Gimblet returned this article to its place, and drew out, one by one, the other things in the cupboard: a water-can, a bucket, a scrubbing brush, and other odds and ends. The last thing he brought to light was a crumpled ball of newspaper, stuffed away at the back of some brooms and pails. This did not look interesting; and, while Sir Gregory saw with relief the handling of anything which gave him breathing space, Tremmel’s face fell.
Gimblet, however, was too methodical to ignore anything, even so unpromising an object as an old newspaper. He opened it out on the floor of the passage, unrolling the crumpled pages and spreading them flat on the boards. In the middle of the ball was a small quantity of dust, or rather what looked more like earth. Gimblet scooped it up in one hand and let it fall through his fingers into the palm of the other; it was black and fine, but gritty to the touch. With a puzzled expression he stowed some of it away in one of his little boxes, and put the rest in his pocket, wrapped in a piece of the newspaper. Then he disappeared into the coal cellar, which was the only place left that he had not visited. He found nothing there.
By this time it was nearly ten o’clock.
They went back into the hall and Gimblet opened the door of the little library.
“Sit down in here, Sir Gregory,” he said, “you have been on your feet for hours”—and indeed the baronet was dropping with fatigue—. “I am just going out into the garden, and you may as well rest a little. As for you,” he added to Tremmels, “you can go home if you like. I’ve done with the inventory.”
“There’s the key,” the clerk reminded him, “and, if you don’t mind my sitting down here in the hall for a few minutes before I go ... I’m feeling a bit tired myself, sir.”
He certainly looked it, but then he had looked so ill from the beginning that the effect of these hours of standing about and the lack of food, which told heavily upon Sir Gregory, hardly added to the miserable aspect of Tremmels, whatever he might be feeling.
Gimblet told him to sit down, and leaving them went out into the garden. He walked round to the back, and along the path which led to the toolshed. Going into it he hunted, by the light of his torch, among the implements that leant against the wall; but what he sought was not there, and he retreated, unsatisfied. As he returned slowly to the house, he moved his lamp from side to side, so that the light shone on the flower beds between which he walked and not on the path beneath his feet; it was as if he hoped to find what he wanted among the flowers.
Turning the corner of the wall, he saw a dark figure in the act of shutting the further gate; it came towards him and he recognised the artist, Brampton.
“You work late, Mr. Gimblet,” he said, as he met the detective. “Any discoveries?”