“I dare say,” said Reggie. “They don’t sound as if they would fit. None of them heard anything?”
“No, sir; that’s queer, to be sure.”
“It happened the night of the blizzard. You wouldn’t have noticed a bomb. Well, who was Rand?”
“That’s what no one knows, sir. He’d only been here a few weeks. They’re service flats, you know, and furnished. He gave a banker’s reference. Bank says he has no money reason to be missing. Quiet, stable account. Income from investments. Balance three hundred odd. But the bank don’t know anything about him. He’s had an account for years. He used to live off Jermyn Street, apartment-house. The landlady died last year.”
“And the landlady died last year,” Reggie repeated. “He’s elusive, is Mr. Rand. Same like our corpse. But is Rand missing, Bell? He’s not been seen for a few days. There’s not much in that. He never used his flat regularly.”
“And, so far as we know, deceased isn’t Rand.”
“Well, I don’t know quite as far as that,” said Reggie.
“Good Lord, the porter who found him didn’t recognize the body.”
“Remember his face.”
“My God, don’t talk about his face.”