Tertius drew a whiff or two of fragrant Havana before he replied. Then he too dropped into a chair and pulled it close to his friend’s desk.
“My dear Professor!” he said, in a low, thrilling voice, suggestive of vast importance, “I don’t know whether the secret of one of the most astounding crimes of our day may not lie in that innocent-looking bag—or, rather, in its present contents. Fact! But I’ll tell you—you must listen with your usual meticulous care for small details. The truth is—Jacob Herapath has, I am sure, been murdered!”
“Murdered!” exclaimed the Professor. “Herapath? Murder—eh? Now then, slow and steady, Tertius—leave out nothing!”
“Nothing!” repeated Mr. Tertius solemnly. “Nothing! You shall hear all. And this it is—point by point, from last night until—until the present moment. That is—so far as I know. There may have been developments—somewhere else. But this is what I know.”
When Mr. Tertius had finished a detailed and thorough-going account of the recent startling discovery and subsequent proceedings, to all of which Professor Cox-Raythwaite listened in profound silence, he rose, and tip-toeing towards the bag, motioned his friend to follow him.
“Now, my dear sir,” he said, whispering in his excitement as if he feared lest the very retorts and crucibles and pneumatic troughs should hear him, “Now, my dear sir, I wish you to see for yourself. First of all, the glass. I will take it out myself—I know exactly how I put it in. I take it out—thus! I place it on this vacant space—thus. Look for yourself, my dear fellow. What do you see?”
The Professor, watching Mr. Tertius’s movements with undisguised interest, took off his spectacles, picked up a reading-glass, bent down and carefully examined the tumbler.
“Yes,” he said, after a while, “yes, Tertius, I certainly see distinct thumb and finger-marks round the upper part of this glass. Oh, yes—no doubt of that!”
“Allow me to take one of your clean specimen slides,” observed Mr. Tertius, picking up a square of highly polished glass. “There! I place this slide here and upon it I deposit this sandwich. Now, my dear Cox-Raythwaite, favour me by examining the sandwich even more closely than you did the glass—if necessary.”
But the Professor shook his head. He clapped Mr. Tertius on the shoulder.
“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Good! Pooh!—no need for care there. The thing’s as plain as—as I am. Good, Tertius, good!”
“You see it?” said Mr. Tertius, delightedly.
“See it! Good Lord, why, who could help see it?” answered the Professor. “Needs no great amount of care or perception to see that, as I said. Of course, I see it. Glad you did, too!”
“But we must take the greatest care of it,” urged Mr. Tertius. “The most particular care. That’s why I came to you. Now, what can we do? How preserve this sandwich—just as it is?”
“Nothing easier,” replied the Professor. “We’ll soon fix that. We’ll put it in such safety that it will still be a fresh thing if it remains untouched until London Bridge falls down from sheer decay.”
He moved off to another part of the laboratory, and presently returned with two objects, one oblong and shallow, the other deep and square, which on being set down before Mr. Tertius proved to be glass boxes, wonderfully and delicately made, with removable lids that fitted into perfectly adjusted grooves.
“There, my dear fellow,” he said. “Presently I will deposit the glass in that, and the sandwich in this. Then I shall adjust and seal the lids in such a fashion that no air can enter these little chambers. Then through those tiny orifices I shall extract whatever air is in them—to the most infinitesimal remnant of it. Then I shall seal those orifices—and there you are. Whoever wants to see that sandwich or that glass will find both a year hence—ten years hence—a century hence!—in precisely the same condition in which we now see them. And that reminds me,” he continued, as he turned away to his desk and picked up his pipe, “that reminds me, Tertius—what are you going to do about these things being seen? They’ll have to be seen, you know. Have you thought of the police—the detectives?”
“I have certainly thought of both,” replied Mr. Tertius. “But—I think not yet, in either case. I think one had better await the result of the inquest. Something may come out, you know.”
“Coroners and juries,” observed the Professor oracularly, “are good at finding the obvious. Whether they get at the mysteries and the secrets–”
“Just so—just so!” said Mr. Tertius. “I quite apprehend you. All the same, I think we will see what is put before the coroner. Now, what point suggests itself to you, Cox-Raythwaite?”
“One in particular,” answered the Professor. “Whatever medical evidence is called ought to show without reasonable doubt what time Herapath actually met his death.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Tertius gravely. “If that’s once established–”
“Then, of course, your own investigation, or suggestion, or theory about that sandwich will be vastly simplified,” replied the Professor. “Meanwhile, you will no doubt take some means of observing—eh?”
“I shall use every means to observe,” said Mr. Tertius with a significant smile, which was almost a wink. “Of that you may be—dead certain!”
Then he left Professor Cox-Raythwaite to hermetically seal up the glass and the sandwich, and quitting the house, walked slowly back to Portman Square. As he turned out of Oxford Street into Orchard Street the newsboys suddenly came rushing along with the Argus special.
CHAPTER VI
THE TAXI-CAB DRIVER
Mr. Tertius bought a copy of the newspaper, and standing aside on the pavement, read with much interest and surprise the story which Triffitt’s keen appetite for news and ready craftsmanship in writing had so quickly put together. Happening to glance up from the paper in the course of his reading, he observed that several other people were similarly employed. The truth was that Triffitt had headed his column: “Mysterious Death of Mr. Herapath, M.P. Is It Suicide or Murder?”—and as this also appeared in great staring letters on the contents bills which the newsboys were carrying about with them, and as Herapath had been well known in that district, there was a vast amount of interest aroused thereabouts by the news. Indeed, people were beginning to chatter on the sidewalks, and at the doors of the shops. And as Mr. Tertius turned away in the direction of Portman Square, he heard one excited bystander express a candid opinion.
“Suicide?” exclaimed this man, thrusting his paper into the hands of a companion. “Not much! Catch old Jacob Herapath at that game—he was a deuced deal too fond of life and money! Murder, sir—murder!—that’s the ticket—murder!”
Mr. Tertius went slowly homeward, head bent and eyes moody. He let himself into the house; at the sound of his step in the hall Peggie Wynne looked out of the study. She retreated into it at sight of Mr. Tertius, and he followed her and closed the door. Looking narrowly at her, he saw that the girl had been shedding tears, and he laid his hand shyly yet sympathetically on her arm. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I’ve been feeling like that ever since—since I heard about things. But I don’t know—I suppose we shall feel it more when—when we realize it more, eh? Just now there’s the other thing to think about, isn’t there?”
Peggie mopped her eyes and looked at him. He was such a quiet, unobtrusive, inoffensive old gentleman that she wondered more than ever why Barthorpe had refused to admit him to the informal conference.
“What other thing?” she asked.
Mr. Tertius looked round the room—strangely empty now that Jacob Herapath’s bustling and strenuous presence was no longer in it—and shook his head.
“There’s one thought you mustn’t permit yourself to harbour for a moment, my dear,” he answered. “Don’t even for a fraction of time allow yourself to think that my old friend took his own life!