The Middle Temple Murder quotes

Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of the office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the threshold the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight.

In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the first grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around the high silence of St. Paul’s.

Spargo lived in Bloomsbury, on the west side of Russell Square. Every night and every morning he walked to and from the Watchman office by the same route—Southampton Row, Kingsway, the Strand, Fleet Street. He came to know several faces, especially amongst the police;

The little procession came to a halt at the entry.

The entry was a cold and formal thing of itself; not a nice place to lie dead in, having glazed white tiles for its walls and concrete for its flooring; something about its appearance in that grey morning air suggested to Spargo the idea of a mortuary.

And that the man whose foot projected over the step was dead he had no doubt: the limpness of his pose certified to it.

“Upon my honour!” he muttered.

“Upon my honour, I really don’t know what I’ve come up here for. I’ve no business here.”

Just then he turned a corner and came face to face with Ronald Breton. The young barrister was now in his wig and gown and carried a bundle of papers tied up with pink tape;

Rathbury laughed.

“Well, we’re certainly going to dig up a dead man’s secrets,” he said.

“At least, we may be going to do so. In my opinion, Mr. Spargo, we’ll find some clue in this leather box.”

“Look here!” he said suddenly. “

I’m no great hand at talking. I can write pretty decently when I’ve a good story to tell, but I don’t talk an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I’ve got a pen in my hand.

Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When I write my article this evening, I’ll get all these things marshalled in proper form, and I shall write clearly about ’em.

“All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!” he said. “Well, it’s a pleasant change to squire young ladies after being all day in that court. Look here, are you going to start your writing just now?”

“I’m not going to start my writing as you call it, until after I’ve dined at seven o’clock and given myself time to digest my modest dinner,”

answered Spargo. “What is it?”

Benjamin Quarterpage, of whom Crowfoot had told him, he took good stock of the newcomer as he took his place amongst his friends, who on their part received him with ebullitions of delight which were positively boyish.

Mr. Quarterpage was a youthful buck of ninety⁠—a middle-sized, sturdily-built man, straight as a dart, still active of limb, clear-eyed, and strong of voice.

His clean-shaven old countenance was ruddy as a sun-warmed pippin; his hair was still only silvered; his hand was steady as a rock. His clothes of buff-coloured whipcord were smart and jaunty, his neckerchief as gay as if he had been going to a fair.

Mr. Quarterpage leaned forward and tapped his guest on the arm.

“That Chamberlayne never did die, and that that coffin was weighted with lead!”

he answered.

“I have not,” she answered. “I am not likely to hear such things.”

Spargo suddenly realized that the power of the Press is not quite as great nor as far-reaching as very young journalists hold it to be, and that there actually are, even in London, people who can live quite cheerfully without a newspaper.

He concealed his astonishment and went on.

“Visit him in prison!” she said indignantly.

“Visits in prison are to be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to scoundrels who are hardened in their sin!”

“All right. Did you ever see him after he left prison?”

he’d have had to go to the workhouse but for me; he hadn’t a single relation in the world but me, on either father’s or mother’s side. And even at my age, old woman as I am,

I’d rather beg my bread in the street, I’d rather starve and die, than touch a penny piece that had come from John Maitland!

That’s all.”

Then suddenly it came to smash, and there was nothing. He—Ainsworth, or Aylmore—pleaded that he was robbed and duped by another man, but the court didn’t believe him, and he got seven years. Plain story you see, Spargo, when it all comes out, eh?”

“All stories are quite plain⁠—when they come out,” observed Spargo.

“And he kept silence now, I suppose, because he didn’t want his daughters to know about his past?”

The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down. The surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled it long years before.

They were not in the presence of death, but of deceit.

Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell. The chief official present looked round him with a smile.