The Middle of Things Read online

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE OUTHOUSE

  Near the police-station Viner fell in with his solicitor, Felpham, whoturned a corner in a great hurry. Felpham's first glance showed hisclient that their purposes were in common.

  "Seen that paragraph in the evening papers?" said Felpham withoutpreface. "By George! that's serious news! What a pity that Hyde ever madethat statement about his doings on the night of the murder! It would havebeen far better if he'd held his tongue altogether."

  "He insisted on it--in the end," answered Viner. "And in my opinion hewas right. But--you think this is very serious?"

  "Serious? Yes!" exclaimed Felpham. "He says he spent the night in a shedin the Harrow Road district. Now the things that were taken from Ashton'sbody are discovered in such a place--nay, the very place; for if youremember, Hyde particularized his whereabouts. What's the obviousconclusion? What can anybody think?"

  "I see two or three obvious conclusions, and I think several things,"remarked Viner. "I'll tell you what they are when we've seen Drillford.I'm not alarmed about this discovery, Felpham. I think it may lead tofinding the real murderer."

  "You see further than I do, then," muttered Felpham. "I only see thatit's highly dangerous to Hyde's interests. And I want first-handedinformation about it."

  Drillford, discovered alone in his office, smiled as the two men walkedin--there was an irritating I-told-you-so air about him.

  "Ah!" he said. "I see you gentlemen have been reading the afternoonpapers! What do you think about your friend now, Mr. Viner?"

  "Precisely what I thought before and shall continue to think," retortedViner. "I've seen no reason to alter my opinion."

  "Oh--but I guess Mr. Felpham doesn't think that way?" replied Drillfordwith a shrewd glance at the solicitor. "Mr. Felpham knows the value ofevidence, I believe!"

  "What is it that's been found, exactly?" asked Felpham.

  Drillford opened a locked drawer, lifted aside a sheet of cardboard, andrevealed a fine gold watch and chain and a diamond ring. These lay on twoor three sheets of much crumpled paper of a peculiar quality.

  "There you are!" said Drillford. "Those belonged to Mr. Ashton; there'shis name on the watch, and a mark of his inside the ring. They were foundearly this morning, hidden, in the very place in which Hyde confessedthat he spent most of the night after Ashton's murder--a shed belongingto one Fisher, a greengrocer, up the Harrow Road.

  "Who found them?" demanded Felpham.

  "Fisher himself," answered Drillford. "He was pottering about in hisshed before going to Covent Garden. He wanted some empty boxes, and inpulling things about he found--these! Couldn't have made a more importantfind, I think.

  "Were these things loose?" asked Viner.

  "Wrapped loosely in the paper they're lying on," replied Drillford.

  Viner took the paper out of the drawer, examined it and lifted itto his nose.

  "I wonder, if Hyde really did put those things there," he said, "how Hydecame to be carrying about with him these sheets of paper which hadcertainly been used before for the wrappings of chemicals or drugs?"

  Felpham pricked his ears.

  "Eh?" he said. "What's that?"

  "Smell for yourself," answered Viner. "Let the inspector smell too. Idraw the attention to both of you to the fact, because we'll raise thatpoint whenever it's necessary. Those papers have at some time been usedto wrap some strong-smelling drug."

  "No doubt of it!" said Felpham, who was applying the papers to his nose."Smell them, Drillford! As Mr. Viner says, what would Hyde be doing withthis stuff in his pocket?"

  "That's a mere detail," remarked Drillford impatiently. "These chaps thatmooch about, as Hyde was doing, pick up all sorts of odds and ends. Hemay have pinched them from a chemist's shop. Anyway, there's thefact--and we'll hang him on it! You'll see!"

  "We shall never see anything of the sort!" said Viner. "You're on thewrong tack, Inspector. Let me put two or three things to yourintelligence. Where's Ashton's purse? I know for a fact that Ashton had apurse full of money when he went out of his house that night--Mrs.Killenhall and Miss Wickham saw him take it out just before he left togive some cash to the parlourmaid, and they saw him replace it in histrousers pocket; I also know for another fact where he spent money thatevening--in short, I know now a good deal about his movements for somehours before his death."

