n. Hatherell
returns to the club, and Ashley goes to fetch the revolver--the revolver
which played such an important part in the drama, but not the part
assigned to it by the police. Now try to follow Ashley closely, as he
dogs Aaron Cohen's footsteps. Do you believe that he entered into
conversation with him? That he walked by his side? That he asked for
delay? No! He sneaked behind him and caught him by the throat, as the
garroters used to do in the fog. Cohen was apoplectic, and Ashley is
young and powerful. Moreover, he meant to kill--"

"But the two men talked together outside the Square gates," protested
Polly, "one of whom was Cohen, and the other Ashley."

"Pardon me," he said, jumping up in his seat like a monkey on a stick,
"there were not two men talking outside the Square gates. According to
the testimony of James Funnell, the constable, two men were leaning arm
in arm against the railings and _one_ man was talking."

"Then you think that--"

"At the hour when James Funnell heard Holy Trinity clock striking
half-past two Aaron Cohen was already dead. Look how simple the whole
thing is," he added eagerly, "and how easy after that--easy, but oh,
dear me! how wonderfully, how stupendously clever. As soon as James
Funnell has passed on, John Ashley, having opened the gate, lifts the
body of Aaron Cohen in his arms and carries him across the Square. The
Square is deserted, of course, but the way is easy enough, and we must
presume that Ashley had been in it before. Anyway, there was no fear of
meeting any one.

"In the meantime Hatherell has left the club: as fast as his athletic
legs can carry him he rushes along Oxford Street and Portland Place. It
had been arranged between the two miscreants that the Square gate should
be left on the latch.

"Close on Ashley's heels now, Hatherell too cuts across the Square, and
reaches the further gate in good time to give his confederate a hand in
disposing the body against the railings. Then, without another instant's
delay, Ashley runs back across the gardens, straight to the Ashton Club,
throwing away the keys of the dead man, on the very spot where he had
made it a point of being seen and heard by a passer-by.

"Hatherell gives his friend six or seven minutes' start, then he begins
the altercation which lasts two or three minutes, and finally rouses the
neighbourhood with cries of 'Murder' and report of pistol in order to
establish that the crime was committed at