CHAPTER IV.A Case of Identity“Certain of that?” queried Bannister. “How do you know she didn’t commit suicide?”The Sergeant nodded vigorously in affirmation of the Inspector’s first question. “It’s murder for certain! All her personal belongings seem to have been taken and all around the poor girl’s mouth hung that unmistakable bitter almonds smell. You couldn’t mistake it. I was sure that’s what it was before Doctor Renfrew, the divisional surgeon, arrived. When he did he quickly confirmed my idea. He says she had a pretty considerable dose of the stuff, too. Enough to kill three people. The murderer, whoever he was, didn’t intend taking any risks. Besides Branston’s story rules out the idea of suicide.”“H’m,” said Bannister fingering his chin reflectively, “it certainly seems an extraordinary case. At first appearances to all events. It all seems to have been done in so short a time. Still it may turn out quite a simple affair before you’ve done with it.”A grim smile played round Godfrey’s lips. Albeit he strove hard to conceal his disappointment. “I was hoping you would say ‘beforewe’vedone with it,’ ” he ventured.Bannister frowned. “You were—were you?” Then he turned to his companion with a mixture of impatience and ill-temper. “Can’t you leave me alone when I’m on a holiday? For a time at least, that is. As I said it may be quite an easy case to solve when you get all your data!”Godfrey looked dismayed at the Inspector’s remark. “No chance of that, I’m afraid, sir,” he said. “The fact is I can’t see any light at all. I’m up against it from the very commencement. I don’t even knowwho the young lady is.”“What?” interjected Bannister. “Surely she has something on her or with her that will help to identify her—it’s inconceivable to me that she hasn’t.”Godfrey shook his head. “She may have—some of her clothes may have marks that will lead to her identity. I haven’t examined any of them yet. I considered my best plan was to leave her almost exactly as she was when Stannard sent for me to come to the Surgery. I thought if I did that, sir, better intelligences than mine might read something into the case that was not apparent to me. I was thinking of you, sir. All the same—not knowing who she is means losing valuable time.”Bannister was temporarily proof against flattery. “Who told you I was here?” he demanded curtly.“I’ve a cousin at ‘the Yard,’ sir,” explained the Sergeant, “he happened to mention the fact in a letter I had from him a few days ago.”“Like his damned interference,” interjected Bannister, “why couldn’t he mind his own business and let me finish my holiday in peace?”“I’m sorry, sir—but if I may make the suggestion—you’re suffering from what I should describe as the penalty of fame, sir.”Bannister grinned cynically. “Oh—naturally—and all that.” Then he reluctantly resigned himself to his fate—the Sergeant’s last remark had been in the nature of a “coup de grâce.” He submitted himself to the inevitable. “How far away is the place, Godfrey?”“I’ve a car outside the ‘Cassandra’,” Godfrey answered—relief manifested in every tone of his voice. “It will get us there in ten minutes easily.” The car proved equal to the task.During the short journey, Bannister remained silent. Two attempts that Godfrey made to re-open discussion of the crime were waved aside unceremoniously. “Let me wait,” he declared. “Otherwise my brain will be full up with other people’s impressions and observations, which is a condition I always try to avoid, if at all possible.”Ronald Branston’s Dental Surgery lay at the corner of Coolwater Avenue and the Lower Seabourne Road in the direction of Froam, a watering place some eight miles away. The entrance to the Surgery for the use of patients was situated in Coolwater Avenue, the outer door being open. The Inspector and Sergeant Godfrey made their way to the main entrance which was in the Lower Seabourne Road and rang the bell. A woman with a scared face answered their summons and admitted them, with a suggestion of reluctance in her manner. She addressed Godfrey however, with a certain deference.“Doctor Renfrew has come back,” she announced. “He’s upstairs with Mr. Branston.”Godfrey turned to the Inspector. “Constables Stannard and Waghorn are on duty up in the room, sir,” he explained, “they had instructions from me to stay till I returned.”Bannister nodded in understanding. “Take me up,” he ordered, decisively. Godfrey obeyed.Bannister noticed that the operating room lay nearer to the left-hand side of the house—that is to say, the Coolwater Avenue side. As Godfrey had stated in his first account of the case—Branston’s appointments and furniture-equipment were without exception, of excellent quality. The stair-carpet was luxuriously thick and heavy and everything about the place denoted unmistakably that no expense had been spared in the matter of its furnishing and decoration. Doctor Renfrew came out of the large room—a spacious front room overlooking the Lower Seabourne Road—and glanced inquiringly at Godfrey’s companion.