Читать книгу Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding - Страница 7

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POINTER had been certain from the first that Eames must have had some place not far from the hotel to which his correspondence was directed. Moreover, early that morning he had marked a small tobacconist in a poor street around the corner, quite out of the run of usual passers-by, as the most likely nook to which Eames would have had his letters sent. Since then he had learnt more. The paper, ruled in little squares—suggesting a foreign origin—the small, close writing like that used by Cox in the hotel register next door; Eames' eager interest on the last morning he had been alive, his whistling later in the same day, were all additional material for the mosaic the police had to fit together. Downstairs Pointer learnt that the only Mr. Sikes known to the hotel had been there a few times, but had never been seen to come in merely as a visitor. Neither the clerk nor the hall porter remembered seeing him yesterday. But as that had been an unusually strenuous time of welcoming coming and speeding parting guests, Mr. Sikes might have passed unnoticed, though both men thought this most unlikely. He certainly had not made himself known in any way.

On the register he was entered as a cycle-maker from Coventry. His description tallied with that of Mr. Beale as far as being a little, stout, reddish-haired, middle-aged man, though both clerk and porter ridiculed the idea of mistaking the one for the other.

The manager turned very sharply, almost as though with a start, when the Chief Inspector stopped him a little later with:

"I believe, sir, that a Mr. Sikes of Coventry often comes to your hotel. Was he here yesterday?"

The manager, as so often today, hesitated before answering the officer.

"I don't—I don't think so. No, no, I'm sure he was not. But why don't you look at the register?" This last in a tone of nervous irritation.

"Oh, he didn't stop in the house, but I thought he might have been in just the same."

"And what the devil has this Mr. Sikes to do with the affair which you are presumably investigating, Inspector?"

Pointer did not seem to hear the question, as with quick steps he passed on up the stairs and went at once in search of the housekeeper.

"Ah, I was on my way downstairs, but perhaps you can save me the trouble, Mrs. Green—" he beamed at her, and she beamed back at him, for he was a good-looking man.

"When Mr. Sikes was here on Saturday last, did you see him speaking to Mr. Eames at all?"

The housekeeper looked a little uncertain of her ground.

"Well, sir, I don't know the gentleman you're speaking of—Mr. Sikes—I haven't ever seen him."

"Not know Mr. Sikes?" Pointer's tone, though casual, showed his surprise.

"I've only been here two weeks, sir."

"Then you don't know the gentleman I mean even by sight?"

"I saw the manager and a gentleman whom he told me afterwards was a Mr. Sikes—but more than that I couldn't say, sir," and Mrs. Green, looking as though she would have preferred to say still less, tried to walk on, but he blocked the way.

"Just a moment. I particularly want to find out any friends of Mr. Eames, and I've reason to believe that he and this Mr. Sikes knew each other. The manager—I've just spoken to him"—Pointer was always glad to find even a crumb of truth which he could mix in with business—"doesn't remember whether Mr. Sikes went into Mr. Eames' room or not."

"You mean afterwards, sir?" Mrs. Green's suspicions of the police were again lulled. "The two gentlemen left Mr. Eames' room together and went on into the other balcony rooms. Mr. Sikes was looking for a room for his wife and family, but I had an idea—well, I thought the manager didn't want it talked about: you know he has to make special terms to some; but there, of course as he spoke to you about it, why, there can't be any harm in my referring to it—but whether the gentleman with him came back later and saw Mr. Eames or spoke to him downstairs is more than I can say; and now I must go, sir, or goodness knows what the girls will be up to in the linen-room." And go she did this time.

A message reached Watts on his return from rescuing the family hats from the monkeys which caused him to take the evening train to Coventry, there to learn as much as possible about its doubtless worthy citizen, Sikes.

Miller, who had been sent across to have a chat with the porters of the large block of flats opposite, brought back no grist for the official mill. But he had allowed it to leak out, in accordance with instructions, that there had been a robbery at the Enterprise, and that "the party interested" would pay for any information as to the thief who had escaped, possibly with a bag, either by way of the balcony or by the little side-door on Saturday afternoon.

