[CHAPTER XXIII]
Gimblet was late for the inquest, which had been fixed for two o’clock. By the time he arrived the evidence of Higgs and the policeman he had fetched, and that of Brampton, the artist, and the house agents’ clerk had been already taken, and there only remained his own and the doctor’s to be heard.
Nothing new was brought to light, and the jury returned a verdict of “Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.”
Gimblet did not judge it expedient to disclose the theories he had formed on the subject of the crime. As he walked away from the house in the company of Jennins, whom he had found there when he arrived, the inspector said to him:
“An old-clothes dealer in Victoria Street has communicated with us. They have bought what they think, from the published description, to be the dresses and cloaks worn by Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner on Monday night. I am going to get that French maid of theirs to go down to the place with me and see if the people are right in their assumption. They say they bought the things from a young woman who gave an address in Pimlico and the name of Julie Querterot. Can she be the Madame Q. of the note? If she is, it is strange that she should not give a false name; but everything about this case is mysterious.”
“It is not she,” said Gimblet, “it was her mother. I have just been to their house and seen her. As for mysteries, there is only one left as far as I am concerned, and that is the whereabouts of West, and the question whether he has not by this time exchanged his disguise of a black beard for another in which it will be harder to identify him. Everything else, I think, is quite clear, with the exception of a few trifling details, and I do not think it will be long before we may hope to lay our hands on Mr. West himself.”
Gimblet refused, however, to impart his lately acquired information to Jennins, telling him, much to the inspector’s disgust, that he would know all about it soon enough.
“And a tangled web you’ll find it, Jennins,” said he.
They were interrupted by a messenger, who informed Jennins that Miss Turner was conscious and anxious to make a statement.
Gimblet and the inspector went together to the hospital, where they found Barbara looking very much better than the day before. She was recovering wonderfully, they were told, but must not excite herself more than could be avoided. Indeed, she would not have been allowed to see them yet, if she had not been fretting so much to tell her story that it was thought best to let her do it. She must not, however, be made aware of the death of her friend if it were possible to conceal it from her for the next few days.