Did Belinda Mary stab Kara or kill the dog? That she killed one hound or the other was certain. That she killed both was possible.
CHAPTER XV
After a busy and sleepless night he came down to report to the Chief Commissioner the next morning. The evening newspaper bills were filled with the “Chelsea Sensation” but the information given was of a meagre character.
Since Fisher had disappeared, many of the details which could have been secured by the enterprising pressmen were missing. There was no reference to the visit of Mr. Gathercole and in self-defence the press had fallen back upon a statement, which at an earlier period had crept into the newspapers in one of those chatty paragraphs which begin “I saw my friend Kara at Giros” and end with a brief but inaccurate summary of his hobbies. The paragraph had been to the effect that Mr. Kara had been in fear of his life for some time, as a result of a blood feud which existed between himself and another Albanian family. Small wonder, therefore, the murder was everywhere referred to as “the political crime of the century.”
“So far,” reported T. X. to his superior, “I have been unable to trace either Gathercole or the valet. The only thing we know about Gathercole is that he sent his article to The Times with his card. The servants of his Club are very vague as to his whereabouts. He is a very eccentric man, who only comes in occasionally, and the steward whom I interviewed says that it frequently happened that Gathercole arrived and departed without anybody being aware of the fact. We have been to his old lodgings in Lincoln's Inn, but apparently he sold up there before he went away to the wilds of Patagonia and relinquished his tenancy.
“The only clue I have is that a man answering to some extent to his description left by the eleven o'clock train for Paris last night.”
“You have seen the secretary of course,” said the Chief.
It was a question which T. X. had been dreading.
“Gone too,” he answered shortly; “in fact she has not been seen since 5:30 yesterday evening.”