"Then—then I need not have come—it is no use?"
"On the contrary, madam, your evidence may have been of far greater value than we any of us realize at the present moment," the inspector said politely. "Should it be needed you will be subpoenaed, of course; 55 Southfield Gardens, isn't it?"
Mrs. Carr stared at him. "You—you know?"
Stoddart bowed.
"It is not easy to hide your address from the C.I.D. But I am bound to confess that you puzzled us at first."
He attended her to the door and then turned back to Harbord.
"Umph! Not much help, was she?"
"Not much," Harbord agreed. "But I think she might have been, if she had liked—"
The inspector smiled, his keen eyes for once looking dreamy as he gazed at the chair in which Mrs. Carr had sat, as he sniffed the faint, elusive scent that seemed to cling about her garments.
"Ah! That is the point. I didn't need her to tell me Basil Wilton was innocent. But if she had liked to tell us all she knew—And now to business."
He opened a big ledger-like book that lay on the table and sat down before it.
"Do you know what this is?"
Harbord looked curious.
"No, sir."
"Dr. Bastow's case-book. I tell you, Alfred, I have always been certain the secret he had discovered, and for the discovery of which he was murdered, had nothing to do with research work, and I am going through this book, beginning a fortnight before the doctor's death and looking into every case personally. I feel sure that presently by process of elimination I shall arrive at the one which put the doctor on the track of the secret which meant death. Now where are we to-day?—Monnet—Rendal, chemist. Neith Street, Clapham, S.W. Um—um—seems to have been a case of a woman in a street accident carried into nearest shop, which happened to be a chemist's, and from thence to a nursing home. Well, it doesn't sound likely. But I will give it a little investigation, as I am going through all the cases, likely and unlikely. I think you and I will take a journey down to Clapham this afternoon, Harbord. By the way, I suppose this is accidental?"
"What is accidental?" Harbord questioned, leaning forward.
Stoddart pointed to the page.
"These little dots under the name Rendal."
"They don't look accidental," Harbord said slowly. "But what can they mean?"
"I should like to know," the inspector said, getting up.
Chapter XXI
"Here we are! Neith Street," the inspector said, as he and Harbord turned into a busy and rather mean-looking street, "and there is Rendal's on the opposite side. Still sticks to his coloured jars, I see. Shouldn't say Neith Street was very modern."
The chemist came forward to meet them. It appeared to be a one man shop, small and stuffy, smelling strongly of drugs. The chemist also was small and bespectacled.
"Mr. Rendal?" the inspector said inquiringly.
"Certainly!" The chemist looked a trifle surprised. "Can I do anything for you, sir?"
The inspector handed him a card.
"It is just a little help I want, Mr. Rendal. Can you carry your mind back to last February,—the 27th of last February?"
The chemist turned his head away, looking at the card before answering, and paused a moment.
"Yes, I remember the 27th of last February."
"Will you tell me what fixes it in your memory?"
Again there was that odd hesitation.
"Well, that day, there was an accident a little lower down the street, a woman—a Mrs. Monnet—was knocked down and brought into my shop, where a doctor who was passing attended her."
"His name?" the inspector questioned abruptly.
"Dr. John Bastow! The same who was murdered a few days later." The chemist looked at the two men over the top of his glasses. "It was the same—I believe I have a card of his still. If you would not mind waiting a few minutes perhaps I could find it."
The inspector held up his hand.
"No matter. We know that it was that Dr. Bastow. Now I want you to tell me just what happened that day."
Mr. Rendal began more glibly this time.
"Well, Mrs. Monnet was carried into my little sitting-room and Dr. Bastow attended to her there. She was seriously but not dangerously injured, and in a little time her husband, who had been sent for, was able to move her to a nursing home. That is all that occurred that day."
"Did you see any more of Dr. Bastow?"
"Yes. He came in the next day. He had lost a memorandum-book, and he thought that in the confusion caused by the accident and the removal of Mrs. Monnet he might have laid it down and forgotten it. However, we had seen nothing of it, but as it was rather important we instituted a vigorous search. Dr. Bastow stopped in the shop and looked at my books, particularly the one in which I entered the sale of poisons. I do very little in this way, so my book went back for years, to long before the passing of the new poisons act. Dr. Bastow seemed very much interested in it."
"Ah, poisons! That would interest Dr. Bastow," the inspector said, taking out his notebook. "Now, Mr. Rendal, this may be of great importance. I need not warn a man of your position to be careful. Please tell me exactly what Dr. Bastow did and said with regard to your poison sale book?"
"He did nothing but turn the pages over," Rendal said, taking off his glasses and wiping them "He had almost reached the beginning when he came to the entry that arrested his attention. It recorded the purchase of a considerable quantity of arsenic, for gardening purposes, by a William Taylor. He had signed for it, of course, and Dr. Bastow seemed extraordinarily interested in his signature. He asked me to describe Mr. Taylor, and I did so to the best of my ability."
"Please tell us what this Taylor was like. How was it that you came to remember him after so long a time had elapsed?" the inspector questioned.
The chemist looked away from his interlocutor.
"Dr. Bastow asked me that. I can only tell you what I told him. Mr. William Taylor impressed me because he was so very unlike most of the people who come into the shop."
"Can you give me any sort of description?" the inspector went on.
Mr. Rendal coughed.
"Well, most of my customers are of the poorer class. It is very seldom that I get anyone like Mr. William Taylor, who was unmistakably a gentleman. That really fixed him in my mind. That and his good looks, for he really was good-looking—big and fair with a pleasant manner. I took quite a fancy to him. Dr. Bastow made me give his description over and over again."
"Should you know him if you saw him now?" the inspector questioned.
"Well, he must be a good deal altered. It is more than ten years ago." Mr. Rendal hesitated.
"Have you ever seen him since?"
"I am not sure—I think I have—a month or two later." Rendal was wiping the dew from his glasses; he did not look up.
"Where?"
"The Fleet Street end of the Strand," Rendal said uneasily.
"You are sure it was the same man?" There was an under-note of triumph in the inspector's voice that made Harbord look at him.
"No, not sure. I couldn't be. I was not near enough. But I think it was he."