Should he keep the whole matter to himself, he wondered. At any rate he need not tell anybody but Hetty. Perhaps that drunken lunatic was some relation to the master of the corner house; he might have found his way into Lytton Square in a state of semi-insanity by favour of a careless servant. The thing was capable of a very practical solution.
Bruce put the thing out of his mind for the time being. The next morning was a busy one. When the back of it was broken he drove to Tottenham Court Road, where he managed to secure the old-fashioned furniture which had so taken his fancy. He felt pleased with his bargain, but as he repaired to the Lotus Club to lunch with Gilbert Lawrence nothing remained of the old Dutchman's banknotes.
Lawrence was deep in the early edition of "The Star." He nodded to Bruce and looked up from his paper eagerly.
"By Jove, listen to this," he exclaimed. "Here's a strange thing for you. Some houses seem famed for tragedy, like some men are."
"'The Corner House keeps up its reputation. A mysterious murder in Raven Street where an undiscovered crime happened years ago.
"'At a little past twelve today a policeman on duty in Raven Street saw that the door of an unoccupied furnished house was open, and proceeded to investigate the premises. In a room upstairs he found the body of a man with his throat cut and a horrible wound at the back of his head. Robbery appears to be the motive. The matter is all the more mysterious as the place called the Corner House has been supposed to be shut up for years. It was here that the famous "Corner House" poisoning mystery took place.
"'Later.--The murdered man is described as being of misshapen appearance, a nose very much hooked on one side, and long hands, covered with orange-coloured warts----'"
"What?" Bruce cried. "Read that over again."
"Do you mean to say you know anything about it?" Lawrence asked.
"He was my patient," Bruce said hoarsely. "I was with him at daybreak."
Lawrence dropped "The Star" and gazed at the speaker with absolute amazement.
There was something about the Corner House mystery that gripped the public imagination. There was about it both the realism and the romance that always go to make up a popular sensation.