ter he had heard the clock at Holy Trinity
Church, Marylebone, strike half-past two. The fog at that moment was
perhaps not quite so dense as it was later on in the morning, and the
policeman saw two gentlemen in overcoats and top-hats leaning arm in arm
against the railings of the Square, close to the gate. He could not, of
course, distinguish their faces because of the fog, but he heard one of
them saying to the other:

"'It is but a question of time, Mr. Cohen. I know my father will pay
the money for me, and you will lose nothing by waiting.'

"To this the other apparently made no reply, and the constable passed
on; when he returned to the same spot, after having walked over his
beat, the two gentlemen had gone, but later on it was near this very
gate that the two keys referred to at the inquest had been found.

"Another interesting fact," added the man in the corner, with one of
those sarcastic smiles of his which Polly could not quite explain, "was
the finding of the revolver upon the scene of the crime. That revolver,
shown to Mr. Ashley's valet, was sworn to by him as being the property
of his master.

"All these facts made, of course, a very remarkable, so far quite
unbroken, chain of circumstantial evidence against Mr. John Ashley. No
wonder, therefore, that the police, thoroughly satisfied with Mr.
Fisher's work and their own, applied for a warrant against the young
man, and arrested him in his rooms in Clarges Street exactly a week
after the committal of the crime.

"As a matter of fact, you know, experience has invariably taught me that
when a murderer seems particularly foolish and clumsy, and proofs
against him seem particularly damning, that is the time when the police
should be most guarded against pitfalls.

"Now in this case, if John Ashley had indeed committed the murder in
Regent's Park in the manner suggested by the police, he would have been
a criminal in more senses than one, for idiocy of that kind is to my
mind worse than many crimes.

"The prosecution brought its witnesses up in triumphal array one after
another. There were the members of the Harewood Club--who had seen the
prisoner's excited condition after his heavy gambling losses to Mr.
Aaron Cohen; there was Mr. Hatherell, who, in spite of his friendship
for Ashley, was bound to admit that he had parted from him at the corner
of Bond Street at twenty minutes to two, and had not seen him again till
his return home at five a.m.

"T