The Man Who Knew

"So far as I can find out, they were both working independent of the other—Mr. Cole and Mr. Minute," explained Mr. Wiseman. "It is what I call a mystery within a mystery, and it has never been properly cleared up. I thought something was coming out about it at the trial, but you know what a mess the lawyers made of it."

It was Constable Wiseman's firm conviction that Frank Merrill had escaped through the incompetence of the crown authorities, and there were moments in his domestic circle when he was bitter and even insubordinate on the subject.

"You still think Mr. Merrill was guilty?" asked Saul Arthur Mann as he took his leave of the other.

"I am as sure of it as I am that I am standing here," said the constable, not without a certain pride in the consistency of his view. "Didn't I go into the room? Wasn't he there with the deceased? Wasn't his revolver found? Hadn't there been some jiggery-pokery with his books in London?"

Saul Arthur Mann smiled.

"There are some of us who think differently, Constable," he said, shaking hands with the implacable officer of the law.

He brought back to London a few new facts to be added to his record of Sergeant Crawley, alias Smith, and on these he went painstakingly to work.

As has been already explained, Saul Arthur Mann had a particularly useful relationship with Scotland Yard, and fortunately, about that time, he was on the most excellent terms with official police headquarters, for he had been able to assist them in running to earth one of the most powerful blackmailing gangs that had ever operated in Europe. His files had been drawn upon to such good purpose that the police had secured convictions against the seventeen members of the gang who were in England.

He sought an interview with the chief commissioner, and that same night, accompanied by a small army of detectives, he made a systematic search of Silvers Rents. The house into which Jasper Cole had been seen to enter was again raided, and again without result. The house was empty save for one room, a big room which was simply furnished with a truckle-bed, a table, a chair, a lamp, and a strip of carpet. There were four rooms—two upstairs, which were never used, and two on the ground floor.

At the end of a passage was a kitchen, which also was empty, save for a length of bamboo ladder. From the kitchen a bolted door led on to a tiny square of yard which was separated by three walls from yards of similar dimensions to left and right and to the back of the premises. At the back of Silvers Rents was Royston Court, which was another cul-de-sac, running parallel with Silvers Rents.

Mr. Mann returned to the house, and again searched the upstairs rooms, looking particularly for a trapdoor, for the bamboo ladder suggested some such exit. This time, however, he completely failed. Jasper Cole, he found, had made only one visit to the house since John Minute's death.

It is a curious fact, as showing the localizing of interest, that Silvers Rents knew nothing of what had occurred almost at its doors, and, though it had at its finger tips all the gossip of the docks and the Thames Iron Works, it was profoundly ignorant of what was common property in Royston Court. It is even more remarkable that Saul Arthur Mann, with his squadron of detectives, should have confined their investigations to Silvers Rents.

The investigator was baffled and disappointed, but by the oddest of chances he was to pick up yet another thread of the Minute mystery, a thread which, however, was to lead him into an ever-deeper maze than that which he had already and so unsuccessfully attempted to penetrate.

Three days after his search of Silvers Rents, business took Mr. Mann to Camden Town. To be exact, he had gone at the request of the police to Holloway Jail to see a prisoner who had turned state's evidence on a matter in which the police and Mr. Mann were equally interested. Very foolishly he had dismissed his taxi, and when he emerged from the doors there was no conveyance in sight. He decided, rather than take the trams which would have carried him to King's Cross, to walk, and, since he hated main roads, he had taken a short cut, which, as he knew, would lead him into the Hampstead Road.

Thus he found himself in Flowerton Road, a thoroughfare of respectable detached houses occupied by the superior industrial type. He was striding along, swinging his umbrella and humming, as was his wont, an unmusical rendering of a popular tune, when his attention was attracted to a sight which took his breath away and brought him to a halt.

