“Suppose he and the manager are in it together? It was the manager who put Beale into No. 14. Perhaps Beale knew it was empty and the inquiries at the other hotels were only a blind.”
The Irishman revelled in these talks early in a case, when there were not sufficient facts to hamper his idle fancy in its flights.
“Ah, as for the manager—” Pointer walked up and down the room. “That bit of acting about that green and white striped paper was badly enough done.”
“So badly that it was creditable to him, eh?”
“. . . And as for not discussing Eames' death with Mr. Beale—well, was it likely! When our expert tells me how much of that ash is Mr. Beale's cigars and how much the manager's cigarettes—he doesn't smoke cigars—I shall know better how much time those two spent hobnobbing together. At any rate something has changed the manager overnight. Then he acted like—well, if not an innocent man, then at least like a man who feels himself safe.”
“Perhaps this bolt of Beale's has made the manager, too, think him guilty.”
“He should tell us his reasons, then,” the police-officer spoke very firmly. “Whatever it is, to-day he's all nerves, afraid to commit himself as to the day of the week.”
“I wonder if he left some clue lying around in that room No. 14 and has recollected it during the night?”
“He needn't worry if it's that,” Pointer spoke bitterly, “unless it's tagged: ‘This is a Clue; don't miss ME!’ I shouldn't see it. Too much fog about.”
“Oh, come now,” persisted his friend, “you've done jolly well so far—going at once to the Marvel and ferreting out about Cox. I don't know that I should have thought of that myself,” he added handsomely.