“This is Chief-Inspector Bannister of Scotland Yard!” Godfrey was quick to introduce them. “TheBannister,” he supplemented rather grandiloquently. The Doctor shook hands.“Proud to meet you, Inspector.”“Good evening, Doctor.”Doctor Renfrew, a tall, thin, nervous man, with watery eyes that blinked repeatedly behind gold-rimmed spectacles motioned to the door of the surgery.“Will you go in at once?” he asked. Bannister nodded curtly and the three men entered the room. Constables Stannard and Waghorn sprang to their feet and saluted.“Wait downstairs, you two men,” ordered Godfrey. He turned to the Doctor. “Where’s Mr. Branston?”“Downstairs—he had dinner very late, I believe. I told him he’d probably be wanted before very long.”Bannister in the meantime had walked across to the motionless shape that lay huddled in the dentist’s chair. He removed the silk handkerchief that covered the face. As far as he could judge from her appearance she was in her early twenties and in life must have been very beautiful—the face having an exquisite delicacy of line. She was dressed in what is usually termed a “three-piece suit”; of jumper, skirt and sleeveless coat. The coat and skirt were of a fine wool, in colour Cedar brown—the jumper being striped to tone. Her brown shoes were semi-brogue; like her stockings they were of the very best quality. She wore no jewellery and her fingers were ringless. Doctor Renfrew walked out of the room and returned a moment or two later carrying a hat and a pair of gloves.“She left these in the ladies’ waiting-room,” he explained. “Mr. Branston has a separate room for ladies in which to wait if they so desire—it opens out of the front room, which is used more as a general waiting-room.”Bannister nodded and looked at the hat. It was a pull-on waterproof felt with a pleated crown and turned-down brim. He glanced inside at the maker’s name. “Moore—Knightsbridge! A lady in very comfortable circumstances, I should say,” he declared. Godfrey nodded in agreement. “I think so too!” “Well, Doctor Renfrew,” continued the Inspector, “what have you got to tell me?”Doctor Renfrew wasted no time in telling him. “When I examined the deceased, it was apparent to me at once that death had been caused by narcotic poisoning—hydrocyanic acid to be precise. It was impossible to mistake the odour round the lips and mouth. She had had a big dose administered.”Bannister pursed his lips. “How was it administered—any idea? For instance—can’t it be suicide?”The doctor’s reply came quickly and readily. “In my opinion—judging from the position of the body—the poison was given from a small hand-syringe. After locking Branston in, the murderer entered the room through the door here—she heard him—turned in his direction and he used the syringe immediately. Her face would be right in front of him. Quite an easy matter—he had doubtless worked out all the details beforehand.”“Cold-blooded business,” muttered Godfrey. “The kind of man I should take a delight in hanging.”“Any purse or anything with her?” demanded Bannister.“Nothing,” answered the Sergeant. “Everything seems to have gone except the hat and this pair of gloves.”A knock sounded on the door and Doctor Renfrew crossed the room to open it. Ronald Branston stood outside. “May I come in?” he queried.Bannister beckoned to him. “I was just about to send down to you, Mr. Branston,” he commenced, “you must have read my thoughts to arrive so opportunely.”Branston bowed. “A dreadful affair this,” he declared, “dreadful from whatever point of view you look at it. Pretty rotten for me, you know—in the business sense. It sounds frightfully callous, I know, but self-preservation’s the first law of nature. This job isn’t going to do my business any good and every man has to think of himself.” He flushed under his dark skin.Bannister eyed him sternly. “I am Chief-Inspector Bannister,” he said, “of ‘Scotland Yard.’ Sergeant Godfrey has requested my assistance. Tell me exactly what happened.”Branston’s nostrils quivered slightly as he began to tell his story but he rapidly regained control over himself and his words came clearly and without a shade of tremor in his voice. “I can only repeat to you,” he stated, “what I have already told Sergeant Godfrey here. This unhappy lady entered the room in which we are now standing a few minutes before two o’clock this afternoon. I had just attended to a previous patient who was my first of the afternoon. She asked me to perform an extraction. I administered a simple local anæsthetic and extracted a left-hand bicuspid. The lady seemed quite comfortable after the extraction. I gave her the usual glass of water as a mouth-wash—there’s the very tumbler on that stand—just as she must have put it down before she was murdered—and then went along to my work-room. I had a special job on this afternoon as I’ve previously explained to the Sergeant and it’s my customary practice to let a patient alone for a moment or two after an extraction.”“One minute,” broke in Bannister. “Was the extraction a necessary one?”“Oh, undoubtedly—the tooth had been filled on a previous occasion and the filling had worn away. The patient had been in considerable pain, she informed me, and I could well understand it. She had probably caught cold in the bad tooth.”“Thank you,” observed the Inspector. “Please proceed.”“Well, here comes the extraordinary part of the story.” Here Branston’s nervousness began to show itself again. “The job took me a little longer than I had anticipated—when I turned to open the door of the room in which I was working, I found to my complete astonishment that I was shut in. Somebody had shot the brass bolt on the outside of the work-room door. I called out and banged on the door but there I had to stay until my housekeeper heard me yelling and released me. I rushed back to the operating room and discovered—this.”“How long were you away—as accurately, now, as you can possibly place it?”Branston knitted his brows in reflection. “I wouldn’t put it at more than seven minutes,” he answered, calculatingly.“Did you hear any step at all when you were in the work-room?”He shook his head decisively. “No! I didn’t! The carpet on the stairs and along the landing to the work-room is very thick, you know.”Bannister went to the door and looked out. “This back staircase leads to the patients’ entrance in Coolwater Avenue—I suppose?”“That’s so, Inspector.”The Inspector closed the door and came back. “The lady of course, was a chance patient—not an appointment case?”“A complete stranger.”“Were any other patients waiting, do you know?”“I had no definite appointment till half-past two. I couldn’t say if there were any other chance cases waiting in either of the waiting-rooms. Certainly I can remember nobody coming out when we discovered what had happened.”Bannister thought hard for a moment. “Did the expected client arrive at half-past two?”Branston smiled for the first time. “ ’Pon my soul,” he exclaimed, “I’ve never given him another thought. It was twenty minutes past two when I ’phoned up for the Police—I must have clean forgotten him. If he came—he probably cleared off in the ‘schemozzle.’ ”“What’s his name?” demanded Bannister.“He’s a Mr. Jacob Morley—a local gentleman—I rather fancy he styles himself a Turf accountant.” Branston permitted himself the suggestion of a smile.“Sound man?”Branston shrugged his shoulders. “I know nothing to the contrary.”“All right, then, Mr. Branston,” put in Bannister after a slight pause, “I don’t think I need detain you any longer. That is all I want to know for the moment.”Branston bowed and withdrew, Doctor Renfrew following him.Sergeant Godfrey caught his superior’s eye and understood the intended meaning. “I’ve told Stannard and Waghorn to watch points in that direction—that will be all right.”“Very good,” rejoined the Inspector, “let’s hear Mrs. Bertenshaw’s story.”The housekeeper corroborated Branston in every particular and was allowed to withdraw. Bannister looked at his watch. “It’s so confoundedly late, that it will be extremely difficult to get anything much done to-night. Tell me all you’ve done, so far, Godfrey.”“I’ve had the body photographed and I’ve sent round to all the hotels and boarding-establishments to try to trace by discreet inquiries any young lady visitor who’s been missing, say, since luncheon time to-day.”The Inspector showed his approval. “That’s all right as far as it goes. But she may be a new arrival to the town. She may have just come in. Stay—what about luggage?”“She might have left it somewhere,” responded Godfrey. “At the railway station or at an hotel. The latter, I should be inclined to suggest as the more likely, taking into consideration the class of girl she appears to be.”“Yes,” conceded Bannister. “I think perhaps you’re right. Now about this work-room Branston has been telling us of—have you taken a look in there—I suppose his story is authentic—eh? I can’t help feeling there’s something ‘fishy’ about it somewhere.”“I’ve seen the room—you can come along and see it yourself before we go—I’ll say this—I found nothing there that seemed in any way to contradict his story. I’ve also had the brass bolt on the door treated for finger-prints.”