With its head to the left-hand wall, as we entered, stood the bed—that is to say, almost in the far left-hand corner of the room. A door opposite to us opened on to the bathroom that I have previously described. In the far right-hand corner stood a large Sheraton wardrobe.
“Well, he went to bed last night, did Mr. Prescott,” said Baddeley. “That’s pretty clear at any rate. And he got up in a hurry!”
The bed certainly showed signs of recent occupation. All the normal and ordinary signs of a person having slept there were clearly and distinctly indicated, the bed-clothes being in disarray and lying trailingly on the floor between the bed and the door of our entrance.
The Inspector was quickly at work.
He crossed to the dressing-table and examined it carefully. He then came back to the bed, lifted the pillows, and peered inquisitively beneath.
“Strange——” I heard him mutter. I turned to Anthony who was standing with his eyes fixed intently on the bed. He seemed to be following an acute train of thought.
“Sir Charles,” broke in Baddeley. “There’s one thing that every man has to a degree, and yet this young fellow Prescott appears to have been entirely without—unless he’d been systematically robbed.”
Sir Charles lifted his eyebrows. “Yes?” he queried.
“Money—cash—whatever you call it. How do you account for this? He has no money in his pockets, he has no note-case in his pockets. His pockets are all beautifully empty. I say to myself he dressed in a hurry—I shall find his money in his bedroom. Either on the dressing-table or under his pillow. People have different places of putting their cash you know, gentlemen. But I don’t find it! And it puzzles me!”
“It’s certainly very strange, Inspector,” said Anthony. “But there may be the possibility that his small change had run out, and that he has put a note-case into another jacket. Let’s try the wardrobe.”