"It's going to be a regular November Special," Pointer said to O'Connor on his return to his rooms, "or all the signs deceive me."

"D'ye mean to tell me that the criminal is still at large after all this time—close on twenty-four hours! Let me have the facts, Watson; sure Sherlock Holmes will give you a leg-up with pleasure," and "Sherlock Holmes" assumed a judicial attitude.

Pointer carefully went over the knotty points unearthed during the day. "There's Cox..." the Scotland Yard man was evidently telling over his pieces, "who takes a room at the Marvel and uses it for a couple of hours...he's in the center of the puzzle. Yes, he's that little gold ball you can just see." He glanced up at the Chinese puzzle above his head.

"Why d'ye place him there? Because you found that wax vesta in his room?" grunted O'Connor, who was for the moment a profound pessimist. His stamp had just slipped on a valuable piece of leather.

"No, partly because the two men who talked with him speak of him as possibly an American. Mr. Beale is an American, and Eames' clothes looked to me like Yankee cut, besides his umbrella. Thank God, tomorrow's Monday. I'm a Christian man, but there are times when I could do without Sundays—here at home. There is where the foreign police score. I shan't forget that Avery case when I was sent to Naples—"

"I know," yawned Jim; "it rained all the time, and as for the famous view of the Bay—why, Plymouth Harbour beat it by ten goals to none."

"I don't wonder there are so many hasty marriages," Pointer spoke in sad soliloquy; "a man does feel a wish sometimes to come home to something alive, something intelligent."

"She wouldn't have much intelligence if she let you find her at home," pointed out his friend dispassionately, damping some leather with a hot sponge preparatory to making a fresh start, and for a while there was silence.

"When Cox tapped on the window of No. 14 who did he expect would open it for him?" the Irishman asked suddenly. "Eames? Or d'you think he knew that Eames was dead, and wanted to meet an accomplice there? If so, who? Beale?"

"I've only one idea about Mr. Beale so far, but it's a fixed one," Pointer replied slowly. "For some reason he's playing a game of his own. Judging by his eyes, it's bound to be a crafty scheme, and by his mouth, it won't boggle at trifles. However, the shape of his head guarantees that it'll be a clever one."

"You're a wonder, Alf. Since you've gone in for those phrenological and graphological lectures at the Kindergarten there's no hiding anything from you. Can you tell me by the shape of my head what Mr. Grey will say to me when he sees how that tooling has been done? You can't! Well, I can! You might as well continue your sermon by the way. I'm helpless, I must listen to it."

His friend was far too canny to proceed.

O'Connor began again: "Was the crime, for of course you think it was a crime, you hope it was one, you sin-hardened man-hunter, was it meant to be discovered by Beale, or...by someone else? Was Eames' body placed in that locked wardrobe so that the wrong person shouldn't find it, or so that the right person should?" O'Connor had given up all pretense at working and tried to read the answers to his conundrums one by one on Pointer's face, who finally answered a little wearily:

"Only time can tell, but as I said last night, frankly I'm puzzled as to what Mr. Beale with his position—for as I said I haven't a doubt but that he's all he claims to be—and his dollars are doing in this business of a shabbily-dressed young man who puts up in a single room at the Enterprise. Miller found out today that Mr. Beale didn't make any inquiries for rooms at the smarter hotels, but only applied in Southampton Row."

"Had he tried the Marvel?"

"No, he seems to've worked from the other end."

"Look here, you don't suspect him of being the actual murderer, do you?" O'Connor asked guilelessly.

Pointer pursed his lips. "Not the kind of man to do that sort of thing himself, I should judge, yet the way the job was done"—he trailed off into silence.

"Supposing it was he, and not Sikes, who was at the hotel earlier in the day, why should he come back in the evening? D'ye suppose he thought of those fingerprints of his which he had left everywhere, and wanted to have a chance to make them openly, as it were?" Judging by the detective's face he thought but poorly of this suggestion.