“Good man,” smiled Bannister. “You should certainly find Mrs. Bertenshaw’s there—I suppose you’ve taken hers and Branston’s?”“You bet I have, sir,” grinned the Sergeant. “I’ve got them tucked away all serene.”Bannister frowned and walked across to the stand where stood the tumbler of water. It was almost full. He smelt it. “The purest of pure water, Doctor Renfrew says. Seems like it,” said Bannister. “No odour, certainly.”The Sergeant who was watching him seemed suddenly struck by an idea. “By Jove, sir,” he exclaimed, “I ought to have treated that glass for ‘prints’ as well as the bolt—don’t you agree?”Bannister held the glass high up to the electric light and carefully examined it. “Perhaps you had,” he replied, “if it isn’t too late now to be effective.”Godfrey went through the insufflating process in his usual workman-like manner. With a small insufflator or powder-blower, he exhaled a cloud of light yellow powder which settled on the glass in an even coating. Then he blew at it sharply. Most of the yellow powder was blown off, but a number of smeary yellow impressions were left behind, standing out in strong saffron relief against the white glass.“Something to work on here,” he said. “I’ll have the job completed.” He slipped out but was quickly back. “I suggest we get Mrs. Pearson up here from the station,” he said after a short interval.“The female searcher?” queried the Inspector.“Yes—then we can have the body removed in the morning. If the poor girl’s still unidentified by then, perhaps the underclothes——”“Sergeant Godfrey!” Branston’s voice sounded outside. “You’re wanted on my telephone, downstairs.”“I’ll come with you,” said Bannister. “It may be news.”Godfrey took off the receiver, listened and replaced it. “It’s the ‘Lauderdale Hotel’—they think they can identify the lady. At my suggestion they’re sending the reception-clerk along to us immediately. He will be here any moment—the Manager’s coming along with him.”“Good,” said Bannister. “We are moving at last.” He offered his cigarette-case with a gesture of satisfaction to Sergeant Godfrey.And judging from the manner in which he selected a cigarette—Sergeant Godfrey thought so too!
“Certain of that?” queried Bannister. “How do you know she didn’t commit suicide?”
The Sergeant nodded vigorously in affirmation of the Inspector’s first question. “It’s murder for certain! All her personal belongings seem to have been taken and all around the poor girl’s mouth hung that unmistakable bitter almonds smell. You couldn’t mistake it. I was sure that’s what it was before Doctor Renfrew, the divisional surgeon, arrived. When he did he quickly confirmed my idea. He says she had a pretty considerable dose of the stuff, too. Enough to kill three people. The murderer, whoever he was, didn’t intend taking any risks. Besides Branston’s story rules out the idea of suicide.”
“H’m,” said Bannister fingering his chin reflectively, “it certainly seems an extraordinary case. At first appearances to all events. It all seems to have been done in so short a time. Still it may turn out quite a simple affair before you’ve done with it.”
A grim smile played round Godfrey’s lips. Albeit he strove hard to conceal his disappointment. “I was hoping you would say ‘beforewe’vedone with it,’ ” he ventured.
Bannister frowned. “You were—were you?” Then he turned to his companion with a mixture of impatience and ill-temper. “Can’t you leave me alone when I’m on a holiday? For a time at least, that is. As I said it may be quite an easy case to solve when you get all your data!”
Godfrey looked dismayed at the Inspector’s remark. “No chance of that, I’m afraid, sir,” he said. “The fact is I can’t see any light at all. I’m up against it from the very commencement. I don’t even knowwho the young lady is.”
“What?” interjected Bannister. “Surely she has something on her or with her that will help to identify her—it’s inconceivable to me that she hasn’t.”
Godfrey shook his head. “She may have—some of her clothes may have marks that will lead to her identity. I haven’t examined any of them yet. I considered my best plan was to leave her almost exactly as she was when Stannard sent for me to come to the Surgery. I thought if I did that, sir, better intelligences than mine might read something into the case that was not apparent to me. I was thinking of you, sir. All the same—not knowing who she is means losing valuable time.”
Bannister was temporarily proof against flattery. “Who told you I was here?” he demanded curtly.
“I’ve a cousin at ‘the Yard,’ sir,” explained the Sergeant, “he happened to mention the fact in a letter I had from him a few days ago.”
