“We haven't been able to identify her at present.” The inspector opened the top drawer at his right hand, and took the white glove that had been found by the murdered man's desk from its wrapping of tissue paper. The most cursory glance showed that it was an expensive glove, even if the maker's name had not been known as one of the most famous in London and Paris. About it there still clung the vague elusive scent that always seems to linger about the belongings of a woman who is attracted by and attractive to the other sex.
Mr. Steadman handled it carefully and inspected it thoroughly through his eyeglasses. “Yes. We ought to be able to find the mysterious woman with the aid of this.”
“Ah, yes. We shall find the wearer,” the inspector said confidently. “But will that be very much help in solving the mystery of Luke Bechcombe's death?”
The barrister looked at him.
“I don't know that it will. Still, why doesn't she come forward and say, ‘I saw Mr. Bechcombe the morning he was murdered. My business with him was urgent and I saw him by special appointment.’ She is much more likely to be suspected of the crime if she refuses to come forward. Mrs. Bechcombe seems certain of her guilt, and women do have intuitions.”
“I'm not much of a believer in them myself,” remarked Inspector Furnival, shrugging his shoulders. “I would rather have a penn'orth of direct evidence than a pound's worth of intuition. And I don't believe that Mr. Bechcombe was murdered by a woman. A woman doesn't spring at a man and strangle him. She may stab him or shoot him, the weapons being to hand, but strangle him with her hands—no. Besides, this was a premeditated crime. There was an unmistakable smell of chloroform about the body, faint, I grant you, but unmistakable. No, no! It wasn't a woman. As to why she doesn't speak—well, there may be a dozen reasons. In the first place she may not have heard of the murder at all. It doesn't occupy a very conspicuous place in the morning's papers. It will be a different matter to-night. Then, she might not want her business known. And, above all, many a woman—and man too—hates to be mixed up in a murder case, and won't speak out till she is driven to it.”
“Quite so!”
The barrister sat silent for a minute or two, his eyes staring straight in front of him at nothing in particular. Inspector Furnival took another glance at his notes.
“Spencer, the only person we have been able to trace so far who has seen this mysterious woman, fancies that her face is familiar to him, but does not know in what connexion. I have suggested to him that she is possibly an actress, and he is inclined to think that it may be so. I have sent him up a quantity of photographs to see if he can identify any of them. But don't you see, Mr. Steadman, Mr. Spencer's evidence tends rather to exonerate Thompson. Spencer went out after Thompson and met this woman on the stairs. It therefore appears probable that Thompson was off the premises before the woman came on.”
Mr. Steadman shook his head.