Page:Fletcher - The Middle Temple Murder (Knopf, 1919).djvu/83

 Spargo stopped and lighted a fresh cigarette.

"That's all I know," he said. "What do you make of it?"

Rathbury leaned back in his chair in his apparently favourite attitude and stared hard at the dusty ceiling above him.

"Don't know," he said. "It brings things up to a point, certainly. Aylmore and Marbury parted at Waterloo Bridge—very late. Waterloo Bridge is pretty well next door to the Temple. But—how did Marbury get into the Temple, unobserved? We've made every enquiry, and we can't trace him in any way as regards that movement. There's a clue for his going there in the scrap of paper bearing Breton's address, but even a Colonial would know that no business was done in the Temple at midnight, eh?"

"Well," said Spargo, "I've thought of one or two things. He may have been one of those men who like to wander around at night. He may have seen—he would see—plenty of lights in the Temple at that hour; he may have slipped in unobserved—it's possible, it's quite possible. I once had a moonlight saunter in the Temple myself after midnight, and had no difficulty about walking in and out, either. But—if Marbury was murdered for the sake of what he had on him—how did he meet with his murderer or murderers in there? Criminals don't hang about Middle Temple Lane."

The detective shook his head. He picked up his pencil and began making more hieroglyphics.

"What's your theory, Mr. Spargo?" he asked sudienly. "I suppose you've got one."