“You’ll find that’s Prescott’s all right,” I exclaimed. “How can you imagine it could belong to anybody else? How could anybody else get in here—for a start? In the bathroom of Prescott’s bedroom!”
“There’s a door, Bill,” rejoined Anthony drily. “Quite a natural method of entering a room. You may be quite right, and it may have been Prescott’s—all the same I’m going to have a look round in here—there may be more in Mary’s story than either of us anticipated.” Out came the magnifying-glass again and he got to work with it on the floor of the bathroom.
I strolled back into the bedroom, and couldn’t altogether resist a smile as I heard him talking to himself from the farther apartment.
“These criminologists take things extraordinarily seriously,” I thought to myself. “Good job if they don’t run across too many cases in a lifetime.”
I looked round the bedroom. Why shouldn’t I try my hand at the sleuth game? Perhaps I could find something! To the best part of my memory Prescott’s bedroom had not received too meticulous an examination. After all he had slept and dressed in here for nearly a week, and a bedroom might very easily contain something of his secret, assuming that he possessed one. It was an intimate room—it touched a man—closely. If he had anything to conceal, it might well be that it was hidden in here, somewhere. I wandered round, my eyes searching for likely hiding-places. Inspiration came from nowhere. My eyes caught the bed. Had anybody looked underneath? At any rate I decided that I would! I went down full length and wriggled my body underneath. And I had not been under there many seconds when I formed the opinion that while the floor had nothing to tell me, the wainscoting directly below the head of the bed had three tiny pieces of paper on it! They had fluttered down as very small fragments of paper will, and come to rest on the skirting-board, before reaching the floor itself. Very probably of no consequence whatever, but I’d have old Anthony in, come what may!
I went to the connecting door. “Come in here a minute, will you?”
To all appearances he was engaged in a close scrutiny of the bath-mat. “What’s up?” he queried.
I was as near excitement as I had been since this bewildering affair had started.
I beckoned him. “Come in here!” I said. He came with alacrity. I lay at full length as I had done just previously. “Flop down here.” He joined me. I pointed to the skirting-board. “See anything there?”
“Only too true,” he muttered. “Wonder what it can be! Wriggle up and get it, Bill, the honors are yours, it’s your discovery.”