There isn't a link missing in the chain of evidence against Fitzgerald, so I defy him.
He can do his worst."
At eight o'clock on that night the soft-footed and soft-voiced detective presented himself at Calton's office.
He found the lawyer impatiently waiting for him.
Kilsip closed the door softly, and then taking a seat opposite to Calton, waited for him to speak.
The lawyer, however, first handed him a cigar, and then producing a bottle of whisky and two glasses from some mysterious recess, he filled one and pushed it towards the detective.
Kilsip accepted these little attentions with the utmost gravity, yet they were not without their effect on him, as the keen-eyed lawyer saw.
Calton was a great believer in diplomacy, and never lost an opportunity of inculcating it into young men starting in life.
"Diplomacy," said Calton, to one young aspirant for legal honours, "is the oil we cast on the troubled waters of social, professional, and political life; and if you can, by a little tact, manage mankind, you are pretty certain to get on in this world."
Calton was a man who practised what he preached.
He believed Kilsip to have that feline nature, which likes to be stroked, to be made much of, and he paid him these little attentions, knowing full well they would bear their fruit.
He also knew that Kilsip entertained no friendly feeling for Gorby, that, in fact, he bore him hatred, and he determined that this feeling which existed between the two men, should serve him to the end he had in view.
"I suppose," he said, leaning back in his chair, and watching the wreaths of blue smoke curling from his cigar, "I suppose you know all the ins and the outs of the hansom cab murder?"
"I should rather think so," said Kilsip, with a curious light in his queer eyes. "Why, Gorby does nothing but brag about it, and his smartness in catching the supposed murderer!"
"Aha!" said Calton, leaning forward, and putting his arms on the table. "Supposed murderer.
Eh! Does that mean that he hasn't been convicted by a jury, or that you think that Fitzgerald is innocent?"
Kilsip stared hard at the lawyer, in a vague kind of way, slowly rubbing his hands together.
"Well," he said at length, in a deliberate manner, "before I got your note, I was convinced Gorby had got hold of the right man, but when I heard that you wanted to see me, and knowing you are defending the prisoner, I guessed that you must have found something in his favour which you wanted me to look after."
"Right!" said Calton, laconically.
"As Mr. Fitzgerald said he met Whyte at the corner and hailed the cab—" went on the detective.
"How do you know that?" interrupted Calton, sharply.
"Gorby told me."
"How the devil did he find out?" cried the lawyer, with genuine surprise.
"Because he is always poking and prying about," said Kilsip, forgetting, in his indignation, that such poking and prying formed part of detective business. "But, at any rate," he went on quickly, "if Mr. Fitzgerald did leave Mr. Whyte, the only chance he's got of proving his innocence is that he did not come back, as the cabman alleged."
"Then, I suppose, you think that Fitzgerald will prove an ALIBI," said Calton.
"Well, sir," answered Kilsip, modestly, "of course you know more about the case than I do, but that is the only defence I can see he can make."
"Well, he's not going to put in such a defence."
"Then he must be guilty," said Kilsip, promptly.
"Not necessarily," returned the barrister, drily.
"But if he wants to save his neck, he'll have to prove an ALIBI," persisted the other.
"That's just where the point is," answered Calton. "He doesn't want to save his neck."
Kilsip, looking rather bewildered, took a sip of whisky, and waited to hear what Mr. Calton had to say.
"The fact is," said Calton, lighting a fresh cigar, "he has some extraordinary idea in his head.
He refuses absolutely to say where he was on that night."
"I understand," said Kilsip, nodding his head. "Woman?"
"No, nothing of the kind," retorted Calton, hastily. "I thought so at first, but I was wrong.
He went to see a dying woman, who wished to tell him something."
"What about?"
"That's just what I can't tell you," answered Calton quickly. "It must have been something important, for she sent for him in great haste—and he was by her bedside between the hours of one and two on Friday morning."
"Then he did not return to the cab?"
"No, he did not, he went to keep his appointment, but, for some reason or other, he won't tell where this appointment was.
I went to his rooms to-day and found this half-burnt letter, asking him to come."
Calton handed the letter to Kilsip, who placed it on the table and examined it carefully.
"This was written on Thursday," said the detective.
"Of course—you can see that from the date; and Whyte was murdered on Friday, the 27th."
"It was written at something Villa, Toorak," pursued Kilsip, still examining the paper. "Oh!
I understand; he went down there."
"Hardly," retorted Calton, in a sarcastic tone. "He couldn't very well go down there, have an interview, and be back in East Melbourne in one hour—the cabman Royston can prove that he was at Russell Street at one o'clock, and his landlady that he entered his lodging in East Melbourne at two—no, he wasn't at Toorak."
"When was this letter delivered?"
"Shortly before twelve o'clock, at the Melbourne Club, by a girl, who, from what the waiter saw of her, appears to be a disreputable individual—you will see it says bearer will wait him at Bourke Street, and as another street is mentioned, and as Fitzgerald, after leaving Whyte, went down Russell Street to keep his appointment, the most logical conclusion is that the bearer of the letter waited for him at the corner of Bourke and Russell Streets.