For more than a week Miss Toat remained absent, and during that period she haunted Walpole Lane. She sought out Madame Coralie, and declared that she wanted her complexion improved. The owner of the Pink Shop thought that there was much room for improvement, and did wonders for the five-pound note. This was a less charge than she usually made, but since the murder, business had been bad with Madame Coralie, and she was willing enough to capture small fish, as the big ones, for the moment, would not be enticed into her net. After Miss Toat's complexion had been renovated that wily person decided to undergo a course of treatment for hair and figure, which necessitated two or three nights' stay in the shop. It was for this reason that she wrote to Shawe and asked him to forward twenty pounds. He did so rather ruefully, for he was not well off, and the search for the assassin promised to be expensive. However, it was for Audrey's sake, so Ralph parted with very good grace with his hard-earned money.
Having thus obtained funds in plenty, the detective took up her abode in the very bedroom wherein Lady Branwin had been murdered. She knew that it was the fatal chamber, as she had seen the plan of the shop, which the daily papers had published when the murder was the sensation of the day. Madame Coralie was rather vexed when Miss Toat mentioned this artlessly to her, on being installed in the room.
"That murder will ruin my business," said the Medea of Walpole Lane, gloomily.
"Oh, I don't think so," said her client, sweetly. "I don't mind in the least sleeping in the room where a crime has been committed."
"You are a very sensible woman, Miss Toat," said Madame Coralie, energetically. "All my friends seem to have deserted me since the death of Lady Branwin."
"They will come back, Madame." Miss Toat nodded vigorously. "The event will soon pass out of their minds. By the way, has anything been heard likely to show who is guilty?"
"No," said Madame Coralie, savagely. "I wish I could find out. I'd kill the man for ruining my business."
"He will be killed in any case, and by the law," said Miss Toat, in a silky voice. "Let us hope that he will be caught."
"Amen to that. But I don't think he ever will."
Plainly, little evidence was to be got out of Madame Coralie, and probably she knew nothing of the truth. If she did, she would assuredly have denounced the culprit to the police, if only out of revenge. Miss Toat saw that she would get no clue in that direction, and submitted herself to the treatment for hair and figure with very good grace. But the proprietress of the Pink Shop would have been ill-pleased had she seen the little woman slipping about the premises in the dead of night like an eel. Being tiny and light-footed--especially since she wore list slippers--Miss Toat, when all the inmates of the place were buried in slumber, would take a dark lantern and steal round the rooms. She examined the shop itself, the passage running at the back and terminating in the door which opened on to the right-of-way, leading into Walpole Lane, and noticed that the house-door into the empty court was flush with those of the four bedrooms. To be precise--and Miss Toat in her investigation was very precise--a quartette of doors led to their several apartments, and the fifth door admitted anyone who was curious into the court. Miss Toat was curious, and as she found the key on a nail in the still-room--as had been mentioned in the evidence at the inquest--she opened the door and explored the court from end to end.