Harborne glanced at Dr. Simons and tapped his forehead significantly.
"Humour my friend," whispered the physician. "He may appear mad, but he is a man of most curious information. Believe me, if any Oriental has been in these rooms within the last hour he will tell you so."
Dr. Lepardo from beneath a table rumbled hoarsely:
"There is a back stair. He went out that way as someone came in."
"Good God! Then he was here when _I_ came in!" he exclaimed.
"Who speaks?" rumbled Lepardo, crawling away into the outside office, and apparently following a trail visible only to himself.
"It is Mr. Julius Rohscheimer," explained Simons. "He was a partner, I understand, of the late Mr. Graham's. He entered with a key about seven o'clock and discovered the murder."
"As he came in our friend the assassin go out," cried Lepardo.
Harborne gave rapid orders to the two constables, both of whom immediately departed.
Against the promptings of his common sense, the eccentric methods of the peculiar old traveller were beginning to impress him.
Dr. Lepardo re-entered the inner office, carrying several files.
"See! He begins to destroy these letters. He has certainly taken many away. If you look you see that he has torn pages from the private accounts on the desk. He is disturbed by Mr. Someheimer. Can you know the address of his lady secretary-typist?"
"You're pretty wide at this business, doctor," he confessed. "I'm looking after her myself. But Mr. Rohscheimer doesn't know, and all the staff have gone long ago."
"Ah!" rumbled Dr. Lepardo, dropping his glass into the sack-like pocket. "No Arab or such person has done this. He was one who wore gloves. So I no longer am interested. Here"--placing a small object on the desk beside the yataghan--"is new evidence I find for you. It is a boot-button--foreign. Ah! if the great Lemage could be here. It is his imagination that makes him supreme. In his imagination he would murder again the poor Graham with the yataghan. He would lose his boot-button. He would run away--as Mr. Heimar comes in--to some hiding-place, taking with him the bills and the letters he had stolen, and the notes from the safe. Once in his secret retreat, he would arrest himself--and behold, in an hour--in ten minutes--his hand would be upon the shoulder of the other assassin. Ah! such a case would be joy to him. He would revel. He would gloat."