“Most adored, I count the hours, the minutes, till I shall hear for the first time the sound of your voice. Heaven be praised that I have not long to wait, and you, whom heaven has sent to me, accept the thanks of my grateful heart. I send this by Madame Q.”
The signature that followed made Gimblet open his eyes. “Felipe,” in conjunction with the crown at the head of the paper and the foreign character of the penmanship, could refer to one person only. Gimblet was well aware that the Prince of Targona was honouring London with his presence. He glanced carefully round the room to make sure no one was near, folded the paper carefully, and placed it in his notebook. Then he turned his attention to the powder puff.
It was an ordinary little powder puff of pink silk and white down—very small, very dainty, if very commonplace. Gimblet turned it over and over, but could see nothing about it which stamped it as different from other powder puffs. Not that it was a curio in the peculiarities of which he was very well versed; he could not help realising that in the matter of powder puffs his education had been neglected. A French detective, he told himself sadly, would have read a whole history in this soft toy. He brushed it across the back of his hand, but it left no mark; he shook it into the palm, but no powder fell from it. It was plain to him that, whatever uses it might have served in the white hands that had formerly clasped it, it was not of any use at all in his, and in his irritation he was inclined to hurl it from him. But his methodical habits prevailed and he felt in his coat for a box to contain it. And suddenly, with what seemed like an involuntary movement, he lifted the hand that held the powder puff, and held it to his nose.
“Ah,” he sighed, and it was a sigh of deep content. Then he stored away the precious fluffy thing, and put it in his pocket. He finished the tour of the furniture without further discovery; at the end of it he requested Tremmels to read out the contents of the room from the inventory, as he had done at the conclusion of his visits to each room or landing, checking off each object as the clerk read out its description.
“I am in hopes,” he said to Sir Gregory, “of finding something not mentioned in the inventory, which we might take to be the property of Mr. West. But so far there is nothing that can possibly be his, not so much as a toothbrush. He certainly seems to be a leader of the simple life.” Then he turned to Tremmels again. “Is there no mention of the chair covers?” he asked. But the young man only stared at him open-mouthed, and he seized the book from his hand.
“Let me see,” he murmured, running a finger down the page. “Here we are. ‘Two Chesterfield sofas and five arm-chairs with loose chintz covers.’ Might mean anything. Look here!” he turned to the clerk again, “you went over the inventory. What do you remember about that sofa?” He pointed to the one opposite the door, which, unlike the other sofas and chairs, had no chintz covering. Tremmels was flurried by the detective’s sharp tone.
“I—I don’t remember anything at all,” he stammered.
“What, don’t you remember that it had a cover?”
Gimblet’s second question was still more sharply spoken. The clerk shot a glance at him in which suspicion, timidity, and bewilderment were oddly mixed, and he answered stubbornly, repeating his former words as if he imagined a trap were being laid for him.
“I don’t remember anything about it.” His pale face wore an expression more wooden than ever.