Shelley laughingly agreed. But it seemed that Cunningham was in a persistent mood, for he went on with his questioning, casting only the merest occasional glance at the road ahead. After all, it was just as well to get everything clear before the final scene of the mystery, which, he thought, would probably be very like the final scene in other mysteries in which he had been concerned. After all the excitement of a murder-hunt, it always seemed to Cunningham that the mere prosaic fact of an arrest came as an anticlimax. Still, he told himself (and here Henry Fairhurst would certainly have agreed with him) this case was in one respect unique. They were chasing an undoubted murderer. He had a known identity as a criminal with a record. Yet they did not know his motive in the case, nor did they know who he was. That he must be someone with whom they had already come into contact in the case was certain.

“Who do you think he is?” he asked, as this train of thought started in his mind.

“Who do I think who is?” asked Shelley, who seemed to have somehow developed a most irritating strain of repeating each question as it was put to him.

“The murderer.”

“J. K. Wallace.”

“But who is J. K. Wallace?”

“Con-man and general swindler.”

“I know that, chief. But what’s he doing in this case?”

“That,” Shelley announced, “is just what I should like to know, Cunningham. I’m pretty certain that the motive will stare us in the face when we know how he’s connected with Moses Moss. It’s pretty obvious that he must have some sort of hold over that young man.”

“Blackmail,” Cunningham suggested.

“I rather fancy not,” was Shelley’s comment. “You see, I’ve made some enquiries into that young man’s past history, and, while he’s never done much honest hard work, yet he’s never, as far as I can find out, been on the shady side of the law. He’s always had enough sense to run straight—at any rate, as far as I’ve been able to find out. Of course, there may have been some hidden transactions in the past which we haven’t been able to trace.”

“Mr. Shelley,” interposed Henry Fairhurst unexpectedly.

“Yes.” Shelley turned round and faced the little man, whose face was positively shining with the excitement of the information which had, it appeared, suddenly occurred to him.

“I suppose it never occurred to you to find out if Mr. Moss had any ability as an artist.”

“You think he might have forged the will himself, I suppose,” commented Shelley.

“The thought did occur to me,” Henry admitted, and his beam grew brighter than ever. But it was a beam which was soon quenched.

“We did enquire about that,” Shelley said. “And he had no artistic ability at all, as far as was known.”

Henry’s face fell.