“You are sure that you saw no one in the apartment resembling Miss Derwent?”
“Quite sure; the woman I saw was taller and had flat, black hair.”
“What do you mean by ‘flat’?”
“Why, nowadays girls wear their hair loose; it bulges away from their faces; but hers lay tight to her head in a flat, black mass,” I explained.
I then harped on the probability of the return of Miss May’s prodigal brother, and suggested the possibility that the dark-haired woman might be his wife.
“Well, well, Doctor! This is all very interesting. The story of the brother, especially. You see, I had already discovered that a man had spent many hours in her apartment——”
“How did you find that out?” I interrupted.
“Oh, quite easily,” rejoined the detective; “as soon as all the excitement was over yesterday, I made McGorry open the Derwent’s apartments for me. You may imagine what a fuss he made about it. Well anyhow he got me——”
“But why did you want to get in?” I inquired; “did you suspect her?”
“No,” he replied, “I did not. But in my profession you take no chances. Impressions, intuitions, are often of great value, only you must be careful always to verify them. I was almost sure that the young lady was innocent, but it was my business to prove her so. Now, it is certain that the person, or persons, who smuggled the corpse into the room where it was found, must, at one time or another, have had the key of that apartment in their possession, and there are only three people whom we know of as yet who were in a position to have had it. These three are: Miss Derwent, the French butler, and, of course, McGorry. So far I have not been able to connect the latter two, even in the most indirect way, with the catastrophe. Unfortunately, that is not the case with the young lady. One person, at least, has identified the body as that of her visitor, and your behaviour,” he added, with a smile, “led me to believe that you suspected her of something. Not of the crime, I felt sure of that, but of what, then? I determined to find out, and now that I have done so, let me tell you that I am still convinced of her innocence.”