Hannasyde descended the stairs, cast one shrewd glance at the landlady's pallid countenance, and strode into the front room.
The Sergeant was standing beside the bed, his bright eyes dispassionately surveying the dead man. At Hannasyde's involuntary exclamation, he looked up. "Something we weren't expecting," he remarked.
Hannasyde bent over the body, his face very grim. Carpenter had been killed as Ernest Fletcher had been killed, but whereas Fletcher had apparently been taken unawares, some struggle had taken place in this dingy basement room. A chair had been overturned, a mat rucked up, and above the dead man's crumpled collar a bruise on his throat showed dark on the white skin.
"Same method - probably the same weapon. But this man knew what to expect," Hannasyde muttered. He glanced over his shoulder. "Get on to the Department, Hemingway. And get rid of that woman. Tell her she'll have to answer questions. Not that she's likely to know anything."
The Sergeant nodded, and went out. Left alone in the room, Hannasyde turned his attention from the body to his surroundings. These told him little enough. The room was sparsely furnished, but had been embellished by a number of photographs and coloured pictures, some framed, some pinned on the wall, or stuck into the frame of the spotted mirror over the fireplace. A curtain, drawn across one corner of the room, concealed from view several cheap suits, and a few pairs of shoes. On the dressing-table before the window were ranged bottles of hair oil, shaving lotion, nail varnish, and scent. Hannasyde grimaced at them, and taking out his handkerchief, covered his hand with it, and pulled open the two top drawers of the table. A motley-coloured collection of socks and handkerchiefs was all that one contained, but in the other, under a pile of ties, were scattered a number of letters, old programmes, playbills, and Press cuttings.
Hannasyde had gathered all these together into a heap by the time the Sergeant returned, and was standing looking at a photograph, cut from a picture paper, which he held in his hand. He looked round as the Sergeant entered the room, and held the cutting out to him without comment.
The Sergeant took it, and read out: "Snapped at the Races, the Hon. Mrs. Donne, Miss Claudine Swithin, and Mr. Ernest Fletcher. You don't say! Well, X has been eliminated all right, hasn't he, Chief? Find anything else?"
"Not yet. I'll wait till the room's been gone over for possible finger-prints." Still with his hand wrapped up, he extracted the key from the door, fitted it in again on the outside, and went out.
The Sergeant followed him, watched him lock the door and pocket the key, and said: "The old girl's in the kitchen. What do you want me to do?"
"Find out if the man at the coffee-stall saw anyone passing down this road about half-an-hour ago. Wait, I'll try and get out of the landlady exactly when Carpenter came home."