第30章 THE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.(7)

"It would be the woman who first thought of it. She has seen them both lying with closed eyes beside her. It may have always been in her mind, the likeness between them. With Hepworth's watch in his pocket, Hepworth's ring on his finger! If only it was not for the beard--that fierce, curling, red beard!

"They creep to the window and peer out. Fog still thick as soup.

Not a soul, not a sound. Plenty of time.

"Then to get away, to hide till one is sure. Put on the mackintosh.

A man in a yellow mackintosh may have been seen to enter; let him be seen to go away. In some dark corner or some empty railway carriage take it off and roll it up. Then make for the office. Wait there for Ellenby. True as steel, Ellenby; good business man. Be guided by Ellenby."

He flung the brief from him with a laugh.

"Why, there's not a missing link!" he cried. "And to think that not a fool among us ever thought of it!"

"Everything fitting into its place," I suggested, "except young Hepworth. Can you see him, from your description of him, sitting down and coolly elaborating plans for escape, the corpse of the murdered man stretched beside him on the hearthrug?"

"No," he answered. "But I can see her doing it, a woman who for week after week kept silence while we raged and stormed at her, a woman who for three hours sat like a statue while old Cutbush painted her to a crowded court as a modern Jezebel, who rose up from her seat when that sentence of fifteen years' penal servitude was pronounced upon her with a look of triumph in her eyes, and walked out of court as if she had been a girl going to meet her lover.

"I'll wager," he added, "it was she who did the shaving. Hepworth would have cut him, even with a safety-razor."

"It must have been the other one, Martin," I said, "that she loathed. That almost exultation at the thought that he was dead," I reminded him.

"Yes," he mused. "She made no attempt to disguise it. Curious there having been that likeness between them." He looked at his watch. "Do you care to come with me?" he said.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"We may just catch him," he answered. "Ellenby and Co."

* * *

The office was on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in a cul-de-sac off the Minories. Mr. Ellenby was out, so the lanky office-boy informed us, but would be sure to return before evening; and we sat and waited by the meagre fire till, as the dusk was falling, we heard his footsteps on the creaking stairs.

He halted a moment in the doorway, recognising us apparently without surprise; and then, with a hope that we had not been kept waiting long, he led the way into an inner room.

"I do not suppose you remember me," said my friend, as soon as the door was closed. "I fancy that, until last night, you never saw me without my wig and gown. It makes a difference. I was Mrs.

Hepworth's senior counsel."

It was unmistakable, the look of relief that came into the old, dim eyes. Evidently the incident of the previous evening had suggested to him an enemy.

"You were very good," he murmured. "Mrs. Hepworth was overwrought at the time, but she was very grateful, I know, for all your efforts."

I thought I detected a faint smile on my friend's lips.

"I must apologise for my rudeness to you of last night," he continued. "I expected, when I took the liberty of turning you round, that I was going to find myself face to face with a much younger man."

"I took you to be a detective," answered Ellenby, in his soft, gentle voice. "You will forgive me, I'm sure. I am rather short- sighted. Of course, I can only conjecture, but if you will take my word, I can assure you that Mrs. Hepworth has never seen or heard from the man Charlie Martin since the date of"--he hesitated a moment--"of the murder."

"It would have been difficult," agreed my friend, "seeing that Charlie Martin lies buried in Highgate Cemetery."

Old as he was, he sprang from his chair, white and trembling.

"What have you come here for?" he demanded.

"I took more than a professional interest in the case," answered my friend. "Ten years ago I was younger than I am now. It may have been her youth--her extreme beauty. I think Mrs. Hepworth, in allowing her husband to visit her--here where her address is known to the police, and watch at any moment may be set upon her--is placing him in a position of grave danger. If you care to lay before me any facts that will allow me to judge of the case, I am prepared to put my experience, and, if need be, my assistance, at her service."

His self-possession had returned to him.

"If you will excuse me," he said, "I will tell the boy that he can go."

We heard him, a moment later, turn the key in the outer door; and when he came back and had made up the fire, he told us the beginning of the story.

The name of the man buried in Highgate Cemetery was Hepworth, after all. Not Michael, but Alex, the elder brother.

From boyhood he had been violent, brutal, unscrupulous. Judging from Ellenby's story, it was difficult to accept him as a product of modern civilisation. Rather he would seem to have been a throwback to some savage, buccaneering ancestor. To expect him to work, while he could live in vicious idleness at somebody else's expense, was found to be hopeless. His debts were paid for about the third or fourth time, and he was shipped off to the Colonies. Unfortunately, there were no means of keeping him there. So soon as the money provided him had been squandered, he returned, demanding more by menaces and threats. Meeting with unexpected firmness, he seems to have regarded theft and forgery as the only alternative left to him.

To save him from punishment and the family name from disgrace, his parents' savings were sacrificed. It was grief and shame that, according to Ellenby, killed them both within a few months of one another.