“Just so. I turned the key very slowly, and each drawer had been last opened with a pass-key, or rather locked with one. And that smell of tobacco when we opened them—same smell as Mr. Beale's cigars. And that dusting of cigar ash on one of the ties. I shouldn't wonder if this is going to turn into a very funny case, Watts. I shouldn't wonder at all.”
Watts' eyes brightened. A “funny case” from the point of view of the police often leads to promotion, and though Pointer was the youngest Chief Inspector at the Yard, Watts believed he could unravel any tangle. Pointer lived in Bayswater. He liked its open squares and clearer air. He shared three rooms there with a friend, James O'Connor, now a bookbinder, but during the War a very successful member of the Secret Service. Talkative, gossipy, and secretive was the Celt. Only a few had any idea of the hard core of blue steel that lay beneath his apparent easy-going cheeriness. Pointer was one of these few. He and O'Connor had worked once together, the one openly representing the law, the other secretly endangering his life every moment of the day while tracking down a German-American-Irish plot. O'Connor never referred to those days, though, had his means permitted, he would have liked to continue his hazardous work; but with peace he had to turn his attention to making a livelihood, and being single-minded in all his doings, he refused absolutely to be drawn into any of his friend's problems except as the merest onlooker.
It always gave the Chief Inspector genuine pleasure to step from the little lobby into the huge living-room which the two men used in common. He saw richer rooms often, but never one which suited him so well, with its ivory walls and paint, kept up to the mark by his own neat brush, the thick, short, draw-curtains of apple-green silk to the four windows, the chair covers of a Persian pattern—green leaves rioting over a cream ground, with here and there a pomegranate or a blue bird—book cases in quiet walnut stood against the walls, Pointer's large writing desk, and O'Connor's equally huge table, filled the corners by the windows. In one open fireplace logs were heaped, the other was kept free for burning papers. The soft brightness of his home was like a friendly hand clasp to the weary police officer after the rain outside.
O'Connor smiled up at him and pointed to the table.
“Mrs. Able is thirsting for your blood. I told her to leave the things the last time she brought them in. I couldn't face her again.” He turned out an electric hot-plate as he spoke.
A vegetable soup, a dish of Tatar bitokes—savoury balls of beefsteak and marrow and seasonings pounded to perfection and browned to a turn, a well-made potato salad, some crisp rolls, and a glass of light wine made Pointer ready for another stretch of work if need be.
When the meal was cleared away by his landlady, who ruled the two men with her cooking, he filled his pipe from a beautiful covered jar of modern Japanese enamel where gold fish glittered among green waves. Jim's tobacco lived in a dull blue pot at the other end, and in the middle stood the room's one useless ornament, a carved Chinese ball-puzzle, fine as a birch leaf and showing ball within ball in tantalising glimpses of colour. It typified his calling to the policeman. He picked it up again and turned it gently to and fro.
“Yes,” he said ruminatingly, “get hold of your key and you'll open up all right. But how to get hold of your key——”
“I thought the Meredith case was practically over,” murmured O'Connor through clouds of smoke.
“Finished at eight. I've another case on now, and rather a stiff one, or all signs belie it. It's a hotel case, and you know how I feel about them.”