"Ah, I am sorry to lose you. Je suis désolé, mon bon ami. Another cigarette? No? Good-bye. Au revoir! Some day we shall meet again. Mrs. Pastor, may I ask you to conduct monsieur, mon ami, to the door."
The landlady bowed solemnly, and, leading Ellis from the society of this graceful babbler, dismissed him with a second bow into the street. And in this unsatisfactory way ended the doctor's visit to the Austrian. Unsatisfactory, because he had obtained no information save that Zirknitz was innocent of the imputed charge, a conclusion at which Ellis had long since arrived. That same evening, after supper, he informed Cass about the alibi, but found that the journalist was less ready to accept the information.
"I don't trust Zirknitz," said he, emphatically, "neither does Schwartz. The man is a bad egg. I believe this murder is a family affair to get money. Zirknitz, I daresay, murdered Moxton with that knife. Janet saw him do so, and told Mrs. Moxton, and they have both disappeared so that they may not be asked questions likely to lead to their brother's arrest. As for Busham, now that the will is destroyed he will hold his tongue."
"But the alibi," protested Ellis. "If Zirknitz was at Bloomsbury before midnight, he could not have been in Dukesfield at half-past eleven."
"The alibi may be a false one."
"You would not say so if you saw the witness to its truth. Mrs. Pastor is a regular Puritan, as rigid and unbending as a piece of iron."
"Yet she tolerates that frivolous scamp?"
Ellis shrugged his shoulders. "All women have their weaknesses," said he. "However, the main point is, that Zirknitz could not inform me of his sisters' whereabouts."
"Humph! Would not, rather than could not, I should say," observed Cass, crossly. "I don't believe myself that you will see Mrs. Moxton again, and I fervently hope that such will be the case. You have now one or two patients, Bob, the nucleus of a good practice, so give up this wild-goose chase after the widow and settle down to your work."
Before Ellis could answer this friendly appeal, which was made in all good faith, Mrs. Basket entered with a note for Ellis, which had been brought that moment by a boy. "Clark, the grocer's son," explained the fat landlady. "I 'ope, doctor, it's a noo patient, for if ever a gent deserved the sick and ailing, you are that gent," after which expression of sympathy Mrs. Basket waddled out of the room with much noise.