  "Then you ought to tell us, Mr. Viner," said Drillford a little sulkily."You oughtn't to keep any information to yourself."

  "You're going on the wrong tack, or I might," retorted Viner. "But you'llknow all in good time. Now, I ask you again--where's Ashton's purse? Youknow as well as I do that when his clothing was examined, almostimmediately after his death, all his effects were gone--watch, chain,rings, pocketbook, purse. If Hyde took the whole lot, do you think hewould ever have been such a consummate ass as to wait until next morningto pawn that ring in Edgware Road? The idea is preposterous!"

  "And why, pray?" demanded Drillford, obviously nettled at the turn whichthe conversation was taking.

  "I wonder your own common sense doesn't tell you," said Viner withintentional directness. "If Hyde took everything from his victim, asyou say he did, he would have had a purse full of ready money. He couldhave gone off to some respectable lodging-house. He could have put ahundred miles between himself and London by breakfast-time. He wouldhave had ready money to last him for months. But--he was starving whenhe went to the pawnbrokers! Hyde told you the truth--he never hadanything but that ring."

  "Good!" muttered Felpham. "Good, Viner! That's one in the eye for you,Drillford."

  "Another thing that you're forgetting, Inspector," continued Viner: "Isuppose you attach some value to probabilities? Do you, as a sensibleman, believe for one moment that Hyde, placed in the position he is,would be such a fool, such a suicidal fool, as to tell you about thatparticular shed if he'd really hidden those things there? The mere ideais absurd--ridiculous!"

  "Good again, Viner!" said Felpham. "He wouldn't!"

  Drillford, obviously ill-pleased, put the strongly-smelling paper andthe valuables which had been wrapped in it, back in the drawer andturned the key.

  "All very well talking and theorizing, Mr. Viner," he said sullenly. "Weknow from his own lips that Hyde did spend the night in that shed. If hedidn't put these things there, who did?"

  Viner gave him a steady look.

  "The man who murdered and robbed Ashton!" he answered. "And that man wasnot Hyde."

  "You'll have that to prove," retorted Drillford, derisively. "I know whata jury'll think with all this evidence before it!"

  "We shall prove a good many things that'll surprise you," said Vinerquietly. "And you'll see, then, the foolishness of jumping at what seemsto be an obvious conclusion."

  He motioned Felpham to follow, and going outside, turned in the directionof the Harrow Road.

  "I'm going to have a look at the place where these things were found," hesaid. "Come with me. You see for yourself," he continued as they walkedon, "how ridiculous it is to suppose that Hyde planted them. The wholeaffair is plain enough, to me. The real murderer read--or may haveheard--Hyde's statement before the coroner, and in order to strengthenthe case against Hyde and divert suspicion from himself, sought out thisshed and put the things there. Clumsy! If Hyde had ever had the purse,which more certainly disappeared with the rest of the property, he'dnever have gone to that shed at all."

  "We'll make the most of all that," said Felpham. "But I gathered, fromwhat you said just now to Drillford, that you know more about this casethan you've let out. If it's in Hyde's favour--"

  "I can't tell you what I know," answered Viner. "I do know some strangethings, which will all come out in good time. If we bring the murder hometo the right man, Hyde of course will be cleared. I'll tell everything assoon as I can, Felpham."

  They walked quickly forward until they came to the higher part of theHarrow Road; there, at a crowded point of that dismal thoroughfare, wherethe shops were small and mean, Felp
ham suddenly lifted a finger towards asign which hung over an open front filled with the cheaper sorts ofvegetables.

  "Here's the place," he said, "a corner shop. The shed, of course, willbe somewhere behind."

