Hadley glanced quickly into the other rooms as Dr Fell opened the door of the kitchen.' The bed was still unmade in the bedroom. The search here had been more perfunctory, confined to the bureau. And the dining-room had not been touched at all. It had seldom or never been used for eating purposes, but there had palpably been a use for it. Two gigantic rows of empty soda-siphons had been lined up on the sideboard. Under a mosaic dome of lights over the table there mingled in confusion empty bottles, unwashed glasses, a cocktail-shaker and ash-tray.
`The kitchen also,' Dr Fell observed at his elbow, `seems to have been used chiefly for mixing drinks' He swept his arm about. `You see? That sitting-room he kept tidy for casual visitors like his uncle. This is where he really lived. H'mf.'
He was wheezing in the kitchen doorway. Over his arm he carried a large market-basket which jingled with iron.
`You said tools?' inquired Hadley, sharply. `Was that what you were looking for? You mean a chisel or a screwdriver used to force open the outer door of this flat?'
'Good Lord, no!' snorted the doctor. `You don't suppose the woman got into the flat, came back here, found a chisel, and went out, again so that she could break open the door for sheer amusement, do you?'
`She might have done just that,' said the inspector, quietly, `to give the impression it was some outsider who had burgled the flat.'
`It's entirely possible, I grant you. But, as a matter of fact, I wasn't interested in the breaking or entering. It was an entirely different sort of tool I was looking for.'
`It may further interest you to know,' the chief inspector pursued, rather irritably, `that while you have been poking about in the kitchen we've learned a great deal from Bitton….'
The doctor nodded several times, and the black ribbon on his glasses swung jumpily.
`Yes,' he agreed, `I thought you would. He was here to get information from his private detective, and you've scared him into forcing, her to tell what she knows by making out a thundering case against his wife. I imagined