Fresno Street a number of constables with an inspector, all on their
way to their beat. The inspector and two men accompanied her back, and
in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their
way to the room in which Mr. St. Clair had last been seen. There was no
sign of him there. In fact, in the whole of that floor there was no one
to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect, who, it seems,
made his home there. Both he and the Lascar stoutly swore that no one
else had been in the front room during the afternoon. So determined was
their denial that the inspector was staggered, and had almost come to
believe that Mrs. St. Clair had been deluded when, with a cry, she
sprang at a small deal box which lay upon the table and tore the lid
from it. Out there fell a cascade of children s bricks. It was the toy
which he had promised to bring home.
This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed,
made the inspector realise that the matter was serious. The rooms were
carefully examined, and results all pointed to an abominable crime. The
front room was plainly furnished as a sitting-room and led into a small
bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the wharves. Between
the wharf and the bedroom window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low
tide but is covered at high tide with at least four and a half feet of
water. The bedroom window was a broad one and opened from below. On
examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the windowsill, and
several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of the
bedroom. Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were all the
clothes of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the exception of his coat. His
boots, his socks, his hat, and his watch all were there. There were no
signs of violence upon any of these garments, and there were no other
traces of Mr. Neville St. Clair. Out of the window he must apparently
have gone for no other exit could be discovered, and the ominous
bloodstains upon the sill gave little promise that he could save
himself by swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment
of the tragedy.
And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated in
the matter. The Lascar was known to be a man of the vilest antecedents,
but as, by Mrs. St. Clair s story, he was known to have been at the
foot of the stair within a very few seconds of her husband s appearance
at the window, he could hardly have been more than an accessory to the
crime. His defence was one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that
129