  Viner looked with interest at the refuge which Hyde had chosen afterhis hurried flight from the scene of the murder. A shabby lookingstreet ran down from the corner of the greengrocer's shop; the firsttwenty yards of it on that side were filled with palings, more or lessbroken and dilapidated; behind them lay a yard in which stood a van,two or three barrows, a collection of boxes and baskets and crates, anda lean-to shed, built against the wall of the adjoining house. The doorof this yard hung loosely on its rusty hinges; Viner saw at once thatnothing could be easier than for a man to slip into this miserableshelter unseen.

  "Let's get hold of the tenant," he said. "Better show him your card, andthen he'll know we're on professional business."

  The greengrocer, a dull-looking fellow who was measuring potatoes, showedno great interest on hearing what his callers wanted. Summoning his wifeto mind the shop, he led Viner and Felpham round to the yard and openedthe door of the shed. This was as untidy as the yard, and filled with asimilar collection of boxes, baskets and crates. In one corner lay abundle of empty potato sacks--the greengrocer at once pointed to it.

  "I reckon that's where the fellow got a bit of a sleep that night," hesaid. "There was nothing to prevent him getting in here--no locks orbolts on either gate of the yard or that door. He may have been in heremany a night, for all I know."

  "Where did you find those valuables this morning?" asked Viner.

  The greengrocer pointed to a shelf in a corner above the bundleof sacking.

  "There!" he answered. "I wanted some small boxes to take down to CoventGarden, and in turning some of these over I came across a little parcel,wrapped in paper--slipped under a box that was turned top downwards onthe shelf, you understand? So of course I opened it, and there was thewatch and chain and ring."

  "Just folded in the papers that you handed to the police?"suggested Viner.

  "Well, there was more paper about 'em than what I gave to InspectorDrillford," said the greengrocer. "A well-wrapped-up bit of parcel itwas--there's the rest of the paper there, where I threw it down."

  He pointed to some loose sheets of paper which lay on the sacking, andViner went forward, picked them up, looked quickly at them, and put themin his pocket.

  "I suppose you never heard anybody about, that night?" he asked turningto the greengrocer.

  "Not I!" the man replied. "I sleep too sound to hear aught of that sort.There's nothing in here that's of any value. No--a dozen folk could comeinto this yard at night and we shouldn't hear 'em--we sleep at the frontof the house."

  Viner slipped some silver into the greengrocer's hand and led Felphamaway. And when they reached a quieter part of the district, he pulled outthe papers which he had picked out of the corner in the shed and heldthem in front of his companion's eyes.

  "We did some good in coming up here, after all, Felpham!" he said, witha grim smile. "It wasn't a mere desire to satisfy idle curiosity thatmade me come. I thought I might, by sheer good luck, hit on something, orsome idea that would help. Now then, look at these things. That's a pieceof newspaper from out of a copy of the _Melbourne Argus_ of September 6thlast. Likely thing for Langton Hyde to be carrying in his pocket, eh?"

  "Good heavens, that's certainly important!" exclaimed Felpham.

  "And so is this, and perhaps much more so," said Viner, making a secondexhibit. "That's a sheet of brown wrapping-paper with the name andaddress of a famous firm of wholesale druggists and chemicalmanufacturers on one side--printed. It's another likely thing for Hyde topossess, and to carry about, isn't it?"

  "And the same bitter, penetrating smell about it!" said Felpham.

  "Hyde, of course, if Drillford is correct, had all this paper in hispocket when he went into that shed," said Viner. "But I have a differentidea, and a different theory. Here," he went on, folding his discoveriestogether neatly, "you take charge of these--and take care of them. Theymay be of more importance than we think."

  He went home full of thought, restored the sisters to something likecheerfulness by assuring them that the situation was no worse, andpossibly rather better, and spent the rest of the evening in his study,silently working things out. Viner, by the time he went to bed, hadevolved an idea, and it was still developing and growing stronger when heset out next morning to accompany Mr. Pawle to Lord Ellingham'ssolicitors.