"Did he tell you what his native place was, Mr. Armitstead?" asked Mr. Pawle, who had given Viner two or three expressive glances during the visitor's story.
"Yes," replied Mr. Armitstead. "He did--Blackburn. He left it as a very young man."
"Well," said Mr. Pawle, "there's a considerable amount of interest in what you tell us, for Mr. Viner and myself have been making certain inquiries during the last twenty-four hours, and we formed, or nearly formed, a theory which your information upsets. Ashtons of Blackburn? We must go into that. For we particularly want to know who Mr. John Ashton was--there's a great deal depending on it. Did he tell you more?"
"About himself, no," replied the visitor, "except that he'd been exceedingly fortunate in Australia, and had made a good deal of money and was going to settle down here in London. He took my address and said he'd write and ask me to dine with him as soon as he got a house to his liking, and he did write, only last week, inviting me to call next time I was in town. Then I saw the accounts of his murder in the papers--a very sad thing!"
"A very mysterious thing!" remarked Mr. Pawle. "I wish we could get some light on it!"
The visitor looked from one man to the other and lowered his voice a little.
"It's possible I can give you a little," he said. "That, indeed, is the real reason why I set off to see you this morning. You will remember that Hyde, the man who is charged with the murder, said before the Coroner that as he turned into Lonsdale Passage, he saw coming out of it a tall man in black clothes who was swathed to the very eyes in a big white muffler?"
"I saw such a man with Ashton in Paris," answered Mr. Armitstead. "Hyde's description exactly tallies with what I myself should have said."
Mr. Pawle looked at his visitor with still more interest and attention.
"Now, that really is of importance!" he exclaimed. "If Hyde saw such a man--as I believe he did--and you saw such a man, then that man must exist, and the facts that you saw him with Ashton, and that Hyde saw him in close proximity to the place where Ashton was murdered, are of the highest consequence. But--you can tell us more, Mr. Armitstead?"
"Unfortunately, very little," replied the visitor. "What I saw was on the night before I left Paris--after it I never saw Ashton again to speak to. It was late at night. Do you know the Rue Royale? There is at the end of it a well-known restaurant, close to the Place de la Concorde--I was sitting outside this about a quarter to eleven when I saw Ashton and the man I am speaking of pass along the pavement in the direction of the Madeleine. What made me particularly notice the man was the fact that although it was an unusually warm night, he was closely muffled in a big white silk handkerchief. It was swathed about his throat, his chin, his mouth; it reached, in fact, right up to his eyes. An odd thing, on such a warm night--Ashton, who was in evening dress, had his light overcoat thrown well back. He was talking very volubly as they passed me--the other man was listening with evident attention."