“I see, however, that you believe the murdered man to be Mrs. Atkins’s friend, of whose history and whereabouts she was so strangely ignorant.”
“Well, I don’t know,” the detective replied. “We have found out that an Allan Brown did engage a berth on the midnight train to Boston.”
“Really? Why, I was sure that Allan Brown was a creation of the little lady’s imagination. By the way, it is a strange coincidence that two mysterious Allans are connected with this case.”
“Yes, I have thought of that,” the detective murmured; “and Allan is no common name, either. But it is a still stranger circumstance that neither of Allan Brown nor of the murdered man (I am now taking for granted that they are not identical) can we discover the slightest trace beyond the solitary fact that an upper berth on the Boston train was bought on Tuesday afternoon, by a person giving the former’s name, and whose description applies, of course, equally to both. Mrs. Atkins volunteers the information that Brown was a stranger in the city, and so far I have no reason to doubt it. Now, a man who can afford to wear a dress suit, and who is a friend of a woman like Mrs. Atkins, presumably had fairly decent quarters while he was in town. And yet inquiries have been made at every hotel and boarding-house, from the cheapest to the most expensive, and not one of them knows anything of an Allan Brown, nor do they recognize his description as applying to any of their late guests. The deceased, of course, may have had rooms somewhere, or a flat, or even a house, in which case it will take longer to trace him; although even so, it is remarkable that after such wide publicity has been given to his description, no one has come forward and reported him as missing. The morgue has been crowded with idle sightseers, but nobody as yet claims to have seen the victim before.”
“That is queer,” I assented, “especially as the dead man was in all probability a person of some prominence. He certainly must have been rich. The pearl studs he wore were very fine.”
“Oh, those were imitation pearls,” said the detective, “and I am inclined to think that, far from being wealthy, he was, at the time of his death, extremely badly off, although other indications point to his having seen better days.”
“Really!” I exclaimed.
“Yes; didn’t you notice that his clothes, although evidently expensive, were all decidedly shabby? That his silk socks were almost worn out; that his pumps were down at the heel?”
“Yes, I did notice something of the kind.”
“But those large imitation pearls blinded you to everything else, I see,” Mr. Merritt remarked, with a smile.