"Really important?" he asked.
"Big!" answered Spargo. "Fix it."
Once closeted with the great man, whose idiosyncrasies he knew pretty well by that time, Spargo lost no time.
"You've heard about this murder in Middle Temple Lane?" he suggested.
"The mere facts," replied the editor, tersely.
"I was there when the body was found," continued Spargo, and gave a brief résumé of his doings. "I'm certain this is a most unusual affair," he went on. "It's as full of mystery as—as it could be. I want to give my attention to it. I want to specialize on it. I can make such a story of it as we haven't had for some time—ages. Let me have it. And to start with, let me have two columns for tomorrow morning. I'll make it—big!"
The editor looked across his desk at Spargo's eager face.
"Your other work?" he said.
"Well in hand," replied Spargo. "I'm ahead a whole week—both articles and reviews. I can tackle both."
The editor put his finger tips together.
"Have you got some idea about this, young man?" he asked.
"I've got a great idea," answered Spargo. He faced the great man squarely, and stared at him until he had brought a smile to the editorial face. "That's why I want to do it," he added. "And—it's not mere boasting nor over-confidence—I know I shall do it better than anybody else."
The editor considered matters for a brief moment.
"You mean to find out who killed this man?" he said at last.
Spargo nodded his head—twice.
"I'll find that out," he said doggedly.
The editor picked up a pencil, and bent to his desk.
"All right," he said. "Go ahead. You shall have your two columns."
Spargo went quietly away to his own nook and corner. He got hold of a block of paper and began to write. He was going to show how to do things.
CHAPTER SIX
Ronald Breton walked into the Watchman office and into Spargo's room next morning holding a copy of the current issue in his hand. He waved it at Spargo with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
"I say!" he exclaimed. "That's the way to do it, Spargo! I congratulate you. Yes, that's the way—certain!"
Spargo, idly turning over a pile of exchanges, yawned.
"What way?" he asked indifferently.
"The way you've written this thing up," said Breton. "It's a hundred thousand times better than the usual cut-and-dried account of a murder. It's—it's like a—a romance!"
"Merely a new method of giving news," said Spargo. He picked up a copy of the Watchman, and glanced at his two columns, which had somehow managed to make themselves into three, viewing the displayed lettering, the photograph of the dead man, the line drawing of the entry in Middle Temple Lane, and the facsimile of the scrap of grey paper, with a critical eye. "Yes—merely a new method," he continued. "The question is—will it achieve its object?"
"What's the object?" asked Breton.
Spargo fished out a box of cigarettes from an untidy drawer, pushed it over to his visitor, helped himself, and tilting back his chair, put his feet on his desk.
"The object?" he said, drily. "Oh, well, the object is the ultimate detection of the murderer."
"You're after that?"
"I'm after that—just that."
"And not—not simply out to make effective news?"
"I'm out to find the murderer of John Marbury," said Spargo deliberately slow in his speech. "And I'll find him."
"Well, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of clues, so far," remarked Breton. "I see—nothing. Do you?"
Spargo sent a spiral of scented smoke into the air.
"I want to know an awful lot," he said. "I'm hungering for news. I want to know who John Marbury is. I want to know what he did with himself between the time when he walked out of the Anglo-Orient Hotel, alive and well, and the time when he was found in Middle Temple Lane, with his skull beaten in and dead. I want to know where he got that scrap of paper. Above everything, Breton, I want to know what he'd got to do with you!"
He gave the young barrister a keen look, and Breton nodded.
"Yes," he said. "I confess that's a corker. But I think–"
"Well?" said Spargo.
"I think he may have been a man who had some legal business in hand, or in prospect, and had been recommended to—me," said Breton.
Spargo smiled—a little sardonically.
"That's good!" he said. "You had your very first brief—yesterday. Come—your fame isn't blown abroad through all the heights yet, my friend! Besides—don't intending clients approach—isn't it strict etiquette for them to approach?—barristers through solicitors?"
"Quite right—in both your remarks," replied Breton, good-humouredly. "Of course, I'm not known a bit, but all the same I've known several cases where a barrister has been approached in the first instance and asked to recommend a solicitor. Somebody who wanted to do me a good turn may have given this man my address."
"Possible," said Spargo. "But he wouldn't have come to consult you at midnight. Breton!—the more I think of it, the more I'm certain there's a tremendous mystery in this affair! That's why I got the chief to let me write it up as I have done—here. I'm hoping that this photograph—though to be sure, it's of a dead face—and this facsimile of the scrap of paper will lead to somebody coming forward who can–"
Just then one of the uniformed youths who hang about the marble pillared vestibule of the Watchman office came into the room with the unmistakable look and air of one who carries news of moment.
"I dare lay a sovereign to a cent that I know what this is," muttered Spargo in an aside. "Well?" he said to the boy. "What is it?"
The messenger came up to the desk.
"Mr. Spargo," he said, "there's a man downstairs who says that he wants to see somebody about that murder case that's in the paper this morning, sir. Mr. Barrett said I was to come to you."
"Who is the man?" asked Spargo.
"Won't say, sir," replied the boy. "I gave him a form to fill up, but he said he wouldn't write anything—said all he wanted was to see the man who wrote the piece in the paper."
"Bring him here," commanded Spargo. He turned to Breton when the boy had gone, and he smiled. "I knew we should have somebody here sooner or later," he said. "That's why I hurried over my breakfast and came down at ten o'clock. Now then, what will you bet on the chances of this chap's information proving valuable?"
"Nothing," replied Breton. "He's probably some crank or faddist who's got some theory that he wants to ventilate."
The man who was presently ushered in by the messenger seemed from preliminary and outward appearance to justify Breton's prognostication. He was obviously a countryman, a tall, loosely-built, middle-aged man, yellow of hair, blue of eye, who was wearing his Sunday-best array of pearl-grey trousers and black coat, and sported a necktie in which were several distinct colours. Oppressed with the splendour and grandeur of the Watchman building, he had removed his hard billycock hat as he followed the boy, and he ducked his bared head at the two young men as he stepped on to the thick pile of the carpet which made luxurious footing in Spargo's room. His blue eyes, opened to their widest, looked round him in astonishment at the sumptuousness of modern newspaper-office accommodation.
"How do you do, sir?" said Spargo, pointing a finger to one of the easy-chairs for which the Watchman office is famous. "I understand that you wish to see me?"
The caller ducked his yellow head again, sat down on the edge of