"You say the smaller footmarks, those on the canvas and on the doorstep about fitted Beale's slippers, didn't you?" persisted the other.

"As far as size goes—yes. Mr. Beale could have—though it would seem a mad risk to take—still he could have gone back upstairs again, when he left us last night in No. 14, and got out on to the balcony through the landing-window. But to get out with an umbrella and a raincoat would have been a feat he didn't look up to, though you never can tell. When I saw him a little later in the manager's room he certainly hadn't been clambering about in the rain."

"Well, his departure looks to me very fishy," maintained O'Connor in a tone which suggested that Pointer had steadily upheld it as a proof of the absent man's innocence. "What made him bolt out of the window?"

"I think he saw Cox pass by and recognized him."

"Suppose he and the manager are in it together? It was the manager who put Beale into No. 14. Perhaps Beale knew it was empty and the inquiries at the other hotels were only a blind."

The Irishman reveled in these talks early in a case, when there were not sufficient facts to hamper his idle fancy in its flights.

"Ah, as for the manager—" Pointer walked up and down the room. "That bit of acting about that green and white striped paper was badly enough done."

"So badly that it was creditable to him, eh?"

"...And as for not discussing Eames' death with Mr. Beale—well, was it likely! When our expert tells me how much of that ash is Mr. Beale's cigars and how much the manager's cigarettes—he doesn't smoke cigars—I shall know better how much time those two spent hobnobbing together. At any rate something has changed the manager overnight. Then he acted like—well, if not an innocent man, then at least like a man who feels himself safe."

"Perhaps this bolt of Beale's has made the manager, too, think him guilty."

"He should tell us his reasons, then," the police-officer spoke very firmly. "Whatever it is, today he's all nerves, afraid to commit himself as to the day of the week."

"I wonder if he left some clue lying around in that room No. 14 and has recollected it during the night?"

"He needn't worry if it's that," Pointer spoke bitterly, "unless it's tagged: 'This is a Clue; don't miss ME!' I shouldn't see it. Too much fog about."

"Oh, come now," persisted his friend, "you've done jolly well so far—going at once to the Marvel and ferreting out about Cox. I don't know that I should have thought of that myself," he added handsomely.

"Well, true, I've not fallen far below you as yet," agreed Pointer in a cheered-up tone of voice. "I've already lost Mr. Beale, missed Cox, and can't find Eames' bag nor any trace of its whereabouts."

The two men laughed.

"As for Mr. Smalltoes,—I mean the man who stood on the canvas and walked out and then back through the little side door—I don't know where to place him yet. Center or circumference."

"You mean Beale?"

"He may prove to be, but Mr. Beale picks his feet up as neatly as a water-rail; this man dragged his along. Mr. Beale wears pointed shoes; this man had on curious 'reformed' or 'true-shaped' boots. Straight on the inside and curving sharply about in a semicircle. Here's the outline." He held it out to O'Connor, who asked: "What are the manager's feet like?"

"Two sizes larger. Well, this case is going to make or break me. I feel it in my bones."

Next morning Pointer was early at the Yard mapping out the day's campaign. As he expected, on telegraphing to the American Embassy he was assured that Mr. Augustus P. Beale, a sub-editor and part proprietor of the New York Universe, a small gentleman, very bald, with reddish moustache, and gold fillings in his front teeth, was one of the States' choicest ornaments, a man of vast wealth and many interests. To clinch matters, one of Lester's snapshots was sent off to the Embassy, who sent back an immediate reply that this was undoubtedly the Mr. Beale whom all Americans abroad had been instructed to honour. If he were missing, he must be missed, until such time as it might please him to re-appear.

"Just so," sighed Pointer as he hung up the receiver. His first outing was to the small confectioner-tobacconist near the hotel which he had marked in his yesterday's rambles.

"Any letter for Mr. Eames? He's ill."

