Who was this mysterious individual, this dark-haired man with moustache and glasses, but Roper! Roper it was who had been going about buying wedding rings, and Roper it was who naturally found that he must get rid of such incriminating purchases at the earliest possible moment. The whole thing was clear! For every ring a £20 note, a tainted £20 note, a £20 note from Mr. Averill’s wrecked safe up at Starvel. And for every £20 note got rid of over £18 of good, clean, untraceable money brought in. It was a scheme, a great scheme, worthy of the man who had devised the crime as a whole.
As these thoughts passed through his mind French saw that the fact that the elusive purchaser had a moustache and glasses while Roper wore neither by no means invalidated his conclusion, but rather strengthened it. To a person of Roper’s mental calibre a moustache would appear one of the best of disguises, while a man with a squint had practically no option but to wear tinted glasses if he wished to preserve his incognito. From disgust at his job French had suddenly swung round to enthusiasm. He had not now the faintest doubt that some forty-eight hours earlier, Roper, alive and in the flesh, had been in that very shop, having dealings with the salesman, Stanley. And then came the delightful thought that with so fresh a trail and with such a multiplicity of clues, the man’s capture was a question of a very short time only. The steps to be taken were obvious, and the first was to find the taxi-man who had driven him round. This must be put in hand without delay.
He crushed down his impatience and turned once more to his companions, who had been regarding him with not a little surprise.
“That is important information you have just given me, Mr. Stanley,” he declared. “Now can you tell me if this is the man?” He handed over one of Roper’s photographs.
And then his enthusiasm received a check. The salesman looked doubtfully at the card and shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I couldn’t just be sure. It’s like him and it’s not like him, if you understand what I mean. The man who came here had a moustache.”
“A false one,” French suggested.
The other brightened up.
“My word, but it might have been,” he exclaimed. “I noticed it looked queer, now I come to think of it. It was very thick and long; thicker and longer than you generally see. And what you might call fuzzy round the top. Not like a real moustache. Yes, sir, I believe you’re right. It looked just like a wad of hair set on.”
French laid a scrap of paper over the mouth.