LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

was not surprising, as Pointer had just invented it. "Besides, sir, the manager would have been sure to see it. He didn't go to bed at all, nor even lie down."

      "Tut! Tut! Worried, I suppose, by all the bother. He generally sleeps so well, too."

      He had learnt what he wanted to know, and the girl was allowed to scuttle away from his terrifying presence.

      Pointer next made his way to a window on the first floor landing. It, too, looked on to the balcony. He examined the sill with his magnifying glass very carefully, and bending out scrutinized the boards below.

      "Come here, Miller," he called softly, "could you scramble out of that window?"

      The detective proved that he could, provided that he were helped, but he found it difficult.

      "When the manager, and that American gentleman, left No. 14 last night, did you see them go on down the stairs?"

      "I saw them turn on to this landing, sir, but I couldn't see this window from where I was. I thought I heard their footsteps go on down."

      "The wind was rather rough. One or both might have come up quietly again and got out."

      "I don't think anyone could have opened that window without my hearing them. And I think I should have felt the draught, sir."

      "Humph!" was all Pointer said to himself, as he walked on out of the hotel and took a train to Streatham, where lived Doctor Burden, the great Government analyst, expert in poisons, and reasons for sudden deaths.

      Pointer had barely pushed open the gate of the drive when the doctor met him, swinging along, golf sticks under his arm. Too late he tried to dodge behind a clump of laurels, the law was upon him.

      "Just a moment, doctor. It's only for a second, sir," begged the police officer, with a firm grip on the clubs. "It really won't take you more than one glance. All I want to know is whether a spot on a label is morphia solution or not. That's all."

      "I know you, Pointer." The doctor tried to wrest his irons free; "you got me last time with that yarn, and tied me up in a thirty-six hour job before I knew where I was. Never again!"

      "But this time it really is only one spot of what I think may be a solution of morphia that I'm after."

      He won, and the doctor, growling at his folly in having gone to Service instead of straight on to the links, led him into his study.

      Pointer unpacked the bottle of cough-mixture which he had taken from the washstand in No. 14.

      "Here, sir, where the writing has run a bit on the label. Could that smear be morphia? The stuff in the bottle is all right, I fancy, but it'll be sent to you tomorrow to test at your leisure."

      "Leisure!" groaned the analyst, "you're a wag. My leisure!" He took the bottle and disappeared through a door to return in a couple of minutes. "It is morphia. And in a solution strong enough to kill an elephant. Don't ask me for exact quantities, I'm off."

      "Very much obliged to you, sir," grinned the Chief Inspector, as he carefully replaced the bottle, and followed the doctor at a more leisurely pace out of the garden.

      "The case begins to move at last," he murmured to himself with satisfaction. He proceeded to jog along still further by ringing the private bell of Mr. Redman, the chemist, until that gentleman opened the door.

      At the sight of the officer, whom he knew, his face softened a little from its "disturbed-at-Sunday-dinner" severity.

      "Anything I can do for you, officer?" He waved him into the passage.

      "It's just this, Mr. Redman," this time the print of young Eames was produced. "Do you remember selling anything to this gentleman any day last week, or say since about July 25th?"

      The chemist shook his head.

      "But my assistant hasn't gone home yet; he dines with us on Sundays, we keep the shop open till twelve, you know—I'll call him."

      The assistant looked curiously at the snapshot.

      "What did he die of?"

      "Suicide. Inquest isn't till Tuesday or Wednesday," parried Pointer. "Do you recognize him? Ever sold anything to him this last week or even yesterday?"

      The assistant shook his head.

      "Never saw him before."

      "Quite sure?" Pointer had not expected this.

      "Oh, absolutely."

      "Humph. Well, what about this bottle? It was standing on the dead man's washstand." He produced the cough mixture.

      The two men agreed that the bottle came from them. "Could you call to mind any people you sold one like it to? It's a very important point in the case."

      "But there's nothing whatever in that medicine," began the two chemists hastily, and perhaps more truthfully than they intended.

      "I know there isn't. That's not the point. The point is who bought this bottle?"

      "Let me see," Mr. Redman rubbed his nose reflectively with his glasses. "We don't sell much of that at this season of the year. Yesterday's crop of colds hasn't had time to mature yet—now let me see, a woman bought a bottle on Friday, but it was the two shilling size."

      "I sold a bottle like that early in the week," the assistant spoke with certainty, "to a tall young fellow, an American he struck me as being. Said he wanted it for a chum of his who had a bad cold. I remember now. It was"—he paused—"I know! It was Tuesday just as I was shutting up—Seven o'clock that would be, or say three minutes past."

      "Could you describe him?"

      The assistant could; and except for the fact that the man limped badly, the description might have fitted thousands of young men. Incidentally, however, it fitted Mr. Cox of the Marvel Hotel to a nicety. "Tall, broad-shouldered, in a rather crumpled tweed suit, and felt hat, clean-shaven, dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a square jaw. I'll bet he served during the war."

      Neither the chemist nor his assistant had made up any morphia for over a month. A glance at their poison-book confirmed this.

      So last Tuesday evening—on July 30th, to be exact—Mr. Cox had purchased the bottle of medicine for Mr. Eames—the same Mr. Eames who on that same Tuesday, but in the morning, had inspected a room which had later been taken by a letter which Pointer believed to have been written by Eames, though signed in the name of Cox—. The officer turned these tangled facts over in his mind as he smoked a pipe in the Enterprise lounge. Was Cox a friend or an enemy? If he was the criminal, why had he returned last night? Had he left some clue behind him which he must recover at all costs? Or had he been disturbed by some sound in the afternoon, and returned—unconscious that the dead man had already been discovered—to complete his work? In this case, what had he left undone?

      At any rate, Watts would have a vague description to go on tomorrow in his hunt for a possible purchaser of morphia.

      Pointer spent the rest of the afternoon apparently gossiping with all and sundry. Each conversation, however, resembled all others in that, though it might begin with the weather or cricket, it invariably finished up with the manager's whereabouts yesterday afternoon.

      He had been seen about half-past three, and he had been seen just after five, but in the intervals it seemed impossible to locate him exactly. Pointer wished heartily that Eames' death had occurred at midnight. It would have made no difference to Eames but a great deal to the detectives.

      Of Eames himself he learnt but little. The young man had apparently made no clear impression on those with whom he had come in contact, save that they all ascribed to him unusual powers of silence.

      The maid had nothing to report beyond that "the gentleman of No. 14 left his room always at eight o'clock regular." A couple of books lay always on his table—not novels—thick, solid-looking books. Pointer showed her two,—"yes, those were the very identical ones." They were works on dentistry, very new and unused, with "Reginald Eames" neatly written in each. To Pointer they did not look as though their late

Скачать книгу