The front door-bell rang from the outer gate in the garden wall, and we could hear the tread of feet along the garden path. Annie came up to open the door. We were face to face with the situation at last.
The three men who were shown into the room were of strikingly different types. The foremost, Inspector Brown, introduced the other two to us with a wave of his hand. With his flat-topped peaked hat, his dark blue uniform braided with black, and his ruddy, healthy, none too intelligent face, I thought him typical of that section of the police who have been promoted from the helmet and the beat to higher spheres of action. He spoke briskly, however, and to the point.
“Dr. Jeffries you know already, I think, Miss Hanson,” pointing to a thin elderly gray-haired man. “But I have been fortunate in bringing with me Detective Inspector Allport of Scotland Yard, who happens to be in Merchester, and was, as a matter of fact, with me in my room when your message came through.”
Now we must all of us have painted some sort of a mental picture of the detective of fiction, even if we have never seen the real living article in flesh and blood, but I am not willing to imagine that Detective Inspector Allport of Scotland Yard could hold a place in anybody’s mental picture. Without exaggeration he was the ugliest little man I have ever set eyes on, and yet, scanning him feature by feature, I was only astonished that the tout-ensemble was not even more grotesque. Little and undersized, his pale watery eyes bulged after the manner of those of a great many extraordinarily clever people. His forehead was broad but sloping, and if his skin had not been of such a visibly coarse unhealthy-looking texture, this would have been his one redeeming feature. His nose was bulbous, his mouth slopped all over the place, and his little chin was bunched up into a kind of irregular prominence which was rendered interesting by reason of an unbelievably regular, circular dimple in the middle. I gazed on him, fascinated, and thought at once that for a man so handicapped to be anything higher in the social scale than a lavatory attendant, must argue a character and mental equipment to be reckoned with, and I very soon found out that if perhaps I was inclined to exaggerate his apparent deficiencies and defects, I altogether underestimated his brain power and those hidden qualities that compel attention and respect.
He took charge of the situation at once, speaking rapidly in a voice of markedly pleasant tone.
“Dr. Wallace, I presume?” he said, turning to me.
I explained the circumstances of The Tundish’s enforced absence, and how we had been unable to wire to Stella’s uncle. Ethel gave him the uncle’s address.
“I will look after that—as you suggest, there may probably be information as to Mr. Crawford’s present whereabouts among the unfortunate young lady’s papers. If not they will soon find it for me in London. You can leave it to me and need not bother further. But the doctor! It is very unfortunate that he has been called away, but I suppose that he will be back before long. He has no doubt left a note of the address to which he has gone?”
I had to confess that I didn’t think he had, and Ethel, on being questioned, could only state that so far as she could gather from what she had heard of his conversation on the telephone, it might be one of three.
He pulled down a corner of his funny little mustache and stood biting at it, obviously annoyed. “Strange, very strange, that he should have left the house,” he muttered angrily. “However, Doctor, you had better examine the unfortunate young lady yourself in the meantime. Perhaps Miss Hanson will be kind enough to show us up to her room. The rest of you will kindly oblige me by not leaving this room until my return. Please call up the servants and keep them here as well.”