there’s just the barest possibility that we’ve got the wrong one.”
For a little there was silence. “Grant,” said Barker at last, “I never knew you lose your nerve before. You need a holiday. I don’t think scooting across moors can be good for you. Perhaps the jogging movement is addling to the brain. You certainly have lost your critical faculty.”
Grant could find nothing to say except “Well, here’s the statement he gave us last night,” and he handed it over. While Barker was reading it, he crossed to the window, gazed at the patch of green and the river in the sun, and wondered if he were making a complete fool of himself to be worrying when he had a good case. Well, fool or no fool, he would go along to Waterloo as soon as his chief had finished with him, and see what he could pick up there.
When Barker dropped the statement with a little flop on to the table, Grant turned eagerly to see what effect it had had on him. “Well,” said that worthy, “it leaves me with a strong desire to meet Mr. Lamont.”
“Why?” asked Grant.
“Because I’d like to see in person the man who tried sob-stuff on Inspector Grant and got away with it. The unimpressionable Grant!”
“That’s how it strikes you, is it?” Grant said gloomily. “You don’t believe a word of it?”
“Not a word,” said Barker cheerfully. “It’s about the thinnest story I’ve known put up for some time. But then I should think the man was hard put to it to find any way out of the evidence at all. He did his damnedest—I will say that for him.”
“Well, look at it from the other way, and can you think of a reasonable explanation for Lamont’s killing Sorrell?”
“Tut, tut, Grant, you’ve been at the Yard for I don’t know how many years, and you’re looking at this late stage for reasonable murders. You need a holiday, man. Lamont probably killed Sorrell because the way he ate had got on his nerves. Besides, it isn’t any of our business to fit psychology to people or to provide motives or anything of that sort. So don’t worry your head. Fit them with good watertight evidence and provide them with a cell, and that’s all we have to bother about.”
There was a short silence, and Grant gathered up his papers preparatory to taking his leave and getting along to Waterloo.
“Look here,” said Barker out of the silence, “all joshing apart—do you believe the man didn’t do it?”
“I don’t see how he could not have,” Grant said. “There’s the evidence. I can’t say why I’m uneasy about the thing, but that doesn’t alter the fact that I am.”
“Is this an example of the famous flair?” said Barker, with a return to his former manner.
But Grant would not be other than serious this morning. “No; I think it’s just that I have seen Lamont and talked to him when he was telling his story, and you haven’t.”
“That’s what I said to begin with,” Barker reminded him. “Lamont has tried a sob-story on you and put it over. . . . Put it out of your head, Grant, until you get even a tittle of evidence to substantiate it. Flair is all very well, and I don’t deny that you have been uncanny once or twice, but it has always been more or less in accordance with the evidence before, and in this case it most emphatically isn’t.”
“That’s the very thing that makes me worry most. Why should I not be pleased with the case as it stands? What is it that makes me not pleased? There is something, but I’m blowed if I can see what it is. I keep feeling that something is wrong somewhere. I want something that will either tighten up the evidence against Lamont or loosen it.”
“Well, well,” said Barker good-humouredly, “go ahead. You’ve done so well so far that you can afford to play yourself for a few days more. The evidence is good enough for the police court—or any other kind of court, for that of it.”
So Grant betook himself through the sunny, busy morning to Waterloo, trailing a little cloud of discontent behind him as he went. As he stepped from the warm pavement into the cool vault of the best but saddest of all London stations—the very name of it reeks of endings and partings—gloom sat on his face like a portent. Having obtained the necessary authority to open any luggage that Sorrell might have left, he repaired to the left-luggage room, where a highly interested official said, “Yes, sir, I know them. Left about a fortnight ago, they were,” and led him to the luggage in question. It consisted of two well-worn trunks, and it occurred to Grant that neither was labelled with the Rotterdam-Manhattan company’s labels as they should have been if Sorrell had intended going aboard at Southampton. Nor were they addressed at all. On ordinary labels on each was written in Sorrell’s writing, “A. Sorrell,” but nothing else. With his own keys and a slight quickening of heart he opened them. Below the top garment in the first were Sorrell’s passport and tickets for the voyage. Why had he left them there? Why not have taken them with him in a pocketbook? But alongside them were the labels supplied by the company for the labelling of passengers’ luggage. Perhaps for some reason Sorrell had meant to open the trunk again before going down on the boat-train, and had postponed labelling it till then. And had left his tickets and passport there as being safer than a pocketbook in a queue.
Grant continued his examination. There was no further indication that Sorrell had not intended to go abroad as he said. The clothes were packed with a care and neatness that surely argued a further use for them. There was method, too, in the manner of their disposition. The articles which would presumably be needed first were there to hand, and the less necessary ones farther down. It was difficult, looking at the packing, to believe that Sorrell had not intended to take out the articles himself at some future time. And there was no information, no letters, no photographs. That last struck Grant as the only remarkable thing about the luggage—that a man who was going abroad should have no souvenirs of any sort with him. And then he came on them, packed at the bottom between two shoes—a little bundle of snapshots. Hastily he untied the piece of string that held them together, and looked them through. At least half of them were photographs of Gerald Lamont, either alone or with Sorrell, and the rest were old army groups. The only women in the collection were Mrs. Everett and some VAD’s who seemed to be incidental to the army groups. Grant almost groaned aloud in his disappointment—he had untied that string with such mighty if vague hopes—but when he had tied up the bundle again he put it in his pocket. VAD’s might be incidental in a group, but individually they were women and, as such, not to be despised.
And that was all! That was all he was going to get from the luggage he had been banking so heavily on. Troubled and disappointed, he began to put the things back as he had found them. As he lifted a coat to fold it, something fell from a pocket and rolled along the floor of the left-luggage room. It was a small blue velvet case such as jewellers use for their wares. No terrier is quicker on a rat than Grant was on that small slowly revolving box, and no girl’s heart beat at the opening of a velvet case as Grant’s heart beat at the opening of that one. A press with his thumb and the lid flew up. On the deep blue lining lay a brooch such as women wear in their hats. It was made from small pearls in the form of a monogram, and was very simple and rather beautiful. “M. R.,” said Grant aloud. Margaret Ratcliffe.
His brain had said it before his thoughts had time to gather round it. He stared at the trinket for a little, took it up from its velvet bed, turned it in his hand, and put it back again. Was this his clue, after all? And did these common-enough initials point to the woman who kept stumbling into this case so persistently? It was she that had stood behind Sorrell when he was killed; it was she that had booked a berth on the same day on the same ship to the same destination as Sorrell; and now the only thing of value found among his belongings was a brooch with her initials.
