from the bowels of the building with reports “No, sir, there wasn’t a sign of him,” Grant himself joined in the exploration and eventually ran the man to earth in a dim passage behind the stage. When Grant had explained who he was and what he wanted, the man became voluble in his pride and eagerness. He was used to being within hailing distance of the aristocracy of the stage, but it was not every day that he had the chance of conversing on friendly terms with that much more august being an inspector from the C.I.D. He beamed, he continually altered the angle of his cap, he fingered his medal ribbons, he dried his palms on the seat of his trousers, and he quite obviously would have said that he had seen a monkey in the queue if it would have pleased the inspector. Grant groaned inwardly, but the part of himself that always stood aloof whatever he did—the looker-on part of him which he had in such abundance—thought appreciatively what a character the old boy was. With that providing for a hypothetical future which is second nature in a professional detective, he was taking a friendly farewell of so much devoted uselessness, when a charming voice said, “Why, it’s Inspector Grant!” and he turned to see Ray Marcable in her outdoor things, and evidently on the way to her dressing-room.
“Are you looking for a job? I’m afraid you can’t have even a walking-on part at this late hour.” Her still small smile teased him and her grey eyes looked at him friendlily from under the slight droop of her lids. They had met a year previously over the theft of a fabulously expensive dressing-case which had been one of her richest admirers’ gifts to her, and though they had not met again since she had evidently not forgotten him. In spite of himself he was flattered—even while the looker-on bit of him was aware of it and laughed. He explained his business in the theatre, and the smile faded from her face instantly.
“Ah, that poor man!” she said. “But here is another,” she added immediately, laying a hand on his arm. “Have you been asking questions all the afternoon? Your throat must be very dry. Come and have a cup of tea in my room with me. My maid is there and she will make us some. We are packing up, you know. It is very sad after such a long time.”
She led the way to her dressing-room, a place that was walled half with mirrors and half with wardrobes, and that looked more like a florist’s shop than any apartment designed for human habitation. She indicated the flowers with a wave of her hand.
“My flat won’t hold any more, so these have to stay here. The hospitals were very polite, but they said quite firmly that they had had as much as they could do with. And I can’t very well say, ‘No flowers,’ as they do at funerals, without hurting people.”
“It’s the only thing most people can do,” Grant said.
“Oh, yes, I know,” she said. “I’m not ungrateful. Only overwhelmed.”
When tea was ready she poured out for him, and the maid produced shortbread from a tin. As he was stirring his tea and she was pouring out her own his mind brought him up with a sudden jerk, as an inexperienced rider jabs at his horse’s mouth when startled. She was left-handed!
“Great heavens!” he said to himself disgustedly. “It isn’t that you deserve a holiday, it’s that you need it. What did you want to italicize a statement like that for? How many left-handed people do you think there are in London? You’re developing the queerest kind of nerves.”
To break a silence and because it was the first thing that came into his head, he said, “You’re left-handed.”
“Yes,” she said indifferently, as the subject deserved, and went on to ask him about his investigations. He told her as much as would appear in the morrow’s press and described the knife, as being the most interesting feature of the case.
“The handle is a little silver saint with blue-and-red enamel decoration.”
Something leaped suddenly in Ray Marcable’s calm eyes.
“What?” she said involuntarily.
He was about to say, “You’ve seen one like it?” but changed his mind. He knew on the instant that she would say no, and that he would have given away the fact that he was aware that there was anything to be aware of. He repeated the description and she said:
“A saint! How quaint! And how inappropriate!—And yet, in a big undertaking like a crime, I suppose you’d want some one’s blessing on it.”
Cool and sweet she put out her left hand for his cup, and as she replenished it he watched her steady wrist and impassive manner and wondered if this too could be unreasonableness on his part.
“Certainly not,” said his other self. “You may be suffering from attacks of flair in queer places, but you haven’t got to the stage of imagining things yet.”
They discussed America, which Grant knew well and to which she was about to make her first visit, and when he took his leave he was honestly grateful to her for the tea. He had forgotten all about tea. Now it wouldn’t matter how late he had dinner. But as he went out he sought a light for his cigarette from the doorkeeper, and in the course of another ebullition of chatter and good will learned that Miss Marcable had been in her dressing-room from six o’clock the previous evening until the call-boy went for her before her first cue. Lord Lacing was there, he said, with an eloquent lift of his eyebrow.
Grant smiled and nodded and went away, but as he was making his way back to the Yard, he was not smiling. What was it that had leapt in Ray Marcable’s eyes? Not fear. No. Recognition? Yes, that was it. Most certainly recognition.
Chapter 3.
DANNY MILLER
Grant opened his eyes and regarded the ceiling of his bedroom speculatively. For the last few minutes he had been technically awake, but his brain, wrapped in the woolliness of sleep and conscious of the ungrateful chilliness of the morning, had denied him thought. But though the reasoning part of him had not wakened, he had become more and more conscious of mental discomfort. Something unpleasant waited him. Something exceedingly unpleasant. The growing conviction had dispelled his drowsiness, and his eyes opened on the ceiling laced across with the early sunlight and the shadows of a plane tree; and on recognition of the unpleasantness. It was the morning of the third day of his investigations, the day of the inquest, and he had nothing to put before the coroner. Had not even a scent to follow.
His thoughts went back over yesterday. In the morning, the dead man being still unidentified, he had given Williams the man’s tie, that being the newest and most individual thing about him, and had sent him out to scour London. The tie, like the rest of the man’s clothes, had been obtained from a branch of a multiple business, and it was a small hope that any shop assistant would remember the individual to whom he sold the tie. Even if he did, there was no guarantee that the man remembered was their man. Faith Brothers must have sold several dozens of ties of the same pattern in London alone. But there was always that last odd chance, and Grant had seen too much of the queer unexpectedness of chance to neglect any avenue of exploration. As Williams was leaving the room an idea had occurred to him. There was that first idea of his that the man had been a salesman in some clothing business. Perhaps he did not buy his things over the counter. He might have been in the employ of Faith Brothers. “Find out,” he had said to Williams, “if any one answering the dead man’s description has been employed by any one of the branches lately. If you see or hear anything interesting at all—whether you think it is important or not—let me know.”
Left alone, he had examined the morning’s press. He had not bothered
