“That? That’s The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where—”
He didn’t wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the thickest group of people he could find, with a determination greater than ever to turn those bottles over before he ate.
His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about the stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he scraped up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in making himself so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to the stables to take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him. Hanging round the stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up the bottles heaped in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to touch one or two in an absent way, and was meditating an accidental upset of the whole collection when a woman he had not seen before, thrust her head out of a rear window, shouting sharply:
“Leave those bottles alone. They’re waiting for the old clothes man. He pays us money for them.”
Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose, and was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But the woman’s words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a certain old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the city, a disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the sharp landlady in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the same man who had occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many hours on the route and had many new experiences with human nature. But he gained little else, and was considering with what words he should acknowledge his defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself again at the markets and a minute later in the alley where the cart stood, with the contents of which he had busied himself earlier in the day.
He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest in the cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same condition as when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when he drew nearer and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the waggon, he discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and that this bottle bore the label which marked it as being one of the two which had been taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.
XVII
“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had liv’d a blessed time; for from this instant,
There’s nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Macbeth.
The lamp in the coroner’s room shone dully on the perturbed faces of three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were now impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown by the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door leading into the main corridor.