reflecting, and when he spoke
again he prefaced his words with a shake of the head.

"Now here, from this point," he continued, "I don't know if Mr.
Merrifield is telling the truth. Probably he isn't. But I confess that,
at present, I don't see how we're going to prove that he isn't. He
strenuously declares that neither he nor Van Koon had anything whatever
to do with the murder of Lisette Beaurepaire, Lydenberg, or Ebers. He
further says that he does not know if Lydenberg poisoned James Allerdyke.
He declares that he does not know if it was ever intended to poison James
Allerdyke, though he confesses that it was intended to rob him at Hull.
Schmall, he says, was the active partner in all this--he took all that
into his own hands. According to Merrifield, he does not know, nor Van
Koon either, if it was Schmall who went down to Hull and shot Lydenberg,
or if Lydenberg was murdered by some person who had a commission for his
destruction from some secret society--Lydenberg, he believed, was mixed
up with that sort of thing."

"I know that, I think!" exclaimed Allerdyke.

"I daresay we all three know what we think," observed the chief. "Schmall
seems to have had a genius for putting his tools out of the way when he
had done with them. It was undoubtedly Schmall who took Lisette
Beaurepaire to that hotel in Paddington and poisoned her; it was just as
undoubtedly Schmall who took Ebers to the hotel in London Docks and got
rid of him. But, I tell you, Merrifield swears that neither he nor Van
Koon knew of these things, and did not connive at them."

"Did they know of them--afterwards?" asked Fullaway.

"Ah!" replied the chief. "That's what they'll have to satisfy a judge and
jury about! I think they'll find it difficult. But--that's about all.
Except this--that they were all three about to clear out when the
enterprising Miss Slade turned up and told Schmall she'd got the
Nastirsevitch jewels. That was a stiff proposition for them. But they
were equal to it. For you see Miss Slade let him know that she was open
to do a deal--for sixty thousand pounds! How were they to get sixty
thousand pounds? Ah!--now came a confession from Merrifield which has
already--for I've told him of it--made Mr. Delkin stare. Delkin, it
appears, keeps a very big banking account here in London--so big, that
his bankers think nothing of his drawing what we should call enormous
cash cheques. Now Merrifield--you see what a clean breast he's
made--a