“I know there isn't. That's not the point. The point is who bought this bottle?”
“Let me see,” Mr. Redman rubbed his nose reflectively with his glasses. “We don't sell much of that at this season of the year. Yesterday's crop of colds hasn't had time to mature yet—now let me see, a woman bought a bottle on Friday, but it was the two shilling size.”
“I sold a bottle like that early in the week,” the assistant spoke with certainty, “to a tall young fellow, an American he struck me as being. Said he wanted it for a chum of his who had a bad cold. I remember now. It was”—he paused—“I know! It was Tuesday just as I was shutting up— Seven o'clock that would be, or say three minutes past.”
“Could you describe him?”
The assistant could; and except for the fact that the man limped badly, the description might have fitted thousands of young men. Incidentally, however, it fitted Mr. Cox of the Marvel Hotel to a nicety. “Tall, broad-shouldered, in a rather crumpled tweed suit, and felt hat, clean-shaven, dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a square jaw. I'll bet he served during the war.”
Neither the chemist nor his assistant had made up any morphia for over a month. A glance at their poison-book confirmed this.
So last Tuesday evening—on July 30th, to be exact—Mr. Cox had purchased the bottle of medicine for Mr. Eames—the same Mr. Eames who on that same Tuesday, but in the morning, had inspected a room which had later been taken by a letter which Pointer believed to have been written by Eames, though signed in the name of Cox—. The officer turned these tangled facts over in his mind as he smoked a pipe in the Enterprise lounge. Was Cox a friend or an enemy? If he was the criminal, why had he returned last night? Had he left some clue behind him which he must recover at all costs? Or had he been disturbed by some sound in the afternoon, and returned—unconscious that the dead man had already been discovered—to complete his work? In this case, what had he left undone?
At any rate, Watts would have a vague description to go on to-morrow in his hunt for a possible purchaser of morphia.
Pointer spent the rest of the afternoon apparently gossiping with all and sundry. Each conversation, however, resembled all others in that, though it might begin with the weather or cricket, it invariably finished up with the manager's whereabouts yesterday afternoon.
He had been seen about half-past three, and he had been seen just after five, but in the intervals it seemed impossible to locate him exactly. Pointer wished heartily that Eames' death had occurred at midnight. It would have made no difference to Eames but a great deal to the detectives.