But Spargo was presently made aware that the searchers had found nothing. The police-surgeon said that the dead man had, without doubt, been struck down from behind by a terrible blow which had fractured the skull and caused death almost instantaneously. In Driscoll’s opinion, the murder had been committed for the sake of plunder. For there was nothing whatever on the body. It was reasonable to suppose that a man who is well dressed would possess a watch and chain, and have money in his pockets, and possibly rings on his fingers. But there was nothing valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found that could lead to identification—no letters, no papers, nothing. It was plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity lay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been newly purchased at a fashionable shop in the West End. Spargo went home; there seemed to be nothing to stop for. He ate his food and he went to bed, only to do poor things in the way of sleeping. He was not the sort to be impressed by horrors, but he recognized at last that the morning’s event had destroyed his chance of rest; he accordingly rose, took a cold bath, drank a cup of coffee, and went out. He was not sure of any particular idea when he strolled away from Bloomsbury, but it did not surprise him when, half an hour later he found that he had walked down to the police station near which the unknown man’s body lay in the mortuary. And there he met Driscoll, just going off duty. Driscoll grinned at sight of him. “You’re in luck,” he said. “’Tisn’t five minutes since they found a bit of grey writing paper crumpled up in the poor man’s waistcoat pocket—it had slipped into a crack. Come in, and you’ll see it.” Spargo went into the inspector’s office. In another minute he found himself staring at the scrap of paper. There was nothing on it but an address, scrawled in pencil:—Ronald Breton, Barrister, King’s Bench Walk, Temple, London. CHAPTER TWO HIS FIRST BRIEF Spargo looked up at the inspector with a quick jerk of his head. “I know this man,” he said. The inspector showed new interest. “What, Mr. Breton?” he asked. “Yes. I’m on the _Watchman_, you know, sub-editor. I took an article from him the other day—article on ‘Ideal Sites for Campers-Out.’ He came to the office about it. So this was in the dead man’s pocket?” “Found in a hole in his pocket, I understand: I wasn’t present myself. It’s not much, but it may afford some clue to identity.” Spargo picked up the scrap of grey paper and looked closely at it. It seemed to him to be the sort of paper that is found in hotels and in clubs; it had been torn roughly from the sheet. “What,” he asked meditatively, “what will you do about getting this man identified?” The inspector shrugged his shoulders.