The landlord made no further demur, but unlocking the door he flung it open and stood back. The others waited for a minute in the doorway and looked round. At first sight nothing could have been less likely to give away the occupier's secrets than this room. It was quite a good size with a couple of windows, and a small bed in a recess with a curtain hung over it; an oil lamp stood before the fireplace. The floor was covered with linoleum, there was no carpet, not even a rug. A solid square oak table stood in the middle of the room and there were three equally solid-looking chairs. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a movable corner cupboard standing at the side of the window. The inspector went over and threw the door open. Inside there was a cup and saucer, a teapot and tea-caddy, a bottle of ink, and a book upon which the inspector immediately pounced. He went through it from end to end, he shook it, he banged it on the table; a post card fell from it; the inspector stared at it, then with a puzzled frown he handed it to Mr. Steadman. The barrister glanced at it curiously. On the back was a portrait of a girl—evidently the work of an amateur.
“Do you know who that is?” questioned the inspector.
Mr. Steadman shook his head. “It is no one that I have ever seen before. Do you mean that you do?”
“That is a likeness—very badly taken, I grant you—but an unmistakable likeness of Miss Hoyle, the late Mr. Bechcombe's secretary.”
Mr. Steadman was startled for once. “Good Lord! Do you mean that he was in love with her too?”
“Oh, I don't know,” said the inspector, taking possession of the post card once more. “Elderly men take queer fancies sometimes, but I haven't had any hint of this hitherto. However, I will make a few inquiries with a view to ascertaining whether Mr. Tony Collyer has a rival.”
“Poor Tony!” said the barrister indulgently.
He took up the book which the inspector had thrown down. It was a detective novel of the lightest and most lurid kind, and it bore the label of a big and fashionable library. He made a note of it at once. The inspector went on with his survey. Beside the bedstead, behind the curtain, there stood a small tripod washing-stand with the usual apparatus. The bed in itself was enough to arouse their curiosity. Upon the chain mattress lay one of hard flock with one hard pillow, and an eiderdown quilt rolled up at the bottom. Of other bedclothing there was not a vestige, neither was there any sign of any clothing found about the room, with the exception of a pair of very old slippers originally worked in cross stitch, the pattern of which was now indecipherable. The inspector peered round everywhere. He turned over the top mattress, he felt it all over. He moved the wash-stand and the corner cupboard, he looked in the open fireplace which apparently had not been used for years, but not so much as the very tiniest scrap of paper rewarded him. At last he turned to the barrister.
“Nothing more to be done here, I think, sir.” He took up the book and the slippers and moved to the door.
John Steadman followed him silently. His strong face bore a very worried, harassed expression.