His letter brought Miss Toat next day to his chambers at ten o'clock, before he started for the Courts. She was an undersized, colourless little woman, with a white face and drab-hued hair. Her mouth was firm, with thin, pale lips, and her eyes were of a sharp grey, almost steely in their glitter. Quietly arrayed in a tailor-made costume, she looked very businesslike, and her crisp, decisive manner showed that she knew the value of time. In silence she listened to Shawe's exposition of the case. "It's a difficult mystery to unravel," she said, when he had finished.
"Where's the mystery?" asked Ralph, somewhat surprised. "The murder was no doubt committed for the sake of the diamonds. The motive is clear."
"How did the assassin know that Lady Branwin had jewels with her?" asked Perry Toat, fixing her pale eyes on his face "How did he know the position of the room in which she slept, and how did he gain admission into the court?"
"I can answer that last question," said Shawe, easily. "He gained admission into the court by means of a skeleton key, which is now in the possession of the police. Inspector Lanton has it, I believe."
Miss Toat drummed on the table with her thin fingers, which were not unlike the claws of a bird of prey. "If the assassin used such a key," she remarked, "he must have examined the lock and have bought a key to fit. That would take some time, Mr. Shawe."
"Well?" asked the barrister, puzzled.
"Well," she repeated, raising her sandy eyebrows, "can't you see that the procuring of the key would take some time? Yet Lady Branwin slept at the Pink Shop on the spur of the moment, as it were, and merely had the diamonds with her by chance; since--according to her daughter--she was taking them to be reset by a jeweller. If I am right," added Miss Toat, with emphasis--"and I think that I am right in my surmise--the assassin must have had some idea beforehand that Lady Branwin would sleep in the room wherein she was murdered, and would have the diamonds with her."
"But if, as you say, she slept there on the spur of the moment--"
"Exactly. Therein lies the difficulty--the mystery to which I alluded. The arrangement of Lady Branwin to stay was decided in five minutes, let us say; yet the key to the door of the court must have taken a longer time to procure. And it is strange also," mused Perry Toat, "that the assassin should have known the plan of the shop. How did he learn that when within the court he would be able to gain entrance into the bedrooms, let alone the fact that he could not be sure any visitors were sleeping in them?"
"Then you infer," said Shawe, promptly, "that the assassin must be someone attached to the Pink Shop?"