LITMIR.BIZ

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      "I can tell you from the books that there were no departures today after twelve o'clock. As a matter of fact, not a bag left the hotel after a quarter-past eleven. It's one of our strictest rules that nothing leaves a room without first 'phoning down to the clerk to find out if it's all O.K."

      "But what about the people in the hotel taking out their bags themselves?"

      "Oh, that,—of course—but not this afternoon." The clerk thought back, "You see it's a small hotel, and I'm paid to keep my eyes open. Nobody took out any bag bigger than a woman's wrist-bag after one o'clock. There's no business doing of a Saturday afternoon. The day-porter's gone home and won't be visible till Monday."

      "What about when you're off duty, Mr. Page?"

      "The manager relieves me for two hours at noon, from one to three, but as the dining-room opens out of the hall, and my table is just by the glass door, I'm as good as in the hall. At seven o'clock the hall-porter takes my place till seven-thirty. But, as I say, I've my eyes on the hall all the time, and if there's any crush I'm out in two twos."

      The clerk yawned dismally, and Pointer, with a laugh, let him go, after having him write down the names of any of the occupants of the five balcony rooms which were not known to the management from other visits. There were only two. Numbers eleven and twelve; and of these, number eleven was "expecting to leave" daily.

      "Now, who do I see about the service-stairs—who is supposed to keep an eye on them?"

      "The housekeeper. She's still up; I'll send her to you."

      The housekeeper assured him that at noon by Saturday the service-door just beyond the manager's suite was duly locked and bolted. After that hour it could only be used with her consent and approval. The lower door in the basement—the delivery door proper—was, of course, another matter. The key of the upper door hung in the maids' sitting-room just opposite,—a small room used especially by the maid who waited on the manager.

      "That door leads to the maids' sitting-room and to the service-stairs, doesn't it?"

      The Chief Inspector pointed to a door opening out of the manager's little lobby. He opened it as he spoke—not for the first time that night.

      The housekeeper looked surprised. "Bless me, sir, it doesn't take you police gentlemen long to find your way about."

      "And that is the door leading into the street, eh?"

      "Yes, sir."

      "It's not locked now."

      "Oh, yes, it is, sir." She laid a confident hand on it to turn in bewilderment as it opened easily.

      "Why—why—someone must have undone it!"

      "Just so," agreed Pointer dryly. "And the key?"

      She opened a door facing the street entrance, and switched on the light. "There it is, hanging where I put it at twelve o'clock."

      Pointer raised a weary eyebrow, but he said nothing, and made his way to the lounge, where, after asking both the manager and Mr. Beale to hold themselves in readiness for any possible further questions tomorrow morning, he joined Watts upstairs and spent a strenuous hour with him.

      "No key to fit his trunk—no sign of the bag which the booking-clerk and porter saw him carry upstairs,—no sign of a ring,—no scrap of paper nor any mark of identity beyond his signatures,—humph!"

      The Chief Inspector dusted his knees carefully and went to the mantelpiece. "Here's a box of wax vestas right enough, the same kind as the vesta I picked up in the wardrobe, but that one was still warm and soft. Burnt down to the last end and dropped burning into the wardrobe when it scorched someone's fingers—whose, Watts?"

      Watts shook his head.

      "—Not more than half-an-hour before we came into the room, so Eames couldn't have done it, for more reasons than one."

      "I saw you try the electric torch in that American gent's bag, sir," Watts threw in.

      "Just so. It was out of order. He didn't say a word about that in his evidence downstairs. You noticed those marks on the top of the wardrobe, where someone had evidently passed a stiff brush over it, presumably to do away with any finger marks or streaks?"

      "I did, sir. And wasn't his—I mean Mr. Beale's—clothes-brush in a fearful state. He did look put out when you picked it up first thing."

      The Chief Inspector nodded with a grim smile. "Aye, he did. He might have thought it less of a give-away if he'd known that all along he had a fine smear of dust on the under part of his sleeve. A smear that could only have been got up there. The manager's coat was clean, though that proves little. I hope you noticed the washstand before the doctor washed his hands?"

      Watts was an honest young fellow, and he flushed by way of answer.

      "The towel was damp, so was the soap. So was the inside of the basin. The jug was half empty, but there wasn't a drop of water in the pail. Whatever water had been used had been flung out of the window. It's been pouring so hard all day that a bit more or less would never be noticed. But the fact is odd. Why should anyone mind pouring the basin into the pail?"

      "The water was too black after that wardrobe top," laughed Watts. The Chief Inspector was popular with his men, and Watts was, moreover, a distant connection.

      "Then that chest of drawers. You know the feeling of using a key after a pass-key?"

      "As though the lock were stuck, sir?"

      "Just so. I turned the key very slowly, and each drawer had been last opened with a pass-key, or rather locked with one. And that smell of tobacco when we opened them—same smell as Mr. Beale's cigars. And that dusting of cigar ash on one of the ties. I shouldn't wonder if this is going to turn into a very funny case, Watts. I shouldn't wonder at all."

      Watts' eyes brightened. A "funny case" from the point of view of the police often leads to promotion, and though Pointer was the youngest Chief Inspector at the Yard, Watts believed he could unravel any tangle. Pointer lived in Bayswater. He liked its open squares and clearer air. He shared three rooms there with a friend, James O'Connor, now a bookbinder, but during the War a very successful member of the Secret Service. Talkative, gossipy, and secretive was the Celt. Only a few had any idea of the hard core of blue steel that lay beneath his apparent easy-going cheeriness. Pointer was one of these few. He and O'Connor had worked once together, the one openly representing the law, the other secretly endangering his life every moment of the day while tracking down a German-American-Irish plot. O'Connor never referred to those days, though, had his means permitted, he would have liked to continue his hazardous work; but with peace he had to turn his attention to making a livelihood, and being single-minded in all his doings, he refused absolutely to be drawn into any of his friend's problems except as the merest onlooker.

      It always gave the Chief Inspector genuine pleasure to step from the little lobby into the huge living-room which the two men used in common. He saw richer rooms often, but never one which suited him so well, with its ivory walls and paint, kept up to the mark by his own neat brush, the thick, short, draw-curtains of apple-green silk to the four windows, the chair covers of a Persian pattern—green leaves rioting over a cream ground, with here and there a pomegranate or a blue bird—book cases in quiet walnut stood against the walls.

      Pointer's large writing desk, and O'Connor's equally huge table, filled the corners by the windows. In one open fireplace logs were heaped, the other was kept free for burning papers. The soft brightness of his home was like a friendly hand clasp to the weary police officer after the rain outside.

      O'Connor smiled up at him and pointed to the table.

      "Mrs. Able is thirsting for your blood. I told her to leave the things the last time she brought them in. I couldn't face her again." He turned out an electric hot-plate as he spoke.

      A vegetable soup, a dish of Tatar bitokes—savory balls of beefsteak and marrow and seasonings pounded to perfection and browned to a turn, a well-made potato salad, some crisp rolls, and a glass of light wine made Pointer ready for

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