The man behind the counter stared at him suspiciously, but Pointer planked down a half-crown—"and if you'll look after any letters for me, too—Charles Rowntree—for a while I'll be much obliged. Yes, Mr. Eames' cold has got a bit too bad for him to come out." Whistling blithely, he bent over a comic paper.

The man behind the counter softened. "What name did you say, sir? Mr. Charles Rowntree? Very good. Of course, strictly speaking, I might get into trouble if it got known; but there, why not be obliging? That's my motter. Mr. Eames' cold was pretty bad on Saturday, and what with the rain Saturday night—" He laid a letter down. Pointer handed over a penny, and bought a shilling packet of cigarettes before he left the shop. Eames' future correspondence would be sent on to the Yard, but any back numbers were equally valuable.

He opened the thin envelope, postmarked Dover, and drew out a sheet of paper ruled in squares.

August 4th. Wire me what's wrong. Be careful.

That was all, but the handwriting was the same as that on the Marvel's register. This document was carefully placed in the Chief Inspector's pocketbook.

At the Enterprise a man from the Yard was waiting for him with a wire from Watts. It appeared that Sikes the cycle-maker had left Coventry ten months ago. Should he try to trace him?

Pointer sent an affirmative reply, and listened to Miller's report. This time there had been no disturbance of any kind during the night, and the Chief Inspector could pass on quickly to the looking up of the two women who occupied rooms Nos. 11 and 12, the rooms nearest to No. 14. As to the other numbers, who were known to the hotel, Pointer left them to Miller.

Number eleven, nearest to the stairs, was occupied by a Mrs. Willett, a brightly painted lady whose diamonds and startling dresses turned every head, literally but not figuratively, as she tripped past on stilt-heels. Her age was a subject of some speculation. It was generally agreed, in spite of flashing teeth and gold brown hair, that forty would be nearer the mark than twenty.

She told Pointer quite frankly that she had been a smart dressmaker years ago, and now lived on the successful investing of her profits—partly in London, partly travelling.

"To Monte Carlo," he added mentally. She had been in the lounge nearly all of Saturday morning writing letters, and all of Saturday afternoon at the theatre. She had never seen anyone pass her window going towards No. 14.

"We want to find out if the gentleman—Mr. Eames—had any friends or acquaintance in the hotel. People often don't like to come forward in a suicide case," Pointer explained.

Mrs. Willett closed her black eyes convulsively.

"Don't," she begged. "I'm leaving the hotel as soon as I can make other arrangements. I had meant to leave Sunday morning, but some friends to whom I was going have a child down with the measles; but stay on here I can't—it's too terrible...such a shock...poor young man!"

Pointer agreed that it was terrible, and bowed himself out, thankful that the interview was over; for with her arch gestures, and frenzied vivacity, and her screaming, high-pitched voice, she exhausted the air of any room. He found the inmate of number twelve quite a change. Low-voiced, gentle-mannered Miss Leslie was a hardworking young actress, who had just got into a good part at one of London's leading theatres by sheer merit and hard work. She had been away all Saturday morning rehearsing, and all afternoon on the river with friends. She had never heard voices from Mr. Eames' room since he had taken it, nor had she ever seen anyone pass the window from Mr. Eames' room in either direction; but as she had not returned from her Saturday outing till seven o'clock, when she had taken off her sodden things and crept immediately into bed, she had not been in the hotel during the afternoon hours which interested the police most.

Much of this Pointer knew from his and Watt's examination of her room and wardrobe, while she had been at her bath yesterday morning, and from questions downstairs. Her wet clothes were noted in the little book the Chief Inspector consulted now and again.

"You never heard any voices from next door, you say?"

"Not except Saturday evening. I heard men talking in very low whispers late that night. I suppose you were one of them."

"Humph! Have you a maid who might have been in here Saturday afternoon while you were absent? We are trying to find out if Mr. Eames had any acquaintances who visited him that last day."

"I have no maid." Miss Leslie spoke somewhat brusquely, and turned again to her writing as a sign that the interview was over,—which was a mistake.

