hether he went up to
London by that 9.35 train or not could not be definitely ascertained.
The police had questioned at least a dozen porters at the railway, as
well as ticket collectors; but no one had any special recollection of a
gentleman in an Inverness cape and Glengarry cap, a costume worn by
more than one first-class passenger on a cold night in September.

"There was the hitch, you see; it all lay in this. Mr. Timothy
Beddingfield, the lawyer, had undoubtedly made himself scarce. He was
last seen in company with the deceased, and wearing an Inverness cape
and Glengarry cap; two or three witnesses saw him leaving the hotel at
about 9.15. Then the messenger calls at the lawyer's house for the
portmanteau, after which Mr. Timothy Beddingfield seems to vanish into
thin air; but--and that is a great 'but'--the night porter at the
'Castle' seems to have seen some one wearing the momentous Inverness and
Glengarry half an hour or so later on, and going up to deceased's room,
where he stayed about a quarter of an hour.

"Undoubtedly you will say, as every one said to themselves that day
after the night porter and Mrs. Higgins had been heard, that there was a
very ugly and very black finger which pointed unpleasantly at Mr.
Timothy Beddingfield, especially as that gentleman, for some reason
which still required an explanation, was not there to put matters right
for himself. But there was just one little thing--a mere trifle,
perhaps--which neither the coroner nor the jury dared to overlook,
though, strictly speaking, it was not evidence.

"You will remember that when the night porter was asked if he could,
among the persons present in court, recognize the Hon. Robert de
Genneville's belated visitor, every one had noticed his hesitation, and
marked that the man's eyes had rested doubtingly upon the face and
figure of the young Earl of Brockelsby.

"Now, if that belated visitor had been Mr. Timothy Beddingfield--tall,
lean, dry as dust, with a bird-like beak and clean-shaven chin--no one
could for a moment have mistaken his face--even if they only saw it very
casually and recollected it but very dimly--with that of young Lord
Brockelsby, who was florid and rather short--the only point in common
between them was their Saxon hair.

"You see that it was a curious point, don't you?" added the man in the
corner, who now had become so excited that his fingers worked like long
thin tentacles round and round his bit of string