of him, a little to the left, was the broad empty street amongst whose shadows she had disappeared. On one side was the Park, and there was obscurity indefinable, mysterious; on the other a long row of tall mansions, a rain- soaked pavement, and a curving line of gas lamps. Beyond, the river, marked with a glittering arc of yellow dots; further away the glow of the sleeping city. Shelter enough there for any one—even for her. A soft, damp breeze was blowing in his face; from amongst the dripping trees of the Park the birds were beginning to make their morning music. Already the blackness of night was passing away, the clouds were lightening, the stars were growing fainter. Wrayson leaned a little forward. His eyes were fixed upon the exact spot where she had crossed the road and disappeared. All the horror of the coming day and the days to come loomed out from the background of his thoughts.
III. DISCUSSING THE CRIME
The murder of Morris Barnes, considered merely as an event, came as a Godsend to the halfpenny press, which has an unwritten but immutable contract with the public to provide it with so much sensation during the week, in season or out of season. Nothing else was talked about anywhere. Under the influence of the general example, Wrayson found himself within a few days discussing its details with perfect coolness, and with an interest which never flagged. He seemed continually to forget his own personal and actual connection with the affair.
It was discussed, amongst other places, at the Sheridan Club, of which Wrayson was a member, and where he spent most of his spare time. At one particular luncheon party the day after the inquest, nothing else was spoken of. For the first time, in Wrayson’s hearing, a new and somewhat ominous light was thrown upon the affair.
There were four men at the luncheon party, which was really not a luncheon party at all, but a promiscuous coming together of four of the men who usually sat at what was called the Colonel’s table. First of all there was the Colonel himself,—Colonel Edgar Fitzmaurice, C.B., D.S.O.,—easily the most popular member of the club, a distinguished retired officer, white-haired, kindly and genial, a man of whom no one had ever heard another say an unkind word, whose hand was always in his none too well- filled pockets, and whose sympathies were always ready to be enlisted in any forlorn cause, deserving or otherwise. At his right hand sat Wrayson; on his left Sydney Mason, a rising young sculptor, and also a popular member of this somewhat Bohemian circle. Opposite was Stephen Heneage, a man of a different and more secretive type. He called himself a barrister, but he never practised; a journalist at times, but he seldom put his name to anything he wrote. His interests, if he had any, he kept to himself. In a club where a man’s standing was reckoned by what he was and what he produced, he owed such consideration as he received to a certain air of reserved strength, the more noteworthy amongst a little coterie of men, who amongst themselves were accustomed to speak their minds freely, and at all times. If he was never brilliant, he had never been heard to say a foolish thing or make a pointless remark. He moved on his way through life, and held his place there more by reason of certain negative qualities which, amongst a community of optimists, were universally ascribed to him, than through any more personal or likable gifts. He had a dark, strong face, but a slim, weakly body. He was never unduly silent, but he was a better listener than talker. If he had no close friends, he certainly had no enemies. Whether he was rich or poor no man knew, but next to the Colonel himself, no one was more ready to subscribe to any of those charities which the Sheridanites were continually inaugurating on behalf of their less fortunate members. The man who succeeds in keeping the “ego” out of sight as a rule neither irritates nor greatly attracts. Stephen Heneage was one of those who stood in this position.
They were talking about the murder, or rather the Colonel was talking and they were listening.
“There is one point,” he remarked, filling his glass and beaming good-humouredly upon his companions, “which seems to have been entirely overlooked. I am referring to the sex of the supposed assassin!”
Wrayson looked up inquiringly. It was a point which interested him.
“Nearly all of you have assumed,” the Colonel continued, “that it must have taken a strong man to draw the cord tight enough to have killed that poor fellow without any noticeable struggle. As a matter of fact, a child with that particular knot could have done it. It requires no strength, only delicacy of touch, rapidity and nerve.”
“A woman, then—” Wrayson began.
“Bless you, yes! a woman could have done it easily,” the Colonel declared, “only unfortunately there don’t seem to have been any women about. Why, I’ve seen it done in Korea with a turn of the wrist. It’s all knack.”
Wrayson shuddered slightly. The Colonel’s words had troubled him more than he would have cared to let any one know.
“Woman or man or child,” Mason remarked, “the person who did it seems to have vanished in some remarkable manner from the face of the earth.”
“He certainly seems,” the Colonel admitted, “to have covered up his traces with admirable skill. I have read every word of the evidence at the inquest, and I can understand that the police are completely confused.”
Heneage and Mason exchanged glances of quiet amusement whilst the Colonel helped himself to cheese.
“Dear old boy,” the latter murmured, “he’s off on his hobby. Let him go on! He enjoys it more than anything in the world.”
Heneage nodded assent, and the Colonel returned to the subject with avidity a few moments later.
“This man Morris Barnes,” he affirmed, “seems to have been a somewhat despicable, at any rate, a by no means desirable individual. He was of Jewish origin, and he had not long returned from South Africa, where Heaven knows what his occupation was. The money of which he was undoubtedly possessed he seems to have spent, or at any rate some part of it, in aping the life of a dissipated man about town. He was known to the fair promenaders of the Empire and Alhambra, he was an habitué of the places where these—er—ladies partake of supper after the exertions of the evening. Of home life or respectable friends he seems to have had none.”
“This,” Mason declared, leaning back and lighting a cigarette, “is better than the newspapers. Go on, Colonel! Your biography may not be sympathetic, but it is lifelike!”
The Colonel’s eyes were full of a distinct and vivid light. He scarcely heard the interruption. He was on fire with his subject.
“You see,” he continued, “that the man’s days were spent amongst a class where the passions run loose, where restraint is an unknown virtue, where self and sensuality are the upraised gods. One can easily imagine that from amongst such a slough might spring at any time the weed of tragedy. In other words, this man Morris Barnes moved amongst a class of people to whom murder, if it could be safely accomplished, would be little more than an incident.”
The Colonel lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair. He was enjoying himself immensely.
“The curious part of the affair is, though,” he continued deliberately, “that this murder, as I suppose we must call it, bears none of the hall-marks of rude passion. On the contrary, it suggests in more ways than one the touch of the finished artist. The man’s whole evening has been traced without the slightest difficulty. He dined at the Café Royal alone, promenaded afterwards at the Alhambra, and drove on about supper-time to the Continental. He left there at 12.30 with a couple of ladies whom he appeared to know fairly well, called at their flat for a drink, and sent one out to his cabby—rather unusual forethought for such a