It was half past five, and dull, but his eyesight was excellent, and it was impossible for him to make a mistake. The houses of Flowerton Road stand back and are separated from the sidewalk by diminutive gardens. The front doors are approached by six or seven steps, and it was on the top of one of these flights in front of an open door that the scene was enacted which brought Mr. Mann to a standstill.

The characters were a young man and a girl. The girl was extremely pretty and very pale. The man was the exact double of Frank Merrill. He was dressed in a rough tweed suit, and wore a soft felt hat with a fairly wide brim. But it was not the appearance of this remarkable apparition which startled the investigator. It was the attitude of the two people. The girl was evidently pleading with her companion. Saul Arthur Mann was too far away to hear what she said, but he saw the young man shake himself loose from the girl. She again grasped his arm and raised her face imploringly.

Mr. Mann gasped, for he saw the young man's hand come up and strike her back into the house. Then he caught hold of the door and banged it savagely, walked down the stairs, and, turning, hurried away.

The investigator stood as though he were rooted to the spot, and before he could recover himself the fellow had turned the corner of the road and was out of sight. Saul Arthur Mann took off his hat and wiped his forehead. All his initiative was for the moment paralyzed. He walked slowly up to the gate and hesitated. What excuse could he have for calling? If this were Frank, assuredly his own views were all wrong, and the mystery was a greater mystery still.

His energies began to reawaken. He took a note of the number of the house, and hurried off after the young man. When he turned the corner his quarry had vanished. He hurried to the next corner, but without overtaking the object of his pursuit. Fortunately, at this moment, he found an empty taxicab and hailed it.

"Grimm's Hotel, Jermyn Street," he directed.

At least he could satisfy his mind upon one point.

CHAPTER XV

A LETTER IN THE GRATE

Grimm's Hotel is in reality a block of flats, with a restaurant attached. The restaurant is little more than a kitchen from whence meals are served to residents in their rooms. Frank's suite was on the third floor, and Mr. Mann, paying his cabman, hurried into the hall, stepped into the automatic lift, pressed the button, and was deposited at Frank's door. He knocked with a sickening sense of apprehension that there would be no answer. To his delight and amazement, he heard Frank's firm step in the tiny hall of his flat, and the door was opened. Frank was in the act of dressing for dinner.

"Come in, S. A. M.," he said cheerily, "and tell me all the news."

He led the way back to his room and resumed the delicate task of tying his dress bow.

"How long have you been here?" asked Mr. Mann.

Frank looked at him inquiringly.

"How long have I been here?" he repeated. "I cannot tell you the exact time, but I have been here since a short while after lunch."

Mr. Mann was bewildered and still unconvinced.

"What clothes did you take off?"

It was Frank's turn to look amazed and bewildered.

"Clothes?" he repeated. "What are you driving at, my dear chap?"

"What suit were you wearing to-day?" persisted Saul Arthur Mann.

Frank disappeared into his dressing room and came out with a tumbled bundle which he dropped on a chair. It was the blue suit which he usually affected.

"Now what is the joke?"

"It is no joke," said the other. "I could have sworn that I saw you less than half an hour ago in Camden Town."

"I won't pretend that I don't know where Camden Town is," smiled Frank, "but I have not visited that interesting locality for many years."

Saul Arthur Mann was silent. It was obvious to him that whoever was the occupant of 69 Flowerton Road, it was not Frank Merrill. Frank listened to the narrative with interest.

"You were probably mistaken; the light played you a trick, I expect," he said.

But Mr. Mann was emphatic.

"I could have taken an oath in a court that it was you," he said.

Frank stared out of the window.

"How very curious!" he mused. "I suppose I cannot very well prosecute a man for looking like me—poor girl!"

"Of whom are you thinking?" asked the other.

"I was thinking of the unfortunate woman," answered Frank. "What brutes there are in the world!"

"You gave me a terrible fright," admitted his friend.

Frank's laugh was loud and hearty.

"I suppose you saw me figuring in a court, charged with common assault," he said.