Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/35

 pocket of his blue serge coat, he unscrewed a fountain-pen, carefully tested the nib upon his thumb nail, and made three or four brief entries. Then, stretching out one long arm, he laid the wallet and the pen beside his glass upon the top of a bookcase, without otherwise changing his position, and glancing aside at Exel, said:—

“Now, Mr. Exel, what help can you give us?”

“I have little to add to Dr. Cumberly’s account,” answered Exel, offhandedly. “The whole thing seemed to me”…

“What it seemed,” interrupted Dunbar, “does not interest Scotland Yard, Mr. Exel, and won’t interest the jury.”

Leroux glanced up for a moment, then set his teeth hard, so that his jaw muscles stood out prominently under the pallid skin.

“What do you want to know, then?” asked Exel.

“I will be wanting to know,” said Dunbar, “where you were coming from, to-night?”

“From the House of Commons.”

“You came direct?”

“I left Sir Brian Malpas at the corner of Victoria Street at four minutes to twelve by Big Ben, and walked straight home, actually entering here, from the street, as the clock was chiming the last stroke of midnight.”

“Then you would have walked up the street from an easterly direction?”

“Certainly.”