The next day was the inquest—a purely formal affair, for the Coroner agreed with the police as to the wisdom of leaving out all possible details. He confined it, therefore, to the reading aloud of the letter left by the deceased dentist, R. Eames, and to the doctor's testimony as to the huge amount of morphia taken. The hotel employés were only called on to identify the body, and then proceedings were adjourned for a fortnight, ostensibly to allow of the family of the young man being found and communicated with. The Chief Inspector also managed, on the same ground, that of further identification, to get the burial postponed until Saturday.
It was a busy day for the police. The work started yesterday of looking up the names of all arrivals from the Colonies or the United States in order to trace a Cox or an Eames, or any names fitting those initials, had to be continued, and the seven 'phone calls which had come through to the Enterprise about five o'clock were each minutely investigated. Three came from within a stone's throw of the hotel; but as the machine in question was in a large general shop, all efforts to identify the occupiers of the booth at about the hour given were in vain. Yet one curious fact came to light.
The lift-boy of Knotts, the shop in question, was certain that he had seen the Enterprise manager leave the 'phone box at about that hour.
The manager, questioned casually on the point, maintained that it was the day before—on the second—when he had 'phoned to his hatter, but the boy persisted that it was on Saturday and not on Friday, as he himself had his afternoon off on Friday.
The manager's hatter, when Pointer rang him up, could remember no call at all from the manager during the latter half of the week.
Pointer put it to him that there must be some mistake; “and, frankly, we want to weed out the telephone calls as far as possible.”
“Sorry, but I suppose some shop assistant forgot to make a note of my message—or, stay, I do believe I didn't succeed in getting through.”
Inquiry proved that there had been another call occupying the hatter's wire at five, and a little before, but the Chief Inspector wondered whether this were merely a lucky chance or not.
A telegram came from Watts during the morning: “Found Sikes. Denies visit to London. No alibi. Arriving four o'clock.”