Not without some grumbling as to waste of time and interference with business, the Pilmansey brothers led the way to a side door which opened into a passage that ran along the side of the shop and from whence a staircase rose to the upper regions of the house. The elder pointed, significantly, to the street door at the end.
"You'll take notice that these young fellows I told you of get to the rooms we let them through that?" he observed. "That door's always locked—they all have latch-keys to it. They never come through the shop—we've nothing to do with them, and we don't know anything about whatever they may do in their rooms—all we're concerned with is that they pay their rent and behave themselves. And quiet enough they've always been—we've had no reason to complain."
"And, as they all have latch-keys, I suppose they can get into the place at any hour of the day—or night?" suggested the Inspector. "There's no bar against them coming here at night?"
"They can come in—and go out—whenever they please," answered the elder man. "I tell you we've nothing to do with them—except as their landlords."
"Where do you live—yourselves?" asked the Inspector. "On these premises?"
"No, we don't," replied the younger brother, who, of the two, had showed the keenest, if most silent, resentment at the police proceedings. "We live—elsewhere. This establishment is opened at eight in the morning, and closed at seven in the evening. We're never here after seven—either of us."
"So that you never see anything of these foreigners at night-time?" asked the Inspector. "Don't know what they do, I suppose?"
"We never see anything of 'em at any time," said the elder brother. "As you see, this passage and staircase is outside the shop. We know nothing whatever about them beyond what I've told you."
"Well—take us up, and we'll see what we can find out," commanded the Inspector. "We're going to examine those rooms, Mr. Pilmansey, so we'll get it done at once."
The intervening rooms between the lower and the top floors of the old house appeared to be given up to stores—the open doors revealed casks, cases, barrels, piles of biscuit and confectionery boxes—nothing to conceal there, decided the lynx-eyed men who trooped up the dingy stairs after the grumbling proprietors. But the door on the top floor was closed—and when Ayscough turned its handle he found it to be locked from within.