Anthony drew me to one side. “I don’t think we gain a lot by staying here, Bill,” he whispered. “We’ll get back to my original proposition—let’s have another look at Prescott’s bedroom.”
We entered the house and went upstairs. It will be remembered that the bedroom occupied by Prescott was the fourth along the corridor, and lay between the rooms that had sheltered Major Hornby and Tennant. It had been straightened and put in order.
Anthony went to the wardrobe and opened it. “Clothes all gone,” he remarked.
“Wouldn’t the Inspector have them?” I suggested.
“I don’t mean the clothes he was wearing—I wanted his other clothes.”
“Mrs. Prescott, I expect—that’s the explanation. She’s taken them.”
“Very probably, Bill! Never mind—can’t be helped. I daresay she’ll let me have a glance at them if I consider it necessary. Let’s have a look at the dressing-table drawers. Are they empty too?”
191
I tried the first—empty. The others were in similar condition—everything had been removed—either by Baddeley or for Mrs. Prescott.
“We’re late, old man,” I said. “There’s nothing here.”
Anthony came and looked. “Pity! Still—it’s my own fault—I ought to have anticipated this. Delays are dangerous.”
He crossed to the window, and looked out, leaving the bathroom door open behind him.
“Precious little chance of any exit or entrance this way,” he said. “A cat would find a foothold difficult.”
“Why?” I asked. “You didn’t really consider that as a possibility, did you?”
“I consider everything as a possibility, Bill—till I know it’s not. Hallo—that’s rather interesting.” He pointed to the wash-hand basin.
“What is it?” I said.
“The stub of a cigar! Not finished either. Funny place for a cigar.”
“Not altogether,” I ventured. “Suppose Prescott was smoking a cigar when he came to bed that night and came in here to wash his hands. It would be a very natural thing for him to put it there while he washed them.”
Anthony nodded approvingly. “Yes! And when he’d finished washing them?”
“Well?”
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“What then? Don’t you think he would pick it up again and finish his smoke rather than leave it lying there?”
“Possibly,” I responded.
“Rather strange it hasn’t been removed,” he reflected. “Haven’t any servants been here since the murder?”
“Perhaps they did the bedroom and didn’t trouble to come in here.”
He picked up the portion of cigar. As he had remarked it had certainly not been smoked to the point of necessary relinquishment.
“Remember what Mary Considine told us, Bill? Not long ago?”
“How do you mean?” I said.
“On the third occasion that she fancied Prescott was being watched or followed she went into the garden where she imagined the watcher to be, and detected the smell of cigar smoke. Nothing like conclusive, I know—but certainly pointing in the same direction.”
“What brand is it?” I asked.
Anthony demurred. “I am well aware that the immortal Holmes had published a brochure on the various kinds of tobacco ash—I really forget the number he mentioned—but alas! I am unable to keep pace with him there. It looks an ordinary type—I can tell you one thing—it isn’t one of Sir Charles Considine’s assortment—I’ve had too many not to know that. Still I’ll hang onto it.” He put it carefully away in his pocket.
193
“You’ll find that’s Prescott’s all right,” I exclaimed. “How can you imagine it could belong to anybody else? How could anybody else get in here—for a start? In the bathroom of Prescott’s bedroom!”
“There’s a door, Bill,” rejoined Anthony drily. “Quite a natural method of entering a room. You may be quite right, and it may have been Prescott’s—all the same I’m going to have a look round in here—there may be more in Mary’s story than either of us anticipated.” Out came the magnifying-glass again and he got to work with it on the floor of the bathroom.
I strolled back into the bedroom, and couldn’t altogether resist a smile as I heard him talking to himself from the farther apartment.
“These criminologists take things extraordinarily seriously,” I thought to myself. “Good job if they don’t run across too many cases in a lifetime.”
I looked round the bedroom. Why shouldn’t I try my hand at the sleuth game? Perhaps I could find something! To the best part of my memory Prescott’s bedroom had not received too meticulous an examination. After all he had slept and dressed in here for nearly a week, and a bedroom might very easily contain something of his secret, assuming that he possessed one. It was an intimate room—it touched a man—closely. If he had anything to conceal, it might well be that it was hidden in here, somewhere. I wandered round, my eyes searching for likely hiding-places. Inspiration came from nowhere. My eyes caught the bed. Had anybody looked underneath? At any rate I decided that I would! I went down full length and wriggled my body underneath. And I had not been under there many seconds when I formed the opinion that while the floor had nothing to tell me, the wainscoting directly below the head of the bed had three tiny pieces of paper on it! They had fluttered down as very small fragments of paper will, and come to rest on the skirting-board, before reaching the floor itself. Very probably of no consequence whatever, but I’d have old Anthony in, come what may!
194
I went to the connecting door. “Come in here a minute, will you?”
To all appearances he was engaged in a close scrutiny of the bath-mat. “What’s up?” he queried.
I was as near excitement as I had been since this bewildering affair had started.
I beckoned him. “Come in here!” I said. He came with alacrity. I lay at full length as I had done just previously. “Flop down here.” He joined me. I pointed to the skirting-board. “See anything there?”
“Only too true,” he muttered. “Wonder what it can be! Wriggle up and get it, Bill, the honors are yours, it’s your discovery.”
I wasted no time to do his bidding.
There were three tiny pieces of paper, just as I had thought. I took them carefully from the little ledge on which they were resting, and crawled out triumphantly from under the bed.
195
“Good man!” he grinned. “What are they—exactly—now you’ve fished ’em out? Pieces of a last week’s hotel-bill or an announcement of the local flower-show?”
I shook my head. “Remains of a letter,” I grunted—“there’s handwriting here.”
I handed the fragments to him. He took them eagerly. They were obviously small parts of a letter that had been carelessly torn up by somebody in the room, and in the throwing-away process had by some freak of wind or whimsicality, fluttered to the skirting-board. So I reasoned. Anthony spread them out.
I reproduce the three pieces here as nearly as I can remember them after so long an interval.
I will meet you in the B so
when you Mary.
at 1.
I gasped! “Good Lord!” I exclaimed. Anthony raised his eyebrows.
“What’s this?” he interrogated. “An assignation? Mary?”
“It’s Mary Considine,” I answered. “It’s her handwriting—I’ve seen it too frequently not to know it. Has she written that to Prescott?”
“No evidence as to whom it’s addressed, Bill. We can only conjecture as to that. Also we can only surmise what the capital ‘B’ stands for.”
196
“What do you think yourself?” I whispered almost fearfully.
“Billiard room, possibly! On the other hand——”
“If it was her way of answering his proposal—why wasn’t she frank with us about it? Did she meet him or merely intend to?”
“Look at the handwriting again, Bill! Look at it closely.”
I did as he told me. “You’re absolutely certain it’s Mary Considine’s writing?” he urged with intensity in his tone. “You haven’t the shred of a doubt?”
“Not a shred,” I replied. “Not the vestige of a doubt.”
“Very well! I’ll see her! I’m pretty accurate at summing people up psychologically, and I’m fully prepared for an adequate explanation.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that,” I said. “Somehow it goes against the grain to have Mary implicated in this business, even though remotely.”
“How came you to look under there, Bill?” he asked suddenly.
“I think I was fired by your example,” I replied after a slight pause. “Yes, it was,” I went on. “Seeing you poking about in the bathroom star............