II

It was just after two o’clock that I walked into the station and asked forDick. I found him at his desk leafing over a pile of stuff. He looked up andasked me what I had thought of the inquest.

I told him I thought it had been a very nicely managed and gentlemanlyperformance.

“We do this sort of thing so well in this country.”

“What did you think of the medical evidence?”

“Rather a facer. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“You were away. Did you consult your specialist?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I believe I remember him vaguely. A lot of moustache.”

“Oceans of it,” I agreed. “He’s very proud of that moustache.”

“He must be quite old.”

“Old but not gaga,” I said.

“Why did you really go to see him? Was it purely the milk of humankindness?”

“You have such a suspicious policeman’s mind, Dick! It was mainly that.

But I admit to curiosity, too. I wanted to hear what he had to say about ourown particular setup. You see, he’s always talked what I call a lot of cockabout its being easy to solve a case by just sitting in your chair, bringingthe tips of your fingers symmetrically together, closing your eyes andthinking. I wanted to call his bluff.”

“Did he go through that procedure for you?”

“He did.”

“And what did he say?” Dick asked with some curiosity.

“He said,” I told him, “that it must be a very simple murder.”

“Simple, my God!” said Hardcastle, roused. “Why simple?”

“As far as I could gather,” I said, “because the whole setup was so com-plex.”

Hardcastle shook his head. “I don’t see it,” he said. “It sounds like one ofthose clever things that young people in Chelsea say, but I don’t see it.

Anything else?”

“Well, he told me to talk to the neighbours. I assured him we had doneso.”

“The neighbours are even more important now in view of the medicalevidence.”

“The presumption being that he was doped somewhere else and broughtto Number 19 to be killed?”

Something familiar about the words struck me.

“That’s more or less what Mrs. What’s-her-name, the cat woman, said. Itstruck me at the time as a rather interesting remark.”

“Those cats,” said Dick, and shuddered. He went on: “We’ve found theweapon, by the way. Yesterday.”

“You have? Where?”

“In the cattery. Presumably thrown there by the murderer after thecrime.”

“No fingerprints, I suppose?”

“Carefully wiped. And it could be anybody’s knife—slightly used—re-cently sharpened.”

“So it goes like this. He was doped—then brought to Number 19—in acar? Or how?”

“He could have been brought from one of the houses with an adjoininggarden.”

“Bit risky, wouldn’t it have been?”

“It would need audacity,” Hardcastle agreed, “and it would need a verygood knowledge of the neighbourhood’s habits. It’s more likely that hewould have been brought in a car.”

“That would have been risky too. People notice a car.”

“Nobody did. But I agree that the murderer couldn’t know that theywouldn’t. Passersby would have noted a car stopping at Number 19 thatday—”

“I wonder if they would notice,” I said. “Everyone’s so used to cars. Un-less, of course, it had been a very lush car—something unusual, but that’snot likely—”

“And of course it was the lunch hour. You realize, Colin, that this bringsMiss Millicent Pebmarsh back into the picture? It seems farfetched tothink of an able-bodied man being stabbed by a blind woman—but if hewas doped—”

“In other words ‘if he came there to be killed,’ as our Mrs. Hemming putit, he arrived by appointment quite unsuspiciously, was offered a sherryor a cocktail—the Mickey Finn took effect and Miss Pebmarsh got to work.

Then she washed up the Mickey Finn glass, arranged the body neatly onthe floor, threw the knife into her neighbour’s garden, and tripped out asusual.”

“Telephoning to the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau on the way—”

“And why should she do that? And ask particularly for Sheila Webb?”

“I wish we knew.” Hardcastle looked at me. “Does she know? The girlherself?”

“She says not.”

“She says not,” Hardcastle repeated tonelessly. “I’m asking you what youthink about it?”

I didn’t speak for a moment or two. What did I think? I had to decideright now on my course of action. The truth would come out in the end. Itwould do Sheila no harm if she were what I believed her to be.

With a brusque movement I pulled a postcard out of my pocket andshoved it across the table.

“Sheila got this through the post.”

Hardcastle scanned it. It was one of a series of postcards of Londonbuildings. It represented the Central Criminal Court. Hardcastle turned itover. On the right was the address—in neat printing. Miss R. S. Webb, 14,Palmerston Road, Crowdean, Sussex. On the left-hand side, also printed,was the word REMEMBER! and below it 4:13.

“4:13,” said Hardcastle. “That was the time the clocks showed that day.”

He shook his head. “A picture of the Old Bailey, the word ‘Remember’ anda time—4:13. It must tie up with something.”

“She says she doesn’t know what it means.” I added: “I believe her.”

Hardcastle nodded.

“I’m keeping this. We may get something from it.”

“I hope you do.”

There was embarrassment between us. To relieve it, I said:

“You’ve got a lot of bumf there.”

“All the usual. And most of it no damned good. The dead man hadn’t gota criminal record, his fingerprints aren’t on file. Practically all this stuff isfrom people who claim to have recognized him.” He read:

“‘Dear Sir, the picture that was in the paper I’m almost sure is the sameas a man who was catching a train at Willesden Junction the other day.

He was muttering to himself and looking very wild and excited, I thoughtwhen I saw him there must be something wrong.’

“‘Dear Sir, I think this man looks very like my husband’s cousin John.

He went abroad to South Africa but it may be that he’s come back. He hada moustache when he went away but of course he could have shaved thatoff.’

“‘Dear Sir, I saw the man in the paper in a tube train last night. Ithought at the time there was something peculiar about him.’

“And of course there are all the women who recognize husbands. Wo-men don’t really seem to know what their husbands look like! There arehopeful mothers who recognize sons they have not seen for twenty years.

“And here’s the list of missing persons. Nothing here likely to help us.

‘George Barlow, 65, missing from home. His wife thinks he must have losthis memory.’ And a note below: ‘Owes a lot of money. Has been seen goingabout with a red-haired widow. Almost certain to have done a bunk.’

“Next one: ‘Professor Hargraves, expected to deliver a lecture last Tues-day. Did not turn up and sent no wire or note of excuse.’”

Hardcastle did not appear to consider Professor Hargraves seriously.

“Thought the lecture was the week before or the week after,” he said.

“Probably thought he had told his housekeeper where he was going buthasn’t done so. We get a lot of that.”

The buzzer on Hardcastle’s table sounded. He picked up the receiver.

“Yes? … What? … Who found her? Did she give her name? … I see. Carryon.” He put down the receiver again. His face as he turned to me was achanged face. It was stern, almost vindictive.

“They’ve found a girl dead in a telephone box on Wilbraham Crescent,”

he said.

“Dead?” I stared at him. “How?”

“Strangled. With her own scarf!”

I felt suddenly cold.

“What girl? It’s not—”

Hardcastle looked at me with a cold, appraising glance that I didn’t like.

“It’s not your girlfriend,” he said, “if that’s what you’re afraid of. Theconstable there seems to know who she is. He says she’s a girl who worksin the same office as Sheila Webb. Edna Brent her name is.”

“Who found her? The constable?”

“She was found by Miss Waterhouse, the woman from Number 18. Itseems she went to the box to make a telephone call as her phone was outof order and found the girl there huddled down in a heap.”

The door opened and a police constable said:

“Doctor Rigg telephoned that he’s on his way, sir. He’ll meet you at Wil-braham Crescent.”