1
The Attic Murder
by Sydney Fowler
Chapter I
I'M afraid I can't give you references. I'm a stranger to London. Perhaps I'd better pay a week in advance?" His hand went boldly to his empty pocket. It was time he wanted -- time at whatever cost. He could hear the police-whistles outside.
The old woman looked at him doubtfully. She had asked forty-five shillings, and would have taken half the amount.
"Have you got any luggage, Mr. --" she began.
"Edwards," he answered. "Henry Edwards... Yes. I shall bring my luggage this evening. Perhaps you could let me have some tea now, and a wash?"
He did not develop his proposal to pay in advance, and the old woman did not press it. He had a face and manner that inspired confidence. Had not Counsel for the Crown turned even this circumstance against him, and had not the soft-tongued Judge, with his tone of measured impartiality, supported the argument with a deadlier ingenuity? "You may regard the younger prisoner," he had said, "as having been under the influence of his more hardened companion. The impression which he will have made upon you while in the witness-box may not have been entirely unfavourable, even though, as men of the world -- as men of common sense -- you may observe the improbabilities of the tale he told you. But, if you are satisfied of his guilt, you must not allow such an impression to deflect your judgement, nor to cause you to forget the oaths you have taken. It is inevitable that men engaged in such crimes as that of which the prisoners are accused should be of sufficient address and plausibility to dr