Pointer returned to No. 14—until the inquest, which had been fixed for Tuesday, the room was being kept by the police—and entered a few notes. Then he rang for the Boots, a thick-set young man with a humorous mouth and an intelligent eye. Pointer offered him a cigar and a match.

"Look here, Seward, between ourselves, who looks after the young lady in No. 12, Miss Leslie? She must have some sort of a maid surely."

The Boots lit his cigar appreciatively.

"Well, I don't want to get anyone into trouble, I don't, and of course I don't know anything about it"—he paused dramatically, but the police-officer said nothing—"and the housekeeper she really doesn't know anything about it; but I have heard the other girls say that Maggie earns a good many half-crowns from the lady for doing odd bits of mending and hooking her in her dresses, and then waiting up for her and hooking her out of them. But I don't want to get the girl into trouble, and the housekeeper has put her foot down more than once about the maids waiting on the ladies."

"You won't get her into any trouble;" and when the Boots had gone Pointer rang for Maggie the chambermaid.

"Look here, Maggie, you were the greatest help yesterday, and now I'm trying to find out more about Saturday afternoon itself. I can promise you that anything you say to me won't get to the housekeeper's ears; but were you ironing all Saturday afternoon? Come, now, I know that you do act as maid to Miss Leslie."

"Oh! she promised me not to tell—" began Maggie in a frightened voice.

"Weren't you part of the time in No. 12? It's your duty to speak up, you know, and I've told you that it shan't get you into any trouble."

She hesitated, then she began to cry.

"Oh, I know I ought to've told. I would have—I would have, reely, only for that dragon. You see, sir, I got the housekeeper to let me off part of the ironing on Saturday because of a headache, but after I'd laid down a bit it passed off, and I remembered a dress Miss Leslie particular wanted mended. So I didn't see why I shouldn't do it instead. What I mean to say, sewing isn't like ironing, is it, sir?"

Pointer said it sounded to him like a totally distinct form of occupation.

Maggie dried her eyes and began to recover her aplomb.

"What time did you go to Miss Leslie's room?"

He saw her eyes waver, and steadied her with, "It won't go any further, you know."

"Well, it was about ten past three, as near as might be, I suppose."

From her half-sheepish tone he guessed that the lying-down had been more mental than physical.

"And you were in the room till six?"

"Well-l, about that." She gave her head a little toss. "I can't think how you nosed it out." Then her tone melted: "But there, I've wanted to tell you about it, only I didn't dare. What I mean is, if the housekeeper knew of my arrangement with Miss Leslie—" She paused.

"Tell me what you heard or saw on Saturday." His tone invited confidences.

"Well, I only heard Mr. Eames moving about, and then I heard the clink of a glass on the marble wash-stand. I knew what that was—he was taking his tonic as I'd seen him do in the morning the day before. Very regular in his habits he was—the poor young gentleman."

Pointer leant forward in his chair. "Maggie, shut your eyes and think yourself back again in Miss Leslie's room. Don't forget anything, however trifling: it might be of the greatest help in getting at Mr. Eames' friends. Just shut your eyes and live Saturday afternoon over again out loud. You've just heard the clink of Mr. Eames' tumbler on the washstand—"

His rapt attention stimulated the girl. She, too, sat forward on her seat, shut her eyes, and locked her fingers.

"—then I heard him give a sort of exclamation, or more like a choke—I mean to say, it sounded like a bit of both"—she was evidently trying to live the hours over again—"and then I heard him drop into his armchair; it creaked as though he had fairly fallen into it. After that I heard nothing more for a long while. You know how hard it rained day before yesterday, and what a noise it made coming down, then I wasn't paying any attention—I mean to say I little thought—"

"You heard him drop into his chair"—Pointer's voice was almost hypnotic—"and next—?"

