The porter read through his statement and carefully signed his name at the foot. He was about to depart when Badger said: “Before you go, perhaps you had better help us to move the body into the bedroom. It isn’t decent to leave it lying there.”
Accordingly the four of us lifted the dead man and carried him into the bedroom, where we laid him on the undisturbed bed and covered him with a rug. Then the porter was dismissed, with instructions to send in Mrs. Runt.
The laundress’s statement was substantially a repetition of what Mr. Bidwell had told me. She had let herself into the chambers in the usual way, had come suddenly on the dead body of the tenant, and had forthwith rushed downstairs to give the alarm. When she had concluded the inspector stood for a few moments looking thoughtfully at his notes.
“I suppose,” he said presently, “you haven’t looked round these chambers this morning? Can’t say if there is anything unusual about them, or anything missing?”
The laundress shook her head.
“I was too upset,” she said, with another furtive glance at the place where the corpse had lain; “but,” she added, letting her eyes roam vaguely round the room, “there doesn’t seem to be anything missing, so far as I can see—wait! Yes, there is. There’s something gone from that nail on the wall; and it was there yesterday morning, because I remember dusting it.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Badger. “Now what was it that was hanging on that nail?”
“Well,” Mrs. Runt replied hesitatingly, “I really don’t know what it was. Seemed like a sort of sword or dagger, but I never looked at it particularly, and I never took it off its nail. I used to dust it as it hung.”
“Still,” said Badger, “you can give us some sort of description of it, I suppose?”
“I don’t know that I can,” she replied. “It had a leather case, and the handle was covered with leather, I think, and it had a sort of loop, and it used to hang on that nail.”
“Yes, you said that before,” Badger commented sourly. “When you say it had a case, do you mean a sheath?”
“You can call it a sheath if you like,” she retorted, evidently ruffled by the inspector’s manner, “I call it a case.”
“And how big was it? How long, for instance?”
Mrs. Runt held out her hands about a yard apart, looked at them critically, shortened the interval to a foot, extended it to two, and still varying the distance, looked vaguely at the inspector.
“I should say it was about that,” she said.
“About what?” snorted Badger. “Do you mean a foot or two feet or a yard? Can’t you give us some idea?”
“I can’t say no clearer than what I have,” she snapped. “I don’t go round gentlemen’s chambers measuring the things.”
It seemed to me that Badger’s questions were rather unnecessary, for the wall-paper below the nail gave the required information. A coloured patch on the faded ground furnished a pretty clear silhouette of a broad bladed sword or large dagger, about two feet six inches long, which had apparently hung from the nail by a loop or ring at the end of the handle. But it was not my business to point this out. I turned to Bidwell and asked:
“Can you tell us what the thing was?”
“I am afraid I can’t,” he replied. “I have very seldom been in these chambers. Herrington and I usually met in mine and went to the club. I have a dim recollection of something hanging on that nail, but I have not the least idea what it was or what it was like. But do you think it really matters? The thing was almost certainly a curio of some kind. It couldn’t have been of any appreciable value. It is absurd, on the face of it, to suppose that this man came to Herrington’s chambers, apparently by appointment, and murdered him for the sake of getting possession of an antique sword or dagger. Don’t you think so?”
I did, and so, apparently, did the inspector, with the qualification that the thing seemed to have disappeared, and its disappearance ought to be accounted for; which was perfectly true, though I did not quite see how the “accounting for” was to be effected. However, as the laundress had told all that she knew, Badger gave her her dismissal and she retired to the landing, where I noticed that the night porter was still lurking. Mr. Bidwell also took his departure, and happening, a few moments later, to glance out of the window, I saw him walking slowly across the court, apparently conferring with the laundress and the porter.
As soon as we were alone, Badger assumed a friendly and confidential manner and proceeded to give advice.
“I gather that Mr. Bidwell wants you to investigate this case, but I don’t fancy it is in your line at all. It is just a matter of tracing that stranger and getting hold of him. Then we shall have to find out what property there was on these premises. The laundress says that there is nothing missing, but of course no one supposes that the man came here to take the furniture. It is most probable that the motive was robbery of some kind. There’s no sign of anything broken open; but then, there wouldn’t be, as the keys were available.”
Nevertheless he prowled round the room, examining every receptacle that had a lock and trying the drawers of the writing-table and of what looked like a file cabinet.
“You will have your work cut out,” I remarked, “to trace that man. The porter’s description was pretty vague.”
“Yes,” he replied; “there isn’t much to go on. That’s where you come in,” he added with a grin, “with your microscopes and air-pumps and things. Now if Dr. Thorndyke was here he would just sweep a bit of dust from the floor and collect any stray oddments and have a good look at them through his magnifier, and then we should know all about it. Can’t you do a bit in that line? There’s plenty of dust on the floor. And here’s a pin. Wonderful significant thing is a pin. And here’s a wax vesta; now, that ought to tell you quite a lot. And here is the end of a leather boot-lace—at least, that is what it looks like. That must have come out of somebody’s boot. Have a look at it, doctor, and see if you can tell me what kind of boot it came out of and whose boot it was.”
He laid the fragment, and the match, and the pin on the table and grinned at me somewhat offensively. Inwardly I resented his impertinence—perhaps the more so since I realised that Thorndyke would probably not have been so completely gravelled as I undoubtedly was. But I considered it politic to take his clumsy irony in good part, and even to carry on his elephantine joke. Accordingly, I picked up the three “clues,” one after the other, and examined them gravely, noting that the supposed boot-lace appeared to be composed of whalebone or vulcanite.
“Well, inspector,” I said. “I can’t give you the answer off-hand. There’s no microscope here. But I will examine these objects at my leisure and let you have the information in due course.”
With that 1 wrapped them with ostentatious care in a piece of note and bestowed them in my pocket, a proceeding which the inspector watched with a sour smile.
“I’m afraid you’ll be too late,” said he. “Our men will probably pick up the tracks while you are doing the microscope stunt. However, I mustn’t stay here any longer. We can’t do anything until we know what valuables there were on the premises; and I must have the body removed and examined by the police surgeon.”
He moved towards the door, and as I had no further business in the rooms, I followed, and leaving him to lock up, I took my way back to our chambers.
When Thorndyke returned to town a couple of days later, I mentioned the case to him. But what Badger had said appeared to be true. It was a case of ascertaining the identity of the stranger who had visited the dead man on that fatal night, and this seemed to be a matter for the police rather than for us. So the case remained in abeyance until the evening following the inquest, when Mr. Bidwell called on us, accompanied