“In a sense, yes, perhaps it is. Letters for him come here often; we send them on to him. He has an arrangement with us to do so—for a small consideration. He lives mostly, Mr. Lessingham, in Brussels, I understand, but comes over sometimes for business in London. Then he comes here, to the Hotel Antwerp; we make him so comfortable, he says. Sometimes he comes, but not to stay—to fetch any letters, perhaps to lunch or dine—our cuisine is first-rate. Ah, here is the book!”
A waiter, who had previously answered the bell, laid a large and rather soiled black volume upon the table before his employer. From the book’s appearance Poole judged that the flow of visitors was not sufficiently rapid to necessitate its frequent renewal. The manager ran his finger quickly up and down the names—scrawling, ill-written signatures for the most part—written carelessly or in a hurry with the indifferent pen and worse ink provided by the management.
“Ah, see, here he is!” exclaimed M. Blertot. “October 11th, almost a month ago. As I say, he is not regular, not at all. I look back.”
An exhaustive search through the book revealed the fact that for the last two years Mr. Lessingham had visited the hotel at fairly regular intervals of about three weeks, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less, but averaging out at three weeks. Sometimes he stayed for a night only, sometimes two, three, or even four; there again, the average was something between two and three. The letters, mostly in typewritten envelopes, came—also on the average—about twice a week and were at once forwarded, with the extra stamp, to Mr. Lessingham’s Brussels address, unless he had notified the management that he was on the point of visiting the hotel.
“And the address?” asked Poole.
“175 Rue des Canetons, Brussels, IV.”
“And you know of no other address of his in London?”
“No, absolutely.”
Poole made a note of the address, asked the manager to let him know at once if Lessingham came to the hotel, and took his departure. What he had just learnt puzzled him considerably, but it did not altogether surprise him. According to Mr. Blagge, Lessingham had been in London the previous afternoon; he might of course have arrived from Brussels in the morning and returned the same night, but according to M. Blertot, when he did that he generally called at the hotel for letters. According to Mr. Blagge again, Lessingham’s visits to the Victory Finance office corresponded—so far as regards intervals—with his visits to the hotel; it would be a simple matter to check the actual dates with the list he had noted down from the “Antwerp’s” Visitors’ Book. That must remain till tomorrow, however; Poole did not feel inclined to return to Fenchurch Street that evening. He wanted, before taking any further action, to get down to pencil and paper and work out the possibilities of the Wraile alibi—male and female. When he knew exactly what he was up against he would know where to begin in his task of breaking it down.
As he walked down the Strand towards Whitehall his mind reverted, by a natural chain of thought, to the last occasion on which he had been in that romantic thoroughfare in connection with the case, and so, by a further step, to the rather melodramatic interview that he had had with the hump-backed moneylender, Silence. It struck him that he had allowed that unsavoury episode to pass too completely into the back of his mind; could it be that he had deliberately pushed it there, influenced, as Chief Inspector Barrod had hinted, by his sympathy for—perhaps, even his attraction to—Ryland Fratten’s charming “sister”?