“Would she stay when she got there and found it was a bedroom?”
“H’m—never thought of that. You’ve caught me out there, Yardley. But—but—wait—wait a moment;” and the barrister picked up another cigarette and lighted it, and the two men watched him as he began unconsciously to pace up and down the room. Yardley knew the trick and waited in silence.
“Yardley, you’ve brought it one step nearer. It must have been a woman who murdered the girl. Any story would be sufficient excuse for her going to a woman’s bedroom, and for her staying there after she got into the room. Now there is another point, Yardley. All the keys have stamped on them the name of the hotel and the number. No shop would deliberately duplicate such a key. They would know it could not be wanted for any legitimate purpose. A model must have been taken in wax and the key made from that. I wish I had thought of that before. Still, it may not be too late. The room had been empty for a week before the body was found there. The chambermaid told me nobody had been put in it since. Yardley, go to the Charing Cross Hotel at once, ask to see that key, and examine it carefully, and see if there is any sign of wax on it. If there is you will know I am right, and it will prove something else besides.”
“What else will it prove?”
“Just this, that the previous occupant of the room is the guilty person, for if anyone has used the key in between there will be no wax on it. At least the odds are a hundred to one.”
The two detectives took their leave and went straight to the hotel. It was exactly as Tempest had anticipated. There were still traces of wax in the wards of the keys. It was a simple matter to ascertain that the last occupant of the room had been a lady who had given her name as Mrs. Garnett. A little investigation elicited the fact that she had complained of her room being very dark, and had, by her own request, been moved into one on the opposite side of the passage. She had remained in the hotel until after the dead body had been discovered, and had left, declaring vehemently that she would never be able to sleep after her experience. The clerk and the other hotel servants had no very definite recollection of the lady, save that she was always dressed in black, and was dark and middle-aged.
As her own room was only just across the passage she could, of course, easily make certain the other room was not occupied. A stranger to the hotel wouldn’t know that.
“Yes, it all seems very simple now, doesn’t it, Parkyns?”
“Yardley, it makes us look rather amateurs. There’s nothing in it all that we couldn’t have found out. Here you and I have been working on it for weeks, and we draw everything quite blank, and that man just lights one of his everlasting cigarettes and walks up and down his room in front of us and gets the thing first try—talks it out—even thinks it out before us.”
“Are you sure of that, Parkyns? It’s quite as likely he’d thought it all out beforehand and made inquiries himself, and just sends us to look for what he knew we should find.”