Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/71

Rh been forthcoming, and we are sorry to state that the victim has been identified as Captain J. Montgomery Blaydes, late of his Majesty’s Coldstream Guards, but for some years past on the halfpay list. No letters or papers of any sort were discovered upon his person—

Here Tom stopped reading.

“Go on, sir.”

“I will. But that’s extraordinary!”

“Not it. He’s been robbed as well. That’s what I want to get at. That there stick’s no clue; we want the things he took.”

Tom moistened his lips and harked back:—

No letters or papers of any sort were discovered upon his person, and it is only through the marking of his linen that the identity of the deceased has been so promptly established. It now transpires that the hapless Captain had been lately residing in the village of West End (not a mile from the scene of the murder), and that he left his lodgings shortly after ten o’clock last night, in order to attend an evening party, in a hackney-coach. The police hope that the coachman will come forward—

“He has!” said Jim. “You may leave out that bit.”

“And you couldn’t describe the man?”

“Not too well. I could only swear he was neither short nor tall, and looked to be wearing a pair of nankeen trousers.” (Tom’s legs were underneath the table.) “No,” continued Jim, “I’m afraid they won’t lay hands on him through me. But they may through the things he took. Go on to that!”

“There was a diamond pin.”

“I seen it! What else?”

“All his money.”

“Ah! he paid like a gen’leman. Anything else?”

“A—gold—watch.”