"Then the murder must have been committed between half-past twelve and one o'clock in the morning?"
"Yes, I am sure it was. Bike and myself found the corpse shortly after one o'clock. It was still warm," said Darrel, with a shudder.
"The red-haired man was not at his ease with you, I suppose?"
"On the contrary, he kept a safe distance between us, and all the time he had his right hand in the breast of his coat."
"Oh, that was a revolver," said Torry indifferently, "we found it when the body was searched. But," added the detective with emphasis, "we did not find the valuables he carried."
"I can't say. Papers, or jewels, or money; one of the three, I am certain!"
"But what reason have you to think that he carried valuables?" asked Darrel becoming the questioner in his turn.
Torry shrugged his plump shoulders. "He wouldn't have carried a revolver else," he remarked.
"That might have been to protect himself against bad characters, such as he suspected me to be," objected Frank captiously.
"No," replied Torry decisively, "I don't think so. He purposely assumed shabby clothes so that there would be nothing in his appearance to suggest that he was worth robbing. A threadbare vagrant slinking through the midnight streets, would attract no notice save that of a policeman, and he would not dare to use his revolver in that case."
"Because he would have run the risk of arrest, and his real name--which, obviously, he was anxious to conceal--would have come out. No, Mr. Darrel, the dead man had some valuable object, or perhaps, some money, in his possession, and carried the revolver to protect himself against possible robbery; and that supposition," concluded the detective, rubbing his plump knees "brings me to my theory."
Torry pointed to the image held by Darrel, "To be precise I should say to my clue--the clue of the Blue Mummy."
"I don't quite see how you bring this into the matter."
"Well," said Torry, "it is all theory, I admit; but my belief is this: The red-haired man carried some valuables, money, jewels, or papers, to the woman in Mortality-lane. When he delivered up the jewel--for the sake of clearness we'll say jewel--she gave him the Blue Mummy."
"As a kind of receipt, I suppose. Red-hair took the image in his right hand intending to put it into his pocket. At that moment, having the jewel in her possession, the woman struck at him with the knife she carried, and he, thrusting out his left hand to protect himself, caught at and tore the lace of her mantle. Naturally, as he had received his death-wound--he was stabbed to the heart, you know--the Blue Mummy fell from his clasp and was found on the ground near his body."