Page:The Middle of Things - Fletcher (1922).djvu/164

 "You see further than I do, then," muttered Felpham. "I only see that it's highly dangerous to Hyde's interests. And I want first-handed information about it."

Drillford, discovered alone in his office, smiled as the two men walked in—there was an irritating I-told-you-so air about him.

"Ah!" he said. "I see you gentlemen have been reading the afternoon papers! What do you think about your friend now, Mr. Viner?"

"Precisely what I thought before and shall continue to think," retorted Viner. "I've seen no reason to alter my opinion."

"Oh—but I guess Mr. Felpham doesn't think that way?" replied Drillford with a shrewd glance at the solicitor. "Mr. Felpham knows the value of evidence, I believe!"

"What is it that's been found, exactly?" asked Felpham.

Drillford opened a locked drawer, lifted aside a sheet of cardboard, and revealed a fine gold watch and chain and a diamond ring. These lay on two or three sheets of much crumpled paper of a peculiar quality.

"There you are!" said Drillford. "Those belonged to Mr. Ashton; there's his name on the watch, and a mark of his inside the ring. They were found early this morning, hidden, in the very place in which Hyde confessed that he spent most of the night after Ashton's murder—a shed belonging to one Fisher, a greengrocer, up the Harrow Road.

"Who found them?" demanded Felpham.

"Fisher himself," answered Drillford. "He was