“I saw them turn on to this landing, sir, but I couldn't see this window from where I was. I thought I heard their footsteps go on down.”
“The wind was rather rough. One or both might have come up quietly again and got out.”
“I don't think anyone could have opened that window without my hearing them. And I think I should have felt the draught, sir.”
“Humph!” was all Pointer said to himself, as he walked on out of the hotel and took a train to Streatham, where lived Doctor Burden, the great Government analyst, expert in poisons, and reasons for sudden deaths.
Pointer had barely pushed open the gate of the drive when the doctor met him, swinging along, golf sticks under his arm. Too late he tried to dodge behind a clump of laurels, the law was upon him.
“Just a moment, doctor. It's only for a second, sir,” begged the police officer, with a firm grip on the clubs. “It really won't take you more than one glance. All I want to know is whether a spot on a label is morphia solution or not. That's all.”
“I know you, Pointer.” The doctor tried to wrest his irons free; “you got me last time with that yarn, and tied me up in a thirty-six hour job before I knew where I was. Never again!”
“But this time it really is only one spot of what I think may be a solution of morphia that I'm after.”
He won, and the doctor, growling at his folly in having gone to Service instead of straight on to the links, led him into his study.
Pointer unpacked the bottle of cough-mixture which he had taken from the washstand in No. 14.