"Nothing for a long while. Then I heard his door shut. Ah, thinks I to myself, he's gone downstairs as usual at four-thirty to the lounge for his tea—tea is included in the board here, you know, sir,—but it must have been him back after 'phoning to the office. Anyhow, I heard him lock his door, and then moving about, opening and shutting drawers very quickly and softly. Like this"—she jumped up and began to open and shut the table-drawer, with quite a pause between—"packing, I'm sure, sir, which shows that he did mean to go into the country—"

"Never mind what it shows. Sit down and shut your eyes again. You heard him opening and shutting drawers—"

"Oh, yes, and I heard him moving about, too, but so light! I couldn't hear any footsteps, only all the floors here creak fearful. Then"—she went quite pale and fixed a genuinely horrified stare on the Chief Inspector—"I heard him pull the wardrobe out from the wall. I listened to that, of course, sir, for that did catch my ear—what I mean to say, the furniture being my lookout, so to speak, I noticed the way he tugged it. That'll mark the carpet, I thought to myself. Little did I—"

"After the pulling out of the wardrobe, what then?" Pointer's voice was intentionally matter-of-fact.

"Well"—she seemed puzzled as to how to put her recollection into words—"it sounded just as though he dragged the armchair about the room, but so—so—as if it were so heavy, scraping and creaking, and then—then"—her eyes dilated—"I heard the most awful sounds of the chair straining and—and a sort of knocking sound, and yet sort of dragging—oh, sir, I suppose he had just stopped his packing and taken the poison then, and what I heard was his death agonies—if only I'd known, I might have run for a doctor!"

"No, no, Maggie, no one could have helped him. He had taken too much poison."

"And to think I wondered what larks he was up to in there! Then all got quieter, though I could still hear sort of rustling sounds—what I mean to say, creepy sort of noises, so quiet-like; and then I heard him shove the wardrobe back against the wall, scraping it more than ever, and that's what I don't understand. How could he do that after taking the poison and all?"

"He may have felt better for a little while," suggested the man from Scotland Yard.

"Well, I know I very nearly went in to speak about his hauling the furniture about like that. I should have, only I was supposed to be lying down. Then I heard the French window opened. I suppose, as you say, sir, he felt a bit better and stood there for a breath of air, but the rain was coming down so just then that I couldn't be sure what I heard. I had the blind down, it had come over so dark, and was working by the electric light. I didn't hear anything more, for which I'm thankful; I mean to say, I don't think I could stand it to've heard him shut himself into that wardrobe—it's quite bad enough to've heard what I did. When I went in to get the room ready for Mr. Beale the window-catch was open, though the window had blown shut. To think that when I was getting the room ready I actually tugged at the door of that wardrobe. My goodness, if it had opened!"

"You heard nothing more?"

"Nothing, sir. Not a sound."

"You didn't hear Mr. Eames walk up and down on the balcony or pass your window?"

"The rain was pouring so just then, sir, that he might have shouted and I shouldn't have heard anything outside. What I mean to say, it really was a clatter which came on just then, so as you couldn't hardly hear yourself think."

"You didn't look out at all after the blind was down?"

"Oh, no, sir, I had a rush to get the dress done in time as it was."

"Humph." Pointer seemed in no hurry to speak. The Eames case was to remain a "suicide" as long as possible.

"How were you sure it was Mr. Eames? I mean when you heard the glass clink? It might have been some friend of his in there at first?"

"I heard him sneeze when I had scarcely sat down. He had such a bad cold. I think myself that it was the influenza that made him go off his head and drink poison and all. I mean to say I've read of such cases."

"It looks very like it," he agreed, "and now, Maggie, I think I heard Miss Leslie go out a little while ago?"

"Yes, sir. She's due at a rehearsal at the Columbine."

"Then seat yourself in her room and listen. I shall drop something on the table, then I shall drop something else on it. I want you to come back and tell me which of the two sounds the heaviest. Listen carefully."

Maggie disappeared. Pointer could hear the wicker easy-chair creak slightly. He dropped one of the dental works which Eames had always had out on his table. Then after a pause he dropped it again. He and Watts had already tested just how much could be heard through the partition wall, but this time he was testing Maggie's accuracy.

