“Surely, you don’t mean?” gasped the girl.

“One moment, please,” he added triumphantly.  “How did it come about that the landlord of the Torriani Hotel was brought into court at all?  How did Sir Arthur Inglewood, or rather his client, know that William Kershaw had on those two memorable occasions visited the hotel, and that its landlord could bring such convincing evidence forward that would for ever exonerate the millionaire from the imputation of murder?”

“Surely,” I argued, “the usual means, the police—­”

“The police had kept the whole affair very dark until the arrest at the Hotel Cecil.  They did not put into the papers the usual:  ’If anyone happens to know of the whereabouts, etc. etc’.  Had the landlord of that hotel heard of the disappearance of Kershaw through the usual channels, he would have put himself in communication with the police.  Sir Arthur Inglewood produced him.  How did Sir Arthur Inglewood come on his track?”

“Surely, you don’t mean?”

“Point number four,” he resumed imperturbably, “Mrs. Kershaw was never requested to produce a specimen of her husband’s handwriting.  Why?  Because the police, clever as you say they are, never started on the right tack.  They believed William Kershaw to have been murdered; they looked for William Kershaw.

“On December the 31st, what was presumed to be the body of William Kershaw was found by two lightermen:  I have shown you a photograph of the place where it was found.  Dark and deserted it is in all conscience, is it not?  Just the place where a bully and a coward would decoy an unsuspecting stranger, murder him first, then rob him of his valuables, his papers, his very identity, and leave him there to rot.  The body was found in a disused barge which had been moored some time against the wall, at the foot of these steps.  It was in the last stages of decomposition, and, of course, could not be identified; but the police would have it that it was the body of William Kershaw.

“It never entered their heads that it was the body of Francis Smethurst, and that William Kershaw was his murderer.

“Ah! it was cleverly, artistically conceived!  Kershaw is a genius.  Think of it all!  His disguise!  Kershaw had a shaggy beard, hair, and moustache.  He shaved up to his very eyebrows!  No wonder that even his wife did not recognize him across the court; and remember she never saw much of his face while he stood in the dock.  Kershaw was shabby, slouchy, he stooped.  Smethurst, the millionaire, might have served in the Prussian army.

“Then that lovely trait about going to revisit the Torriani Hotel.  Just a few days’ grace, in order to purchase moustache and beard and wig, exactly similar to what he had himself shaved off.  Making up to look like himself!  Splendid!  Then leaving the pocket-book behind!  He! he! he!  Kershaw was not murdered!  Of course not.  He called at the Torriani Hotel six days after the murder, whilst Mr. Smethurst, the millionaire, hobnobbed in the park with duchesses!  Hang such a man!  Fie!”