Page:The orange-yellow diamond by Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith).djvu/187

 narrator to pause while he considered a point: in the end he drew out his watch—after which he glanced out of his window.

"Do I gather that the taxi-cab which I see outside there is being kept by you two young men?" he asked.

"It is," answered Purdie. "It's important that we should lose no time in getting back to town, Mr. Killick."

Just so!" agreed Mr. Killick, moving towards his library door. "But I'm going with you—as soon as I've got myself into an overcoat. Now!" he added, a few minutes later, when all three went out to the cab. "Tell the man to drive us straight to that police-station you've been visiting of late—and till we get there, just let me think quietly—I can probably say more about this case than I'm yet aware of. But—if it will give you any relief, I can tell you this at once—I have a good deal to tell. Strange!—strange indeed how things come round, and what a small world this is, after all!"

With this cryptic utterance Mr. Killick sank into a corner of the cab, where he remained, evidently lost in thought, until, nearly an hour later, they pulled up at the door of the police-station. Within five minutes they were closeted with the chief men there—amongst whom were Ayscough and the detective from New Scotland Yard.

"You know me—or of me—some of you?" observed the old solicitor, as he laid a card on the desk by which he had been given a chair. "I was very well known in the City police-courts, you know, until I retired three years ago. Now, these young gentlemen have just told me all the facts of this very strange case, and I think I