“It was therefore presumed that the murderer, having accomplished his fell design and ransacked his victim’s pockets, had found the keys and made good his escape by slipping into the Square, cutting under the tunnel, and out again by the further gate.  He then took the precaution not to carry the keys with him any further, but threw them away and disappeared in the fog.

“The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown, and the police were put on their mettle to discover the unknown and daring murderer.  The result of their investigations, conducted with marvellous skill by Mr. William Fisher, led, about a week after the crime, to the sensational arrest of one of London’s smartest young bucks.

“The case Mr. Fisher had got up against the accused briefly amounted to this: 

“On the night of February 6th, soon after midnight, play began to run very high at the Harewood Club, in Hanover Square.  Mr. Aaron Cohen held the bank at roulette against some twenty or thirty of his friends, mostly young fellows with no wits and plenty of money.  ‘The Bank’ was winning heavily, and it appears that this was the third consecutive night on which Mr. Aaron Cohen had gone home richer by several hundreds than he had been at the start of play.

“Young John Ashley, who is the son of a very worthy county gentleman who is M.F.H. somewhere in the Midlands, was losing heavily, and in his case also it appears that it was the third consecutive night that Fortune had turned her face against him.

“Remember,” continued the man in the corner, “that when I tell you all these details and facts, I am giving you the combined evidence of several witnesses, which it took many days to collect and to classify.

“It appears that young Mr. Ashley, though very popular in society, was generally believed to be in what is vulgarly termed ‘low water’; up to his eyes in debt, and mortally afraid of his dad, whose younger son he was, and who had on one occasion threatened to ship him off to Australia with a L5 note in his pocket if he made any further extravagant calls upon his paternal indulgence.

“It was also evident to all John Ashley’s many companions that the worthy M.F.H. held the purse-strings in a very tight grip.  The young man, bitten with the desire to cut a smart figure in the circles in which he moved, had often recourse to the varying fortunes which now and again smiled upon him across the green tables in the Harewood Club.

“Be that as it may, the general consensus of opinion at the Club was that young Ashley had changed his last ‘pony’ before he sat down to a turn of roulette with Aaron Cohen on that particular night of February 6th.