“The next thing,” answered Rathbury, “is to find the man with whom Marbury left this hotel last night.”

“And how’s that to be done?” asked Spargo.

“At present,” replied Rathbury, “I don’t know.”

And with a careless nod, he walked off, apparently desirous of being alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALIZE

The barrister and the journalist, left thus unceremoniously on a crowded pavement, looked at each other.  Breton laughed.

“We don’t seem to have gained much information,” he remarked.  “I’m about as wise as ever.”

“No—­wiser,” said Spargo.  “At any rate, I am.  I know now that this dead man called himself John Marbury; that he came from Australia; that he only landed at Southampton yesterday morning, and that he was in the company last night of a man whom we have had described to us—­a tall, grey-bearded, well-dressed man, presumably a gentleman.”

Breton shrugged his shoulders.

“I should say that description would fit a hundred thousand men in London,” he remarked.

“Exactly—­so it would,” answered Spargo.  “But we know that it was one of the hundred thousand, or half-million, if you like.  The thing is to find that one—­the one.”

“And you think you can do it?”

“I think I’m going to have a big try at it.”

Breton shrugged his shoulders again.

“What?—­by going up to every man who answers the description, and saying ’Sir, are you the man who accompanied John Marbury to the Aglo——­”

Spargo suddenly interrupted him.

“Look here!” he said.  “Didn’t you say that you knew a man who lives in that block in the entry of which Marbury was found?”

“No, I didn’t,” answered Breton.  “It was Mr. Elphick who said that.  All the same, I do know that man—­he’s Mr. Cardlestone, another barrister.  He and Mr. Elphick are friends—­they’re both enthusiastic philatelists—­stamp collectors, you know—­and I dare say Mr. Elphick was round there last night examining something new Cardlestone’s got hold of.  Why?”

“I’d like to go round there and make some enquiries,” replied Spargo.  “If you’d be kind enough to——­”

“Oh, I’ll go with you!” responded Breton, with alacrity.  “I’m just as keen about this business as you are, Spargo!  I want to know who this man Marbury is, and how he came to have my name and address on him.  Now, if I had been a well-known man in my profession, you know, why—­”

“Yes,” said Spargo, as they got into a cab, “yes, that would have explained a lot.  It seems to me that we’ll get at the murderer through that scrap of paper a lot quicker than through Rathbury’s line.  Yes, that’s what I think.”

Breton looked at his companion with interest.

“But—­you don’t know what Rathbury’s line is,” he remarked.

“Yes, I do,” said Spargo.  “Rathbury’s gone off to discover who the man is with whom Marbury left the Anglo-Orient Hotel last night.  That’s his line.”  “And you want——?”