“Like his damned interference,” interjected Bannister, “why couldn’t he mind his own business and let me finish my holiday in peace?”
“I’m sorry, sir—but if I may make the suggestion—you’re suffering from what I should describe as the penalty of fame, sir.”
Bannister grinned cynically. “Oh—naturally—and all that.” Then he reluctantly resigned himself to his fate—the Sergeant’s last remark had been in the nature of a “coup de grâce.” He submitted himself to the inevitable. “How far away is the place, Godfrey?”
“I’ve a car outside the ‘Cassandra’,” Godfrey answered—relief manifested in every tone of his voice. “It will get us there in ten minutes easily.” The car proved equal to the task.
During the short journey, Bannister remained silent. Two attempts that Godfrey made to re-open discussion of the crime were waved aside unceremoniously. “Let me wait,” he declared. “Otherwise my brain will be full up with other people’s impressions and observations, which is a condition I always try to avoid, if at all possible.”
Ronald Branston’s Dental Surgery lay at the corner of Coolwater Avenue and the Lower Seabourne Road in the direction of Froam, a watering place some eight miles away. The entrance to the Surgery for the use of patients was situated in Coolwater Avenue, the outer door being open. The Inspector and Sergeant Godfrey made their way to the main entrance which was in the Lower Seabourne Road and rang the bell. A woman with a scared face answered their summons and admitted them, with a suggestion of reluctance in her manner. She addressed Godfrey however, with a certain deference.
“Doctor Renfrew has come back,” she announced. “He’s upstairs with Mr. Branston.”
Godfrey turned to the Inspector. “Constables Stannard and Waghorn are on duty up in the room, sir,” he explained, “they had instructions from me to stay till I returned.”
Bannister nodded in understanding. “Take me up,” he ordered, decisively. Godfrey obeyed.
Bannister noticed that the operating room lay nearer to the left-hand side of the house—that is to say, the Coolwater Avenue side. As Godfrey had stated in his first account of the case—Branston’s appointments and furniture-equipment were without exception, of excellent quality. The stair-carpet was luxuriously thick and heavy and everything about the place denoted unmistakably that no expense had been spared in the matter of its furnishing and decoration. Doctor Renfrew came out of the large room—a spacious front room overlooking the Lower Seabourne Road—and glanced inquiringly at Godfrey’s companion.
“This is Chief-Inspector Bannister of Scotland Yard!” Godfrey was quick to introduce them. “TheBannister,” he supplemented rather grandiloquently. The Doctor shook hands.
“Proud to meet you, Inspector.”
“Good evening, Doctor.”
Doctor Renfrew, a tall, thin, nervous man, with watery eyes that blinked repeatedly behind gold-rimmed spectacles motioned to the door of the surgery.
“Will you go in at once?” he asked. Bannister nodded curtly and the three men entered the room. Constables Stannard and Waghorn sprang to their feet and saluted.
“Wait downstairs, you two men,” ordered Godfrey. He turned to the Doctor. “Where’s Mr. Branston?”
“Downstairs—he had dinner very late, I believe. I told him he’d probably be wanted before very long.”
Bannister in the meantime had walked across to the motionless shape that lay huddled in the dentist’s chair. He removed the silk handkerchief that covered the face. As far as he could judge from her appearance she was in her early twenties and in life must have been very beautiful—the face having an exquisite delicacy of line. She was dressed in what is usually termed a “three-piece suit”; of jumper, skirt and sleeveless coat. The coat and skirt were of a fine wool, in colour Cedar brown—the jumper being striped to tone. Her brown shoes were semi-brogue; like her stockings they were of the very best quality. She wore no jewellery and her fingers were ringless. Doctor Renfrew walked out of the room and returned a moment or two later carrying a hat and a pair of gloves.
“She left these in the ladies’ waiting-room,” he explained. “Mr. Branston has a separate room for ladies in which to wait if they so desire—it opens out of the front room, which is used more as a general waiting-room.”
Bannister nodded and looked at the hat. It was a pull-on waterproof felt with a pleated crown and turned-down brim. He glanced inside at the maker’s name. “Moore—Knightsbridge! A lady in very comfortable circumstances, I should say,” he declared. Godfrey nodded in agreement. “I think so too!” “Well, Doctor Renfrew,” continued the Inspector, “what have you got to tell me?”
