Chapter IV.
Inspector Tanner Grows Suspicious
Inspector Tanner was an early bird. Though on the next morning he did not attempt to emulate his performance of the day before, half-past eight o’clock saw him cycling out to the Luce Manor boathouse to undertake the examination which had been postponed from the previous evening. Leaving his bicycle among the shrubs at the entrance gate, he walked down the path which ran along the river bank, and which he had not yet examined. But here he found nothing of interest.
The boathouse was a modern structure in the Old English style, with brick sides, half-timbered gables, and a red tiled roof. The door was in the wall opposite the river, and the Inspector unlocked it, and entered a chamber of about thirty feet square, lighted from a louvre in the roof. The water basin occupied about half the floor area, and was in one corner, leaving an L-shaped wharf, laid down in granolithic. Along the walls were racks for oars and presses for rowlocks and fishing tackle. An archway at the end of the basin led out to the river, and was closed by a grill or portcullis raised by chains from a small windlass. Two boats were floating in the basin.
For some minutes Tanner stood motionless, noting these details, and looking round in the hope of seeing something that might help him. This cursory inspection proving fruitless, he settled down to make a methodical examination of the entire building.
If, as seemed likely, the man who had made the fifth set of tracks on the river bank had really entered the house, his muddy boots must surely have left traces. Tanner therefore began with the floor, and crawling on his hands and knees backwards and forwards, scrutinised the cement-coloured surface. It was tiresome work, but at last he found what he thought looked like footprints. On the quay not far from the corner of the basin were a number of tiny mud-coloured spots. At first he could not connect these to make a complete whole, but by lying down on his face and using a lens he was able to find several other patches of coagulated sand, which he marked with a pencil; and when he had finished there showed out on the granolithic the nail patterns of two clearly marked heels with the corresponding middle portion of the soles in front. It was evident a man had stood with his back to the door, and facing the basin, and had remained there long enough to allow the moisture from the soles of his shoes to run down the nail heads, and settle on the floor.
It was the work of a few seconds for Tanner to compare these marks with those of the fifth man on the river bank. They were identical.
He resumed his search. There were no more footmarks, and he made but one other discovery. In the left-hand corner of the quay, at the very edge of the basin, and hidden behind the mooring rope of one of the boats, lay the stump of a cigarette. Clearly the intention had been to throw it into the basin, but it had just missed going down, and had fallen unnoticed. Tanner had a good working knowledge of cigarettes, but this one he could not place. The paper was yellow, and the tobacco very dark in colour. He thought it looked South American. But he was pleased with his find, for it seemed to have been but recently smoked, and as he put it away in his pocket, he thought he had perhaps gained a clue.
An examination of the door handles and styles, winch handle, backs of chairs and similar objects with a powdering apparatus revealed several finger prints, but, alas! all too smudged and blurred to be of use. Nor could he find anything else of interest.
He was disappointed that the boathouse had yielded so little. It was true that either the footprint or the cigarette end might prove valuable, but on the other hand neither were necessarily connected with the murder. Both might have got there in a perfectly ordinary and legitimate manner.
He sat down on one of the chairs to consider his next step. There were three lines of inquiry open to him, and he hesitated as to that on which to begin. First, there was the general investigation, the interviewing of the servants, Lady Ponson, Miss Enid, and any others from whom he might gain information, the examination of Sir William’s papers, the tracing of his movements for some time previous to his death, the consideration of his finances, the ascertaining whether anyone might benefit by his death—all routine details, each step of which was suggested by his training, and his experience in similar cases. This work he knew he would have to carry out some time, and obviously the sooner it was done the better.