Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/30

26 ignorant of his name, and her very vague description might apply to dozens of young men in Melbourne.

There was only one person who, in Mr. Gorby's opinion, could tell the name of the gentleman in the light coat, and that was Moreland, the intimate friend of the dead man. They appeared, from the landlady's description, to have been so friendly that it was more than likely Whyte would have told Moreland all about his angry visitor. Besides, Moreland's knowledge of his dead friend's life and habits might be able to supply the answer as to whom Whyte's death would have been a gain, and whom the heiress was the deceased boasted he was going to marry. What puzzled the detective was that Moreland should be ignorant of his friend's tragic death, seeing that the papers were full of the murder, and that the reward gave an excellent description of the personal appearance of the deceased. The only way in which Gorby could account for Moreland's extraordinary silence was that he was out of town, and had neither seen the papers nor heard anyone talking about the murder. If this was the case he might either stay away for an indefinite time or might come back after a few days. At all events it was worth while going down to St. Kilda in the evening on the chance that Moreland might have returned to town, and would call to see his friend. So, after his tea, Mr. Gorby put on his hat and went down to Possum Villa, on what he could not help acknowledging to himself was a very slender possibility.

Mrs. Hableton opened the door for him, and in silence led the way, not into her own sitting-room, but into a much more luxuriously furnished apartment, which Gorby guessed at once was that of Whyte's. He looked keenly round the room, and his estimate of the dead man's character was formed at once.

"Fast," he said to himself, "and a spendthrift. A man who would have friends, and possibly enemies, among a very shady lot of people."

What led Mr. Gorby to this belief was the evidences which surrounded him of Whyte's mode of life. The room was well furnished, the furniture being covered with dark-red velvet, while the curtains on the windows and the carpet were all of the same somewhat somber hue.

"I did this thing properly," observed Mrs, Hableton,