Doctor Renfrew wasted no time in telling him. “When I examined the deceased, it was apparent to me at once that death had been caused by narcotic poisoning—hydrocyanic acid to be precise. It was impossible to mistake the odour round the lips and mouth. She had had a big dose administered.”
Bannister pursed his lips. “How was it administered—any idea? For instance—can’t it be suicide?”
The doctor’s reply came quickly and readily. “In my opinion—judging from the position of the body—the poison was given from a small hand-syringe. After locking Branston in, the murderer entered the room through the door here—she heard him—turned in his direction and he used the syringe immediately. Her face would be right in front of him. Quite an easy matter—he had doubtless worked out all the details beforehand.”
“Cold-blooded business,” muttered Godfrey. “The kind of man I should take a delight in hanging.”
“Any purse or anything with her?” demanded Bannister.
“Nothing,” answered the Sergeant. “Everything seems to have gone except the hat and this pair of gloves.”
A knock sounded on the door and Doctor Renfrew crossed the room to open it. Ronald Branston stood outside. “May I come in?” he queried.
Bannister beckoned to him. “I was just about to send down to you, Mr. Branston,” he commenced, “you must have read my thoughts to arrive so opportunely.”
Branston bowed. “A dreadful affair this,” he declared, “dreadful from whatever point of view you look at it. Pretty rotten for me, you know—in the business sense. It sounds frightfully callous, I know, but self-preservation’s the first law of nature. This job isn’t going to do my business any good and every man has to think of himself.” He flushed under his dark skin.
Bannister eyed him sternly. “I am Chief-Inspector Bannister,” he said, “of ‘Scotland Yard.’ Sergeant Godfrey has requested my assistance. Tell me exactly what happened.”
Branston’s nostrils quivered slightly as he began to tell his story but he rapidly regained control over himself and his words came clearly and without a shade of tremor in his voice. “I can only repeat to you,” he stated, “what I have already told Sergeant Godfrey here. This unhappy lady entered the room in which we are now standing a few minutes before two o’clock this afternoon. I had just attended to a previous patient who was my first of the afternoon. She asked me to perform an extraction. I administered a simple local anæsthetic and extracted a left-hand bicuspid. The lady seemed quite comfortable after the extraction. I gave her the usual glass of water as a mouth-wash—there’s the very tumbler on that stand—just as she must have put it down before she was murdered—and then went along to my work-room. I had a special job on this afternoon as I’ve previously explained to the Sergeant and it’s my customary practice to let a patient alone for a moment or two after an extraction.”
“One minute,” broke in Bannister. “Was the extraction a necessary one?”
“Oh, undoubtedly—the tooth had been filled on a previous occasion and the filling had worn away. The patient had been in considerable pain, she informed me, and I could well understand it. She had probably caught cold in the bad tooth.”
“Thank you,” observed the Inspector. “Please proceed.”
“Well, here comes the extraordinary part of the story.” Here Branston’s nervousness began to show itself again. “The job took me a little longer than I had anticipated—when I turned to open the door of the room in which I was working, I found to my complete astonishment that I was shut in. Somebody had shot the brass bolt on the outside of the work-room door. I called out and banged on the door but there I had to stay until my housekeeper heard me yelling and released me. I rushed back to the operating room and discovered—this.”
“How long were you away—as accurately, now, as you can possibly place it?”
Branston knitted his brows in reflection. “I wouldn’t put it at more than seven minutes,” he answered, calculatingly.
“Did you hear any step at all when you were in the work-room?”
He shook his head decisively. “No! I didn’t! The carpet on the stairs and along the landing to the work-room is very thick, you know.”
Bannister went to the door and looked out. “This back staircase leads to the patients’ entrance in Coolwater Avenue—I suppose?”
“That’s so, Inspector.”
The Inspector closed the door and came back. “The lady of course, was a chance patient—not an appointment case?”
“A complete stranger.”
“Were any other patients waiting, do you know?”
“I had no definite appointment till half-past two. I couldn’t say if there were any other chance cases waiting in either of the waiting-rooms. Certainly I can remember nobody coming out when we discovered what had happened.”
Bannister thought hard for a moment. “Did the expected client arrive at half-past two?”
