Part 14 (1/2)

”G.o.d bless my soul!” exclaimed the chairman. ”This is--dear me!--why, there is nothing in the box!”

”That,” remarked the high official, drily, ”appears to be obvious.”

The chairman looked at the secretary.

”I understood the box was valuable, Mr. Myerst,” he said, with the half-injured air of a man who considers himself to have been robbed of an exceptionally fine treat. ”Valuable!”

Myerst coughed.

”I can only repeat what I have already said, Sir Benjamin,” he answered. ”The--er late Mr. Marbury spoke of the deposit as being of great value to him; he never permitted it out of his hand until he placed it in the safe. He appeared to regard it as of the greatest value.”

”But we understand from the evidence of Mr. Criedir, given to the _Watchman_ newspaper, that it was full of papers and--and other articles,” said the chairman. ”Criedir saw papers in it about an hour before it was brought here.”

Myerst spread out his hands.

”I can only repeat what I have said, Sir Benjamin,” he answered. ”I know nothing more.”

”But why should a man deposit an empty box?” began the chairman. ”I--”

The high official interposed.

”That the box is empty is certain,” he observed. ”Did you ever handle it yourself, Mr. Myerst?”

Myerst smiled in a superior fas.h.i.+on.

”I have already observed, sir, that from the time the deceased entered this room until the moment he placed the box in the safe which he rented, the box was never out of his hands,” he replied.

Then there was silence. At last the high official turned to the chairman.

”Very well,” he said. ”We've made the enquiry. Rathbury, take the box away with you and lock it up at the Yard.”

So Spargo went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if mystifying, material for the article which had already become the daily feature of his paper.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MR. AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED

It seemed to Spargo as he sat listening to the proceedings at the adjourned inquest next day that the whole story of what was now world-famous as the Middle Temple Murder Case was being reiterated before him for the thousandth time. There was not a detail of the story with which he had not become familiar to fulness. The first proceeding before the coroner had been of a merely formal nature; these were thorough and exhaustive; the representative of the Crown and twelve good men and true of the City of London were there to hear and to find out and to arrive at a conclusion as to how the man known as John Marbury came by his death. And although he knew all about it, Spargo found himself tabulating the evidence in a professional manner, and noting how each successive witness contributed, as it were, a chapter to the story. The story itself ran quite easily, naturally, consecutively--you could make it in sections. And Spargo, sitting merely to listen, made them:

1. The Temple porter and Constable Driscoll proved the finding of the body.

2. The police surgeon testified as to the cause of death--the man had been struck down from behind by a blow, a terrible blow--from some heavy instrument, and had died immediately.

3. The police and the mortuary officials proved that when the body was examined nothing was found in the clothing but the now famous sc.r.a.p of grey paper.

4. Rathbury proved that by means of the dead man's new fas.h.i.+onable cloth cap, bought at Fiskie's well-known shop in the West-End, he traced Marbury to the Anglo-Orient Hotel in the Waterloo District.

5. Mr. and Mrs. Walters gave evidence of the arrival of Marbury at the Anglo-Orient Hotel, and of his doings while he was in and about there.

6. The purser of the ss. _Wambarino_ proved that Marbury sailed from Melbourne to Southampton on that s.h.i.+p, excited no remark, behaved himself like any other well-regulated pa.s.senger, and left the _Wambarino_ at Southampton early in the morning of what was to be the last day of his life in just the ordinary manner.