He found Inspector Grant in the hall, gravely studying a large oil painting. At a little distance, the butler stood, eyeing him austerely.
"Wester Ross," said the Inspector. "But forbye I know where it was done, it is not good. I would not hang it in my house."
"Well, that's a good job!" returned Hemingway. "You wouldn't have a chance of pinching it, not with Faithful Fido about, you wouldn't. Come on!"
Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did the butler betray that this shaft had gone home. He trod majestically to the door, and opened it, and stood impassively by it until the two detectives had passed out of the house. His feelings found expression only in the celerity with which he closed the door behind them.
"Almost shut my heel in it," remarked Hemingway. "Now then, my lad, what did you make of that little outfit?"
"I should not have known what to make of that lady, had I not seen what I did," replied the Inspector. "I am thinking now that we have stepped into a deal of wickedness, perhaps."
"If by that you mean that she looked suspiciously like a drug-addict, I agree with you," retorted Hemingway. "I don't know that it helps us much, though."
"When I was sitting in that room," said Grant, "I cast my eyes over the photographs on the table beside me. There was one with Dan Seaton-Carew signed on it. I recognised it: I had seen that face before."
"Well, of course you had!" said Hemingway, irritated. "You saw it last night!"
"When I saw it last night, I did not recognise it," said Grant. He added apologetically: "It would be some years before the War that I met him, and it was not Seaton-Carew he called himself, but Carew alone. And a man that has been strangled -"