The landlady took one more look round and said doubtfully, “No, no, I don’t think so. Oh, but yes,” she suddenly added, “uncle’s hook.”
“Oh,” remarked the inspector with dismal jocularity, “he’s took uncle’s hook as well as his own, has he? What was uncle’s hook like?”
“It wasn’t of much value,” Mrs. Beckle explained; “but I kept it as a memorial. My great-uncle, who died many years ago, was a sea-captain too, and had lost his left hand by accident. He wore a hook in its place—a hook made for him on board his vessel. It was an iron hook screwed into a wooden stock. He had it taken off in his last illness, and gave it to me to mind against his recovery. But he never got well, so I’ve kept it over since. It used to hang on a nail at the side of the chimney-breast.”
“No wounds about the body that might have been made with a hook like that, doctor, were there?” the inspector asked.
“No, no wounds at all but the one.”
“Well, well,” the inspector said, moving toward the door, “we’ve got to find Foster now, that’s plain. I’ll see about it. You’ve sent to the mortuary, you say, doctor? All right. You’ve no particular reason for sending the girl out of doors to-day, I suppose, Mrs. Beckle?”
“I can keep her in, of course,” the landlady answered. “It will be inconvenient, though.”
“Ah, then keep her in, will you? We mustn’t lose sight of her. I’ll leave a couple of men here, of course, and I’ll tell them she mustn’t be allowed out.”
Hewitt and the surgeon went downstairs and parted at the door. “I shall be over again to-morrow morning,” Hewitt said, “about that other matter I was speaking of. Shall I find you in?”
“Well,” the doctor answered, “at any rate they will tell you where I am. Good-morning.”