaspard in company with the murdered man in Digby Square a little before twelve on the night.”
”By Jove! That's awkward!” said the Captain.
c.o.xon showed more interest now, and remarked,
”Why, Gaspard was one of Medland's organisers. I saw him with both Medland and Norburn on Sat.u.r.day.”
”I don't suppose they were planning to murder this Benham. Indeed, I don't see that the thing can have been political at all. What did it matter whether Benham lived or died?”
”I don't see that it did, except to Benham,” a.s.sented the Captain. ”But what's become of Gaspard?”
”Ah, that they don't know. He's supposed to have taken s.h.i.+p, and they've cabled to search all s.h.i.+ps that left the port that morning.”
”He'll find the man in blue--or the local equivalent--on the wharf,”
said the Captain. ”Rather a jar that, Sir Robert, when you're in from a voyage. What are they doing now?”
”Well, the Superintendent said they were going to have a thorough search through the dead man's lodgings, to see if they could find out anything about him which would throw light on the motive. The police don't think much of the political theory of the crime.”
”Dashed nonsense, _I_ should think,” said the Captain, and he sauntered off to play billiards.
”That young man,” said the Chief Justice, ”is really not a fool, though he does his best to look like one.”
”That queer conduct seems to me rather common in young men at home. I noticed it when I was over.”
”Is it meant to imply independent means?”
”I dare say that idea may be dormant under it somewhere. My wife says the girls like it.”
”Then your wife, Perry, is a traitor to her s.e.x to make such confessions. Besides, they didn't in my time.”
”Come, you know, you're a forlorn bachelor. What can you know about it?”
”Bachelors, Perry, are the men who know. Which gathers most knowledge from a vivisection, the attentive student or the writhing frog?”
”The operator, most of all.”