He had had very few, she said. He and Jerry Lamont went everywhere together. After some strenuous thinking she recollected two men who had once come to the house, and described them well enough to make it certain that neither was the Levantine.
“Have you any photographs of Sorrell or his friend?”
She thought she had some snapshots somewhere, if the inspector wouldn’t mind waiting while she hunted. Grant had had hardly enough time to examine the room before she came back with two amateur photographs of postcard size. “These were taken last summer when they were on the river,” she said.
The snapshots had been taken obviously on the same occasion. They both showed the same willowy background of Thames bank and the same piece of punt. One was a photograph of Sorrell in flannels, a pipe in one hand and a cushion in the other. The other was also a photograph of a young man in flannels, and the man was the foreigner.
Grant sat a long time looking at that dark face. The photograph was a good one. The eyes were not a mere shadow as in most snapshots; they were eyes. And Grant could see again the sudden horror that had lit them as they lighted on him in the Strand. Even in the pleasant repose of the moment on the river the eyes had an inimical look. There was no friendliness in the hard-boned face.
“Where did you say Lamont had gone?” he asked matter-of-factly.
Mrs. Everett did not know.
Grant examined her minutely. Was she telling the truth? As if conscious of his suspicion, she supplemented her statement with another. He had got rooms somewhere on the south side of the river.
Suspicion filled him. Did she know more than she was telling? Who had sent the money to bury Sorrell? His friend and the Levantine were one, and the Levantine, who had had two hundred and twenty-three pounds from him, had certainly not sent the money. He looked at the woman’s hard face. She would probably write like a man; the handwriting experts were not infallible. But then, the person who had sent the money had owned the revolver. No, he corrected himself; the person who had posted the money had had the revolver.
Had either of the men owned a revolver? he asked.
No; she had never seen such a thing with either of them. They weren’t that type.
There she was again, harping on their quietness. Was it mere partisanship, or was it a feeble attempt to head him off the track? He wanted to ask if Lamont were left-handed, but something held him back. If she were not being straight with him, that question in relation to Lamont would alarm her immediately. It would give away the whole extent of his investigations. She would give warning and flush the bird from cover long before they were ready to shoot. And it was not vital at the moment. The man of the photograph was the man who had lived with Sorrell, was the man who had fled at sight of him in the Strand, was the man who had had all Sorrell’s money, and was almost certainly the man of the queue. Legarde could identify him. It was more important at the moment to keep Mrs. Everett in the dark as to how much they knew.
“When did Sorrell leave for America?”
“His boat sailed on the 14th,” she said, “but he left here on the 13th.”
“Unlucky day!” said Grant, hoping to bring the conversation to a less formal and less antagonistic level.
“I don’t believe in superstition,” she said. “One day is very like another.”
But Grant was thinking hard. The 13th was the night of the murder.
“Did Lamont leave with him?” he asked.
Yes, they had left together in the morning. Mr. Lamont was going to take his things to his new rooms and then to meet Mr. Sorrell. Mr. Sorrell was going down to Southampton with a boat train at night. She had wanted to go to see him off, but he had been very insistent that she shouldn’t.
“Why?” asked Grant.
“He said it was too late, and in any case he didn’t like being seen off.”
“Had he any relations?”
No, none that she had ever heard of.
And Lamont, had he any?
Yes, he had a father and mother and one brother, but they had emigrated to New Zealand directly after the War and he had not seen them since.
How long had the two men stayed with her?
Mr. Sorrell had been with her for nearly eight years and Mr. Lamont for four.
Who shared the rooms with Sorrell for the four years previous to Lamont’s arrival?
There had been various people, but most of the time it was a nephew of her own, who was now in Ireland. Yes, Mr. Sorrell had always been on good terms with all of them.
“Was he always bright and cheerful?” asked Grant.
Well, no, she said; bright and cheery didn’t describe Mr. Sorrell at all. That was Mr. Lamont, if he liked. Mr. Lamont was the bright and cheery one. Mr. Sorrell was quiet, but pleasant. Sometimes he’d be a bit mopy, and Mr. Lamont would be extra bright to cheer him up.
Grant, remembering how grateful one is when some one deliberately attempts to take the black dog from one’s back, wondered why it hadn’t been the other way about, and Sorrell had murdered Lamont.
Did they ever quarrel?
No, never that she had known of, and she would have known quick enough.
“Well,” said Grant at last, “I suppose you have no objections to lending me these snapshots for a day or two?”
“You’ll let me have them back safe, will you?” she said. “They’re the only ones I have, and I was very fond of both of them.”
Grant promised, and put them carefully away in his pocketbook, praying that they were covered with valuable fingerprints.
“You’re not going to get them into trouble, are you?” she asked again as he was going. “They never did a wrong thing in their lives.”
“Well, if that’s so, they’re quite safe,” Grant said.
He hurried back to Scotland Yard and, while the fingerprints on the photographs were being recorded, heard Williams’ report of an unproductive day among the bookmaking offices of London. As soon as the snapshots were again in his possession, he repaired to Laurent’s. It was very late and the place was deserted. A solitary waiter was absent-mindedly assembling the crumbs from a table, and the air smelt of rich gravy, wine, and cigarette smoke. The distrait minion laid away the crumb-scoop and bent to hear his pleasure with that air of having hoped for nothing, and of having the melancholy pleasure of being right, which a waiter presents to the foolhardy one who attempts to dine when others have finished. As he recognized Grant he reassembled his features in a new combination intended to read, “What a pleasure to serve a favourite customer!” but which in reality was unfortunately clear as “Good heavens, that was a bloomer! It’s that pet of Marcel’s.”
Grant asked after Marcel, and heard that he had that morning departed for France in a hurry. His father had died and he was an only son, and there was, it was understood, a matter of a good business and a vineyard to be settled. Grant was not particularly desolated at the thought of not seeing Marcel again. The manners on which Marcel had always prided himself had left Grant invariably slightly nauseated. He ordered a dish, and asked if Raoul Legarde was on the premises and, if so, would he be allowed to come and speak to him for a moment. Several minutes later, Raoul’s tall figure, clad in white linen overall and cap, emerged from the screens by the door and followed the waiter diffidently to Grant’s table. He had the air of a shy child going up for a prize which it knows it has earned.
“Good evening, Legarde,” Grant said amiably. “You’ve been a great help to me. I want you to look at these and see if you can recognize any of them.” He spread twelve photographs roughly fan-wise on the table and left Raoul to examine them. The boy took his time—in fact, the pause was so long that Grant had time to