She came back a second later, looking rather awkward.

"Well, sir, they both sounded alike. I mean to say I reely couldn't tell any difference, not to speak of."

"That proves they were both about the same weight, which is quite likely. Now, Maggie, go back again; sit where you sat on Saturday afternoon. I shall drop into this easy chair. I want to find out if the chair makes as much noise with me as it did with Mr. Eames. I mean to say"—the Superintendent bit his lip for a second—"that time you heard Mr. Eames fall into it, after he had taken his medicine. Knock once on the wall if it's not so loud, and twice if it's louder."

He listened till he heard Maggie draw up her chair, then he dropped heavily into his. Maggie knocked once. He let himself fall with all his weight, and Maggie came in.

"That's as near as no matter, sir, to the sound poor Mr. Eames made."

Pointer weighed fourteen stone and Eames he had guessed as under ten. The drug must have acted very quickly.

"And now I want to move about the room and see if I can make as little noise as Eames did later on—when you heard him come back and lock his door."

Maggie changed rooms again. Pointer took off both boots. He prided himself on his light footwork, and walking like Agag he crept around the room. Maggie knocked twice. He tried again. Again she knocked twice and then came in.

"Oh, you made ever so much more noise, sir, but then you'd make four of poor Mr. Eames. With him I didn't hear steps at all."

"You didn't hear my steps either surely," Pointer insisted, as he re-laced his boots.

"Perhaps not as steps, sir, but, dear me, with Mr. Eames on Saturday I could only hear a drawer being pulled out ever so gently and then shut, after a minute almost without a sound, as you might say. If it hadn't been for the boards creaking and papers rustling, I couldn't have believed there was anyone in there, part of the time."

"Papers rustling. As though they were being scrunched up, or turned over like this?" He illustrated both sounds with a newspaper.

Maggie nodded as he refolded a sheet and drew it out of a make-believe envelope.

"That's the sound, sir, but there's the housekeeper's bell. And for goodness' sake don't let her know that it was I who said anything to you about that man who looked like the other gentleman. She told us someone had been chattering and that the management wouldn't have it. Of course, I said like the others that it wasn't me."

"You mean about Mr. Sikes, whom you thought was Mr. Beale?"

She nodded. "Shall I come back here when she's finished giving out the towels?"

But Pointer shook his head. "Hardly worth while. By the way, what time did Miss Leslie get back the day before yesterday? Pretty late, wasn't it?"

"I don't know when she got back, sir. I found her in bed when I came to do her room, which I always leaves till last so that the water will be fresher. She did have a time on the river in all that wet. Rotten it must have been. I don't wonder she didn't want to stick it out."

"What time did you go into her room on Saturday evening, did you say?"

"After I had finished doing this one up for Mr. Beale. About eight o'clock."

"Had you been in there after you left it at six?"

"No, sir." The maid's eyes showed her wonder at the course of the questioning.

"We're still hoping to find out Mr. Eames' friends, and it's possible that someone may have been in here on Saturday to see him. That's why I asked about Miss Leslie. She might have heard a knock." He handed the maid half-a-crown. "If you remember anything else let me know. However insignificant."

"I will, thank you, sir," and Maggie closed the door behind her.

After lunch the results of the autopsy reached the Chief Inspector. Morphia had been drunk in a quantity which made the police-officer open his eyes. It would be difficult for anyone but a chemist to lay his hand on such a solution. "There is one thing," the doctor's scribble finished, "that dose could never have had its taste disguised. Or at least it would have been uncommonly difficult."

All this was what Pointer had expected, but Maggie's account of what she had heard in No. 14 gave, for the first time, a clearer pattern to the kaleidoscope. Whoever had shut and locked Eames' door—about four-thirty—had entered from the corridor and not by the window which she had heard opened much later.

So, in general terms, from four to six was the time an alibi would have to cover.