Branston smiled for the first time. “ ’Pon my soul,” he exclaimed, “I’ve never given him another thought. It was twenty minutes past two when I ’phoned up for the Police—I must have clean forgotten him. If he came—he probably cleared off in the ‘schemozzle.’ ”
“What’s his name?” demanded Bannister.
“He’s a Mr. Jacob Morley—a local gentleman—I rather fancy he styles himself a Turf accountant.” Branston permitted himself the suggestion of a smile.
“Sound man?”
Branston shrugged his shoulders. “I know nothing to the contrary.”
“All right, then, Mr. Branston,” put in Bannister after a slight pause, “I don’t think I need detain you any longer. That is all I want to know for the moment.”
Branston bowed and withdrew, Doctor Renfrew following him.
Sergeant Godfrey caught his superior’s eye and understood the intended meaning. “I’ve told Stannard and Waghorn to watch points in that direction—that will be all right.”
“Very good,” rejoined the Inspector, “let’s hear Mrs. Bertenshaw’s story.”
The housekeeper corroborated Branston in every particular and was allowed to withdraw. Bannister looked at his watch. “It’s so confoundedly late, that it will be extremely difficult to get anything much done to-night. Tell me all you’ve done, so far, Godfrey.”
“I’ve had the body photographed and I’ve sent round to all the hotels and boarding-establishments to try to trace by discreet inquiries any young lady visitor who’s been missing, say, since luncheon time to-day.”
The Inspector showed his approval. “That’s all right as far as it goes. But she may be a new arrival to the town. She may have just come in. Stay—what about luggage?”
“She might have left it somewhere,” responded Godfrey. “At the railway station or at an hotel. The latter, I should be inclined to suggest as the more likely, taking into consideration the class of girl she appears to be.”
“Yes,” conceded Bannister. “I think perhaps you’re right. Now about this work-room Branston has been telling us of—have you taken a look in there—I suppose his story is authentic—eh? I can’t help feeling there’s something ‘fishy’ about it somewhere.”
“I’ve seen the room—you can come along and see it yourself before we go—I’ll say this—I found nothing there that seemed in any way to contradict his story. I’ve also had the brass bolt on the door treated for finger-prints.”
“Good man,” smiled Bannister. “You should certainly find Mrs. Bertenshaw’s there—I suppose you’ve taken hers and Branston’s?”
“You bet I have, sir,” grinned the Sergeant. “I’ve got them tucked away all serene.”
Bannister frowned and walked across to the stand where stood the tumbler of water. It was almost full. He smelt it. “The purest of pure water, Doctor Renfrew says. Seems like it,” said Bannister. “No odour, certainly.”
The Sergeant who was watching him seemed suddenly struck by an idea. “By Jove, sir,” he exclaimed, “I ought to have treated that glass for ‘prints’ as well as the bolt—don’t you agree?”
Bannister held the glass high up to the electric light and carefully examined it. “Perhaps you had,” he replied, “if it isn’t too late now to be effective.”
Godfrey went through the insufflating process in his usual workman-like manner. With a small insufflator or powder-blower, he exhaled a cloud of light yellow powder which settled on the glass in an even coating. Then he blew at it sharply. Most of the yellow powder was blown off, but a number of smeary yellow impressions were left behind, standing out in strong saffron relief against the white glass.
“Something to work on here,” he said. “I’ll have the job completed.” He slipped out but was quickly back. “I suggest we get Mrs. Pearson up here from the station,” he said after a short interval.
“The female searcher?” queried the Inspector.
“Yes—then we can have the body removed in the morning. If the poor girl’s still unidentified by then, perhaps the underclothes——”
“Sergeant Godfrey!” Branston’s voice sounded outside. “You’re wanted on my telephone, downstairs.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Bannister. “It may be news.”
Godfrey took off the receiver, listened and replaced it. “It’s the ‘Lauderdale Hotel’—they think they can identify the lady. At my suggestion they’re sending the reception-clerk along to us immediately. He will be here any moment—the Manager’s coming along with him.”
“Good,” said Bannister. “We are moving at last.” He offered his cigarette-case with a gesture of satisfaction to Sergeant Godfrey.
And judging from the manner in which he selected a cigarette—Sergeant Godfrey thought so too!