from Hilditch. Oliver
Hilditch met him at Southampton, travelled with him to London and
found him a room at the Savoy. The next day, the whole of the time
seems to have been spent in the office, and it is certain, from the
evidence of the clerk, that some disagreement took place between the
two men. They dined together, however, apparently on good terms, at
the Cafe Royal, and parted in Regent Street soon after ten. At twelve
o'clock, Jordan's body was picked up on the pavement in Hill Street,
within a few paces of Heidrich's door. He had been stabbed through the
heart with some needle-like weapon, and was quite dead."
"Was there any vital cause of quarrel between them?" Wilmore
enquired.
"Impossible to say," Francis replied. "The financial position of the
company depends entirely upon the value of a large quantity of
speculative bonds, but as there was only one clerk employed, it was
impossible to get at any figures. Hilditch declared that Jordan had only
a small share in the business, from which he had drawn a considerable
income for years, and that he had not the slightest cause for complaint."
"What were Hilditch's movements that evening?" Wilmore asked.
"Not a soul seems to have seen him after he left Regent Street," was the
somewhat puzzled answer. "His own story was quite straightforward
and has never been contradicted. He let himself into his house with a
latch-key after his return from the Cafe Royal, drank a whisky and soda
in the library, and went to bed before half-past eleven. The whole
affair--"
Francis broke off abruptly in the middle of his sentence. He sat with his
eyes fixed upon the door, silent and speechless.
"What in Heaven's name is the matter, old fellow?" Wilmore demanded,
gazing at his companion in blank amazement.
The latter pulled himself together with an effort. The sight of the two
new arrivals talking to Louis on the threshold of the restaurant, seemed
for the moment to have drawn every scrap of colour from his cheeks.
Nevertheless, his recovery was almost instantaneous.
"If you want to know any more," he said calmly, "you had better go and
ask him to tell you the whole story himself. There he is."
"And the woman with him?" Wilmore exclaimed under his breath.
"His wife!"
CHAPTER IV
To reach their table, the one concerning which Francis and his friend
had been speculating, the new arrivals, piloted by Louis, had to pass
within a few feet of the two men. The woman, serene, coldly beautiful,
dressed like a Frenchwoman in unrelieved black, with extraordinary
attention to details, passed them by with a careless glance and subsided
into the chair which Louis was holding. Her companion, however, as he
recognised Francis hesitated. His expression of somewhat austere
gloom was lightened. A pleasant but tentative smile parted his lips. He
ventured upon a salutation, half a nod, half a more formal bow, a
salutation which Francis instinctively returned. Andrew Wilmore
looked on with curiosity.
"So that is Oliver Hilditch," he murmured.
"That is the man," Francis observed, "of whom last evening half the
people in this restaurant were probably asking themselves whether or
not he was guilty of murder. To-night they will be wondering what he
is going to order for dinner. It is a strange world."
"Strange indeed," Wilmore assented. "This afternoon he was in the
dock, with his fate in the balance--the condemned cell or a favoured
table at Claridge's. And your meeting! One can imagine him gripping
your hands, with tears in his eyes, his voice broken with emotion,
sobbing out his thanks. And instead you exchange polite bows. I would
not have missed this situation for anything."
"Tradesman!" Francis scoffed. "One can guess already at the plot of
your next novel."
"He has courage," Wilmore declared. "He has also a very beautiful
companion. Were you serious, Francis, when you told me that that was
his wife?"
"She herself was my informant," was the quiet reply.
Wilmore was puzzled.
"But she passed you just now without even a glance of recognition, and
I thought you told me at the club this afternoon that all your knowledge
of his evil ways came from her. Besides, she looks at least twenty years
younger than he does."
Francis, who had been watching his glass filled with champagne, raised
it to his lips and drank its contents steadily to the last drop.
"I can only tell you what I know, Andrew," he said, as he set down the
empty glass. "The woman who is with him now is the woman who
spoke to me outside the Old Bailey this afternoon. We went to a
tea-shop together. She told me the story of his career. I have never
listened to so horrible a recital
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