“What’s your name?” enquired Blick, with a smile.
“Halliwell,” she replied quickly. “Why?”
“Miss or Mrs.?” asked Blick.
“Miss!—What makes you ask?”
“Just wanted to know,” said Blick. “I shall be here some time, most likely, and I’m sure to meet you again.”
Then, with another smile, he went away, and once clear of the house dismissed everything but one thought. That was an important one. Von Eckhardstein, on leaving the improvised court-room that morning, after the Coroner’s adjournment, had possessed himself, in passing the table whereon it was laid, of the tobacco-pipe which had been left at the Sceptre. Now then—was von Eckhardstein the man who had left it there?
Blick had a trick of imagining possible reasons for anything: he began to invent some now. Von Eckhardstein might be one of those folk who have a mania for collecting objects connected with crime—he, Blick, had come across more than one maniac of that sort, and knew that such would stop at nothing, not even theft, to achieve their desires. Or, he might know the man who had left the pipe, and have quietly abstracted it, in the crush and confusion, with the idea of destroying evidence against a friend. But, anyhow, there the pipe was, in von Eckhardstein’s pocket, where he had slipped it on picking it up from the table—and Blick had seen and identified it.
“And if it’s his,” mused Blick, “then he’s the man who went to the Sceptre at two o’clock last Tuesday morning, and left at three-fifteen with Guy Markenmore and the other chap! That’s a dead sure thing!”
He strolled back to the Inn, and in due course sat down to his supper. Grimsdale tapped at his door and came in, just as he had finished.
“There’s some of the rustics talking about this murder, in the kitchen,” he remarked, with a sly smile. “Would you like to hear what they’ve got to say?”