“Well?” said Spargo.

“I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or in prospect, and had been recommended to—­me,” said Breton.

Spargo smiled—­a little sardonically.

“That’s good!” he said.  “You had your very first brief—­yesterday.  Come—­your fame isn’t blown abroad through all the heights yet, my friend!  Besides—­don’t intending clients approach—­isn’t it strict etiquette for them to approach?—­barristers through solicitors?”

“Quite right—­in both your remarks,” replied Breton, good-humouredly.  “Of course, I’m not known a bit, but all the same I’ve known several cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and asked to recommend a solicitor.  Somebody who wanted to do me a good turn may have given this man my address.”

“Possible,” said Spargo.  “But he wouldn’t have come to consult you at midnight.  Breton!—­the more I think of it, the more I’m certain there’s a tremendous mystery in this affair!  That’s why I got the chief to let me write it up as I have done—­here.  I’m hoping that this photograph—­though to be sure, it’s of a dead face—­and this facsimile of the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can——­”

Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble pillared vestibule of the Watchman office came into the room with the unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.

“I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is,” muttered Spargo in an aside.  “Well?” he said to the boy.  “What is it?”

The messenger came up to the desk.

“Mr. Spargo,” he said, “there’s a man downstairs who says that he wants to see somebody about that murder case that’s in the paper this morning, sir.  Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you.”

“Who is the man?” asked Spargo.

“Won’t say, sir,” replied the boy.  “I gave him a form to fill up, but he said he wouldn’t write anything—­said all he wanted was to see the man who wrote the piece in the paper.”

“Bring him here,” commanded Spargo.  He turned to Breton when the boy had gone, and he smiled.  “I knew we should have somebody here sooner or later,” he said.  “That’s why I hurried over my breakfast and came down at ten o’clock.  Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this chap’s information proving valuable?”

“Nothing,” replied Breton.  “He’s probably some crank or faddist who’s got some theory that he wants to ventilate.”

The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton’s prognostication.  He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man, yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were several distinct colours.  Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of the Watchman building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious footing in Spargo’s room.  His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern newspaper-office accommodation.