The Complete Works of Arthur Morrison (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

and gave one few opportunities. But anybody with the key, using the cipher as a means of communication, would read it easily.

      “As soon as I had read it, of course I guessed the purport of the Flitterbat Lancers. Jerry Shiels’s name is well-known to anybody with half my knowledge of the criminal records of the century, and his connection with the missing Wedlake jewels, and his death in prison, came to my mind at once. Certainly here was something hidden, and as the Wedlake jewels seemed most likely, I made the shot in talking to Hoker.”

      “But you terribly astonished him by telling him his name and address. How was that?” I asked curiously.

      Hewitt laughed aloud. “That,” he said; “why, that was the thinnest trick of all. Why, the man had it engraved on the silver band of his umbrella handle. When he left his umbrella outside, Kerrett (I had indicated the umbrella to him by a sign) just copied the lettering on one of the ordinary visitors’ forms, and brought it in. You will remember I treated it as an ordinary visitor’s announcement.” And Hewitt laughed again.

      On the afternoon of the next day Reuben B. Hoker called on Hewitt and had half-an-hour’s talk with him in his private room. After that he came up to me with half-a-crown in his hand. “Sir,” he said, “everything has turned out a durned sell. I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’m goin’ out of this durn country. Night before last I broke your winder. You put the damage at half-a-crown. Here is the money. Good-day to you, sir.”

      And Reuben B. Hoker went out into the tumultuous world.

      The Case of the Late Mr. Rewse

       Table of Contents

      I.

      Of this case I personally saw nothing beyond the first advent in Hewitt’s office of Mr. Horace Bowyer, who put the case in his hands, and then I merely saw Mr. Bowyer’s back as I passed down stairs from my rooms. But I noted the case in full detail after Hewitt’s return from Ireland, as it seemed to me one not entirely without interest, if only as an exemplar of the fatal ease with which a man may unwittingly dig a pit for his own feet—a pit from which there is no climbing out.

      A few moments after I had seen the stranger disappear into Hewitt’s office, Kerrett brought to Hewitt in his inner room a visitor’s slip announcing the arrival on argent business of Mr. Horace Bowyer. That the visitor was in a hurry was plain from a hasty rattling of the closed wicket in the outer room where Mr. Bowyer was evidently making impatient attempts to follow his announcement in person. Hewitt showed himself at the door and invited Mr. Bowyer to as soon as Kerrett had with much impetuosity florid gentleman with a loud voice and a large stare.

      “Mr. Hewitt,” he said, “I must claim your immediate attention to a business of the utmost gravity. Will you please consider yourself commissioned, wholly regardless of expense, to set aside whatever you may have in hand and devote yourself to the case I shall put in your hands?”

      “Certainly not,” Hewitt replied with a slight smile. “What I have in hand are matters which I have engaged to attend to, and no mere compensation for loss of fees could persuade me to leave my clients in the lurch, else what would prevent some other gentleman coming here to-morrow with a bigger fee than yours and bribing me away from you?”

      “But this—this is a most serious thing, Mr. Hewitt. A matter of life or death—it is indeed!”

      “Quite so,” Hewitt replied; “but there are a thousand such matters at this moment pending of which you and I know nothing, and there are also two or three more of which you know nothing but on which I am at work. So that it becomes a question of practicability. If you will tell me your business I can judge whether or not I may be able to accept your commission concurrently with those I have in hand. Some operations take months of constant attention; some can be conducted intermittently; others still are a mere matter of a few days many of hours simply.”

      “I will tell you then,” Mr. Bowyer replied. “In the first place, will you have the kindness to read that? It is a cutting from the Standard’s column of news from the provinces of two days ago.”

      Hewitt took the cutting and read as follows:—

      “The epidemic of small-pox in County Mayo, Ireland, shows few signs of abating. The spread of the disease has been very remarkable considering the widely-scattered nature of the population, though there can be no doubt that the market towns are the centres of infection, and that it is from these that the germs of contagion are carried into the country by people from all parts who resort thither on market days. In many cases the disease has assumed a particularly malignant form, and deaths have been very rapid and numerous. The comparatively few medical men available are sadly overworked, owing largely to the distances separating their different patients. Among those who have succumbed within the last few days is Mr. Algernon Rewse, a young English gentleman who has been staying with a friend at a cottage a few miles from Cullanin, on a fishing excursion.”

      Hewitt placed the cutting on the table at his side. “Yes?” he said inquiringly.

      “It is to Mr. Algernon Rewse’s death you wish to draw my attention?”

      “It is,” Mr. Bowyer answered; “and the reason I come to you is that I very much suspect—more than suspect, indeed—that Mr. Algernon Rewse has not died by smallpox, but has been murdered—murdered cold-bloodedly, and for the most sordid motives, by the friend who has been sharing his holiday.”

      “In what way do you suppose him to have been murdered?”

      “That I cannot say—that, indeed, I want you to find out, among other things—chiefly perhaps, the murderer himself, who has made off.”

      “And your own status in the matter,” queried Hewitt, “is that of—?”

      “I am trustee under a will by which Mr. Rewse would have benefited considerably had he lived but a month or two longer. That circumstance indeed lies rather near the root of the matter. The thing stood thus. Under the will I speak of that of young Rewse’s uncle, a very old friend of mine in his lifetime—the money lay in trust till the young fellow should attain twenty-five years of age. His younger sister, Miss Mary Rewse, was also benefited, but to a much smaller extent. She was to come into her property also on attaining the age of twenty-five, or on her marriage, whichever event happened first. It was further provided that in case either of these young people died before coming into the inheritance, his Or her share should go to the survivor: I want you particularly to remember this. You will observe that now, in consequence of young Algernon Rewse’s death, barely two months before his twenty-fifth birthday, the whole of the very large property—all personalty, and free from any tie or restriction—which would otherwise have been his, will, in the regular course, pass, on her twenty=fifth birthday, or on her marriage, to Miss Mary Rewse, whose own legacy was comparatively trifling. You will understand the importance of this when I tell you that the man whom I suspect of causing Algernon Rewse’s death, and who has been his companion on his otherwise lonely holiday, is engaged to be married to Miss Rewse.”

      Mr. Bowyer paused at this, but Hewitt only raised his eyebrows and nodded.

      “I have never particularly liked the man,” Mr. Bowyer went on. “He never seemed to have much to say for himself. I like a man who holds up his head and opens ‘his mouth. I don’t believe in the sort of modesty that he showed so much of-it isn’t genuine, A man can’t afford to be genuinely meek and retiring who has his way to make in the world—and he was clever enough to know that.”

      “He is poor, then?” Hewitt asked.

      “Oh yes, poor enough. His name, by-the-bye, is Main Stanley Main—and he is a medical man. He hasn’t been practising, except as assistant, since he became qualified, the reason