Frank Spargo is the subeditor of the Watchman, a newspaper. One night when he is on his way home, a policeman he knows tells him that a man has been found dead, and it seems to have been murder. The victim is a man of about 65, and the strange thing is that they have found nothing on him. The man was hit in the head, and that is how he was killed.
When the body and his clothes are analysed, they find a rumpled piece of paper with the name Ronald Breton on it. Spargo has reached an understanding with the policeman in charge, DS Rathbury, and they'll work together. When they visit Ronald Breton, they find him in the company of his fiancée, Evelyn Aylmore and her sister Jessie. Breton claims that he doesn't know the man.
They discover the identity of the man when the police talk to the milliner who sold him a hat. He was staying in a hotel near the station. Mrs Walter tells them that his name was John Maxbury and he came from Australia. This was his first time in London after twenty years. Mrs Walters says that Maxbury went out the first day and returned in the company of a bearded man. Then they left, adn Maxbury never returned.
After Spargo publishes his article, a man comes to see him. The man, William Webster, says that he is a farmer, and in his visit to London he decided to go and talk to his MP. When he was waiting, there was a man who he recognised as the victim. The man, Maxbury, greeted a bearded man, and they left together. When Webster is shown the MPs, he identifies the man who Maxbury left with as Stephen Eylmore, who happens to be Breton's fiancée's father. Breton and Spargo agree to go and see the man, but before that, Spargo returns to the hotel, and Mrs Walters identifies the man and she also tells him that when Maxbury's room was cleaned, the maid discovered a small glass. It is a diamond.
When Breton and Spargo meet Stephen Aylmore, he tells them that it is true that he ran into Maxbury. In his hotel he showed him a bag with diamonds, and he wanted to find a solicitor. So he gave him his future son-in-law's name and address. So that is why he had the paper on him.
Some more people come forward. The secretary of the London safe deposit talks to Spargo and DS Rathbury, and he says that Maxbury hired a lockbox where he deposited an old bag, which he said had been buried for twenty years. A man who owns a st
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