Looking in, Pointer saw Watts talking to Miller, who had been left on duty in the room all night. Yet even so, those tracks on the balcony could not have been made many hours before the rain stopped. Someone had walked from one window to the other after he and Watts had left the place.
He tapped on the pane, and Watts joined him outside. He had already seen the marks.
“And look there, sir,” he pointed to a sodden heap of canvas, apparently an awning, which, judging by its appearance, must have lain for months between the windows of number fourteen and number twelve of the Enterprise. There were a couple of deep indentations on it, one beside the other. Pointer took out the sheet of tracings he had made yesterday at the door leading out into the street from the service-stairs. He and Watts tried them carefully. They could have been made by the same feet.
“Smallish feet. They just fit Miller, sir, as I was pointing out to him when you tapped,” observed Watts facetiously, and the two Scotland Yard men stepped into the room where Miller was waiting to make his report. He had been dozing in the easy chair when he had heard a couple of light taps on the pane. Very carefully he had pushed the blind aside and looked out. Instantly a torch was flashed in his eyes, blinding him. When he got the window open, no one was to be seen.
“Of course, I couldn't hear anything, sir. You know what the wind was like, though the rain had pretty fair stopped by them. It was exactly twenty minutes past three o'clock.”
“Did you get any idea of who held the torch?”
“Only that he was a big chap, sir. Big as you.”
“Did you see anyone on the opposite side of the window?”
“No, sir.”
“Could you have seen anyone there?”