“That's all, thank you, sir. Will you send me the booking-clerk—unless I'm taking up this room?”
The manager's one desire was that the Chief Inspector should stay in seclusion. Once let a suspicion get about in the hotel that the police were turned loose in it—he thought of them as he might have of the elements of fire or water—and gone would be the hum and stir as of a prosperous hive which rose from all around them.
The story told by the booking-clerk was equally simple.
“Eight days ago—on July twenty-fifth—about noon, a young man carrying a bag had come into the hotel and asked for a single room on the first floor facing the front. None of these were free for the moment. He had refused to take another, had deposited ten shillings, and asked them to keep him the first one that should be free, giving his name as Reginald Eames. He was back about six o'clock. Meanwhile one had fallen vacant—number fourteen. He took it without looking at it, and registered.”
“All your rooms are the same price, I believe?”
“Yes, all. Here's his entry.”
The Chief Inspector read, “Reginald Eames. Dentist. Manchester.” He compared the writing carefully with the letter found on the dead man.
“I shall want to have that signature photographed,” was his only comment. “Well?”
“Well, that's all. I saw him about a bit. He spent all his time in the lounge. This morning I met him at lunch in the restaurant. Seems funny that a man should bother with a meal a few hours before he intends to chuck the whole thing.”
The Chief Inspector was not interested in philosophic abstractions. “When did he lunch?”