at's all.'
'I shall go with you quietly,' said Barndale. 'I have two things to
impress upon you. Let no apparent evidence in any other direction throw
you off the scent on which I have set you. Next: send a smart man to
Thames Ditton and let him collect evidence of all the grounds on which I
am suspected. Now I am ready.'
Thus torn with grief for his friend, and sorrow for his lover, but moved
to no upbraiding of Fate for the cruel trick she had played him, this
British gentleman surrendered himself to the emissary of Public Gossip
and went away with him.
The officer, having ideas of his own, got into a cab with Barndale
and drove straight to Scotland Yard. On the way Barndale set out the
evidence in favour of his own theory of the crime and its motive.
Inspector Webb's experience of criminals was large; but he had never
known a criminal conduct himself after Barn-dale's fashion, and was
convinced of his innocence, and hotly eager to be in pursuit of the
Greek. When the cab drew up in the Yard a second cab drew up behind it,
and from it emerged two clean-shaven, quiet-looking men in inconspicuous
dresses, whom Barndale had seen in King's Bench Walk as he had gone that
afternoon to his chambers. Scarcely had they alighted when a third cab
came up, and from it dashed a mahogany-coloured young man with grey
hair, and assisted a lady to alight. Catching sight of Barndale, the
lady ran forward and took him by the arm.
'Oh, Will,' she said, 'you have heard this dreadful news?'
'My poor child!' he answered.
'This,' said Lilian, pointing out her companion, 'is Dr. Wattiss, who
saved James's life.'
'Hundred and Ninety-first Foot,' said the medical man. 'I've had
considerable experience in gunshot wounds, and I don't think Mr.
Leland's case at all desperate, if that's any comfort to anybody,' There
the doctor smiled. 'You are Mr. Barndale, I presume. Miss Leland has
evidence of the name and even the whereabouts of the scoundrel who
inflicted the wound, and we are here to hunt him up.'
'May I ask who's the suspected party?' asked Inspector Webb with his eye
on the doctor.
'Demetri Agryopoulo,' said Lilian, 'a Greek----'
'Attached to the Persian Embassy at Constantinople.' said Inspector
Webb. 'All right. Come with me, ma'am. This way, gentlemen.' And the
inspector marshalled them all upstairs. There he gave a whispered order
to an officer who lounged to the door, and placed his back against it,
and there pic
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