evidence when Hyde's brought up again; it will be of the greatest help.
There's no doubt, to me, at any rate, that the man Hyde saw leaving the
scene of the murder is the man you saw with Ashton in Paris. But now, who
is he? Ashton, as we happen to know, left his ship at Naples, and
travelled to England through Italy and France. Is this man some fellow
that he picked up on the way? His general appearance, now--how did that
strike you?"

"He was certainly a man of great distinction of manner," declared Mr.
Armitstead. "He had the air and bearing of--well, of a personage. I
should say he was somebody--you know what I mean--a man of superior
position, and so on."

"Viner," exclaimed Mr. Pawle, "that man must be found! There must be
people in London who saw him that night. People can't disappear like
that. We'll set to work on that track--find him we must! Now, all the
evidence goes to show that he and Ashton were in company that
night--probably they'd been dining together, and he was accompanying
Ashton to his house. How is it that no one at all has come forward to say
that Ashton was seen with this man? It's really extraordinary!"

Mr. Armitstead shook his head.

"There's one thing you're forgetting, aren't you?" he said. "Ashton and
this man mayn't have been in each other's company many minutes when the
murder took place. Ashton may have been trapped. I don't know much
about criminal affairs, but in reading the accounts of the proceedings
before the magistrate and the coroner, an idea struck me which, so far
as I could gather from the newspapers, doesn't seem to have struck any
one else."