“Only time can tell, but as I said last night, frankly I'm puzzled as to what Mr. Beale with his position—for as I said I haven't a doubt but that he's all he claims to be—and his dollars are doing in this business of a shabbily-dressed young man who puts up in a single room at the Enterprise. Miller found out to-day that Mr. Beale didn't make any inquiries for rooms at the smarter hotels, but only applied in Southampton Row.”
“Had he tried the Marvel?”
“No, he seems to've worked from the other end.”
“Look here, you don't suspect him of being the actual murderer, do you?” O'Connor asked guilelessly.
Pointer pursed his lips. “Not the kind of man to do that sort of thing himself, I should judge, yet the way the job was done”—he trailed off into silence.
“Supposing it was he, and not Sikes, who was at the hotel earlier in the day, why should he come back in the evening? D'ye suppose he thought of those finger-prints of his which he had left everywhere, and wanted to have a chance to make them openly, as it were?” Judging by the detective's face he thought but poorly of this suggestion.
“You say the smaller footmarks, those on the canvas and on the doorstep about fitted Beale's slippers, didn't you?” persisted the other.
“As far as size goes—yes. Mr. Beale could have—though it would seem a mad risk to take—still he could have gone back upstairs again, when he left us last night in No. 14, and got out on to the balcony through the landing-window. But to get out with an umbrella and a raincoat would have been a feat he didn't look up to, though you never can tell. When I saw him a little later in the manager's room he certainly hadn't been clambering about in the rain.”
“Well, his departure looks to me very fishy,” maintained O'Connor in a tone which suggested that Pointer had steadily upheld it as a proof of the absent man's innocence. “What made him bolt out of the window?”
“I think he saw Cox pass by and recognised him.”