Page:The Middle of Things - Fletcher (1922).djvu/219

 the nearest approach to a clue that we've had, Perkwite. If we only knew who that man was! But—what more can you tell us?"

"Nothing more, I'm afraid," answered the barrister. "I promised to call on Ashton when I returned to London, and when he'd started housekeeping, and we parted—I went on next morning to Genoa, and he set off for Paris. He was a pleasant, kindly, sociable fellow," concluded Mr. Perkwite, "and I was much grieved to hear of his sad fate."

"He didn't correspond with you at all after you left him at Marseilles?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No," replied the barrister. "No—I never heard of or from him until I read of his murder."

Pawle turned to Viner.

"I think we'd better tell Perkwite of all that's happened, within our own ken," he said, and proceeded to give the visitor a brief account of the various important details. "Now," he concluded, "it seems to me there's only one conclusion to be arrived at. The man who shared the secret with Ashton is certainly the man whom Armitstead saw with him in Paris. He is probably the man whom Hyde saw leaving Londsdale Passage, just before Hyde found the body. And he is without doubt the murderer, and is the man to whom this claimant fellow is acting as cat's-paw. And—who is he?"

"There must be some way of finding that out," observed Mr. Perkwite. "If your theory is correct, that this claimant is merely a man who is being put forward, then surely the thing to do is to get at the person or persons behind him, through him!"

"Aye, there's that to be thought of," asserted Mr.