"Not Mrs. Wilton's body anyhow," the inspector said with significant emphasis as he locked his case-book in his desk and got up. "Well, the sooner we get the bag open, the sooner we shall know what it contains."
Harbord glanced curiously more than once at his superior as they made their way to St. Pancras.
Arrived, the inspector produced his ticket and received a small, old-fashioned Gladstone bag. He wrinkled up his brow as he looked at it.
"Now, what the dickens—"
He beckoned to one of the station constables and after a very short delay was taken to a small room at the back of the office. The bag was set on a table and, with Harbord and the station detective looking on, the inspector took out a bunch of keys and turned one of them in the very ordinary lock with little difficulty. Inside there was first a box, then a quantity of papers; lastly, carefully wrapped in paper, a curious, bedraggled-looking object. The eyes of the detectives were riveted upon this.
"What on earth is it? It looks like hair," Harbord said, bending over it.
"It is hair." The inspector caught it up. "Heavens, man! Don't you see what it is? An artificial brown beard!"
"Ah!" Harbord drew in his breath sharply. "Then that means—"
"We don't know what it means yet," the inspector rejoined sharply.
He put it back in its paper and turned to the box, which Harbord had lifted out and placed on a chair beside the table. Stoddart started and looked at it more closely. How long and fruitlessly he had been searching for a red lacquer box with golden dragons sprawling over it, and yet when it stood before him he had not recognized it! He took it up and scrutinized it. Where had it been, he asked himself, all this time he had been looking for it? If only inanimate things could speak!
"It is empty, sir," Harbord's voice interrupted at this juncture. "I looked as I took it out. It is a bit awkward about the catch, though." Stoddart was still staring at the box silently. Then he put it on the table and pointed to it, touching Harbord's arm.
"Don't you know that this box has been advertised for in every police station in the country?"
It was Harbord's turn to stare now. "No, I never saw it before."
"Saw it before!" The inspector laughed bitterly. "Neither did I! But I have been looking for it for weeks. Heavens, man! Don't you recognize it now? Dr. John Bastow's Chinese box. The one that was taken from his consulting-room on the day of the murder."
"Great heavens!" Harbord drew a long breath. "This—this will alter everything, sir—clear Dr. Sanford Morris."
"I don't know about that, though it will upset a good many preconceived notions, I fancy," the inspector said, turning back to the tin box which was now empty of all but paper—newspaper for the most part. He took up the top one, a sheet of the "Daily Wire" for March 12th—the day of Dr. Bastow's death—another sheet, a portion of the same issue. A large piece of brown paper at the top of the box had a white label bearing the name of a big London shop and directed in a plain, clerkly hand to Dr. Bastow, 17 Park Road. The date at the top was that of the day preceding the doctor's death.
The inspector after a moment's pause gathered everything together and, putting artificial beard, Chinese box and paper all back in the bag, locked it up again. Then he turned to the station inspector.
"Our first job must be to find out who brought this to the station and at what time on June the—" glancing at the ticket.
"That oughtn't to be very difficult," the other said. "A glance at the books will tell us who was on duty at the time, and the one who received the bag should be able to remember something about it. One minute, I will make inquiries."
He went off. The other two looked at one another.
Harbord was the first to speak.
"Well, of all the rum goes, sir! I suppose there can be little doubt that this beard was worn by Dr. Bastow's murderer? And this is the Chinese box which contained the particulars of the discovery to obtain which Dr. Sanford Morris was supposed to have committed the murder?"
"Yes, of course," the inspector said in a curiously uninterested tone, continuing to stare at the bag as though he would wring its secrets from it. "There is nothing in it now, however. But there are one or two curious points—Ah, here they are!"
The station detective came in with a dapper-looking young man with ginger hair.
"Here we are, inspector, I just caught him," the former said with an air of congratulation. "Mr. Meakin remembers the bag being brought in, and thinks he can recall the man who brought it."
"Does he? Good!" the inspector said approvingly. "Well, Mr. Meakin, will you tell us all you can?"
Mr. Meakin appeared to be rather nervous. "Well, as far as I can remember, it was not very long after I came on duty at six. I can't fix it nearer than that. The day is made certain in my mind by the ticket and the day-book and also because I heard the next morning of the dreadful death in Hawksview Mansions. And I took particular notice of that because my young lady is employed by an elderly lady living in the Mansions. So of course she could talk of nothing but the Wiltons for about a week. The night of the murder I took her to a dance at a night club, and I met her outside the Mansions at 8.30. Of course the poor thing was lying there dead at the time—only we didn't know it. But I got what I did that day fixed in my mind by that."
"Which flat was your young lady in, how near the Wiltons'?" the inspector inquired.
"Two floors above, it was. But I can't say more than that, never having been in it myself," Mr. Meakin answered, his nervousness developing into a stammer.
The inspector looked at his notes and cogitated for a minute.
"Two floors above. They would hear nothing of the shot there."
"They did not," Mr. Meakin assured him with stuttering haste. "She—my young lady—has often said since it happened she wished she had left earlier, as she did sometimes about five o'clock. Then going or coming she might have seen or heard something that would have cleared Mr. Wilton. A pleasant looking young couple they were, him and his poor wife. My young lady says so."
"Oh, she knew them by sight?" the inspector said in some surprise.
"Yes. She rendered Mrs. Wilton some slight service one day, and the poor thing always passed the time of day with her afterwards. And she noticed Mr. Wilton when he came, being more or less of an invalid and taking Mrs. Wilton's arm as they went to the lift."
"Ah, I think I must have a little chat with your young lady some day," the inspector said, dismissing the subject. "Now, Mr. Meakin, to come back to this bag being brought here, can you give me any sort of description of the person who brought it—man or woman?"
Mr. Meakin shuffled his feet together uneasily. "Man, sir. I am quite clear about that. Not that I took much notice of him, not having occasion to, I am sure I shouldn't know him again—not unless I heard him speak."
"And then—" the inspector said persuasively. "Was there something about his speech by which you could identify him?"
"Well, I think I might," the clerk said uneasily. "That is, I noticed him because he spoke in a mumbling sort of way, as if he had plums in his mouth—just the few words he did say."
"His appearance," the inspector went on, "can you tell me whether he was tall or short?"
"Tallish, I fancy," Meakin responded uncertainly. "Anyway he did not look short—not shorter than me I don't think."
This was not particularly enlightening. The inspector stroked his chin meditatively.
Meakin watched him in silence for a minute or two. Then his face lighted up.
"One thing I can remember, inspector. He had a short, dark beard."
"Ah!"