“The whole affair,” he declared, “is scandalous—­perfectly scandalous.  The police system of this country is ridiculously inadequate.  Scotland Yard ought to be thoroughly overhauled.  Some one should take the matter up—­one of the ha’penny papers on the lookout for a sensation might manage it.  Just see here what happens,” he went on earnestly.  “A man is murdered in cold blood in a fashionable restaurant.  The murderer simply walks out of the place into the street and no one hears of him again.  He can’t have been swallowed up, can he?  You were there, Chetwode.  What do you think of it?”

Arnold, who had been thinking of little else for the last few days, shook his head.

“I don’t know what to think, sir,” he admitted, “except that the murderer up till now has been extraordinarily lucky.”

“Either that or he was fiendishly clever,” Mr. Weatherley agreed, pulling nervously at his little patch of gray sidewhiskers.  “I wonder, now—­you’ve read the case, Chetwode?”

“Every word of it,” Arnold admitted.

“Have you formed any idea yourself as to the motive?” Mr. Weatherley asked nervously.

Arnold shook his head.

“At present there seems nothing to go on, sir,” he remarked.  “I did hear it said that some one was trying to blackmail him and Mr. Rosario wasn’t having any.”

Mr. Weatherley pushed his scant hair back with his hand.  He appeared to feel the heat of the office.

“You’ve heard that, too, eh?” he muttered.  “It occurred to me from the first, Chetwode.  It certainly did occur to me.  You will remember that I mentioned it.”

“What did your brother-in-law think of it, sir?” Arnold asked.  “He and Mr. Rosario seemed to be very great friends.  They were talking together for a long time that night at your house.”

Mr. Weatherley jumped to his feet and threw open the window.  The air which entered the office from the murky street was none of the best, but he seemed to find it welcome.  Arnold was shocked to see his face when he turned around.

“The Count Sabatini is a very extraordinary man,” Mr. Weatherley confessed.  “He and his friends come to my house, but to tell you the truth I don’t know much about them.  Mrs. Weatherley wishes to have them there and that is quite enough for me.  All the same, I don’t feel that they’re exactly the sort of people I’ve been used to, Chetwode, and that’s a fact.”

Mr. Weatherley had resumed his seat.  He was leaning back in his chair now, his hands drooping to his side, looking precisely what he was—­an ungraceful, commonplace little person, without taste or culture, upon whom even a good tailor seemed to have wasted his efforts.  A certain pomposity which in a way became the man—­proclaimed his prosperity and redeemed him from complete insignificance—­had for a moment departed.  He was like a pricked bladder.  Arnold could scarcely help feeling sorry for him.