The Middle Temple Murder - J. S. Fletcher (reading women .TXT) 📗

commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy had gone. “There!” he said, laughing. “This is the man about the stick⁠—you see if it isn’t.”

“You’re such a cocksure chap, Spargo,” said Breton. “You’re always going on a straight line.”

“Trying to, you mean,” retorted Spargo. “Well, stop here, and hear what this chap has to say: it’ll no doubt be amusing.”

The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo’s room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of good Watchman money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a shy and self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully apparent to everybody and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the threshold, looking round the comfortably-furnished room, and at the two well-dressed young men which it framed as if he feared to enter on a scene of such grandeur.

“Come in, come in!” said Spargo, rising and pointing to an easy-chair at the side of his desk. “Take a seat. You’ve called about that reward, of course.”

The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.

“Of course,” he said. “It’s all on the strict private. Name of Edward Mollison, sir.”

“And where do you live, and what do you do?” asked Spargo.

“You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel,” answered Edward Mollison. “Leastways, that’s where I generally hang out when I can afford it. And⁠—window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning when⁠—when⁠—”

“When you came in contact with the stick we’ve been advertising about,” suggested Spargo. “Just so. Well, Mollison⁠—what about the stick?”

Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at Breton.

“There ain’t no danger of me being got into trouble along of that stick?” he asked. “ ’Cause if there is, I ain’t a-going to say a word⁠—no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no trouble of any sort, guv’nor⁠—though a poor man.”

“Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison,” replied Spargo. “Not the least. All you’ve got to do is to tell the truth⁠—and prove that it is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out of Mr. Aylmore’s rooms in Fountain Court, was it?”

Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his feelings. He smiled weakly.

“It was cert’nly me as took it, sir,” he said. “Not that I meant to pinch it⁠—not me! And, as you might say, I didn’t take it, when all’s said and done. It was⁠—put on me.”

“Put on you, was it?” said Spargo. “That’s interesting. And how was it put on you?”

Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.

“It was this here way,” he answered. “You see, I was working at that time⁠—near on to nine months since, it is⁠—for the Universal Daylight Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore’s⁠—only I knew them as Mr. Anderson’s⁠—among ’em. And I was there one morning, early it was, when the charwoman she says to me, ‘I wish you’d take these two or three hearthrugs,’ she says, ‘and give ’em a good beating,’ she says. And me being always a ready one to oblige, ‘All right!’ I says, and takes ’em. ‘Here’s something to wallop ’em with,’ she says, and pulls that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner of the lobby. And that’s how I came to handle it, sir.”

“I see,” said Spargo. “A good explanation. And when you had beaten the hearthrugs⁠—what then?”

Mollison smiled his weak smile again.

“Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something uncommon,” he answered. “And I thinks⁠—‘Well, this Mr. Anderson, he’s got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up there⁠—he’ll never miss this old thing,’ I thinks. And so I left it in a corner when I’d done beating the rugs, and when I went away with my things I took it with me.”

“You took it with you?” said Spargo. “Just so. To keep as a curiosity, I suppose?”

Mollison’s weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his news was imparting confidence to him.

“Not half!” he answered. “You see, guv’nor, there was an old cove as I knew in the Temple there as is, or was, ’cause I ain’t been there since, a collector of antikities, like, and I’d sold him a queer old thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye when I took the stick away⁠—see?”

“I see. And you took the stick to him?”

“I took it there and then,” replied Mollison. “Pitched him a tale, I did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle Simon⁠—which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare curiosity⁠—which it might ha’ been one, for all I know.”

“Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?”

“Bought it there and then,” answered Mollison, with something very like a wink.

“Ah! Bought it there and then. And how much did he give you for it?” asked Spargo. “Something handsome, I hope?”

“Couple o’ quid,” replied Mollison. “Me not wishing to part with a family heirloom for less.”

“Just so. And do you happen to be able to tell me the old cove’s name and his address, Mollison?” asked Spargo.

“I do, sir. Which they’ve painted on his entry⁠—the fifth or sixth as you go down Middle Temple Lane,” answered Mollison. “Mr. Nicholas Cardlestone, first floor up the staircase.”

Spargo rose from his seat without as much as a look at Breton.

“Come this way, Mollison,” he said. “We’ll go and see about your little reward. Excuse me, Breton.”

Breton kicked his heels in solitude for half an hour. Then Spargo came back.

“There⁠—that’s one matter settled, Breton,” he said. “Now for the next. The Home Secretary’s made the order for the opening of the grave at Market Milcaster. I’m going down