"Millsborough got my information about eight-thirty p.m. By nine every available man was out on the hunt, to round up all Melchard's places, and to go through all the riverside dens and harbour slums. The county police, horse and foot, under the chief constable, were all over the place. Martingale—that's the man I've just been talking to—rushed a strong party of the Millsborough force out to 'The Myrtles' in cars. House deserted, except a fellow lying in bed, groaning. In the back kitchen a woman's frock had been burned. Unconsumed fragments were found—green silk shot with red. Upstairs, in a bedroom, pair of lady's shoes—shiny green leather."
Caldegard rose from his seat, opened his mouth to speak, and sat down again.
In relation to merely normal death the abandoned garment carries an intimate cruelty which will unexpectedly break down control proof against direct attack.
But to hear, in these surroundings, of his daughter's little green shoes, and to remember how, the first time she had worn them, she had flourished at him from her low chair that pretty foot and reckless green stocking, and to catch himself now foolishly wondering where the green stockings themselves would be found, brought poor Caldegard to an embittered weakness which he fought only in vague desire neither to break into cursing nor decline upon weak tears.
The great man of science had not attracted the superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department; but the father grunting savagely: "Oh, damn the drug!" was another man. And Finucane, by no means himself convinced that the worst must be argued from these fragments of evidence, yet found himself at a loss for encouraging words. Pity, however, forced him to the effort, and he would have spoken, had not Randal Bellamy touched him on the arm.
"Not now," he said. "You can't wash that picture from his mind. There'll be more news coming."
With a tap on the door, it came.
To the superintendent's consent there entered a police sergeant.
"There's a gentleman wishes to see you, sir. Says he can't keep awake another ten minutes. Has important evidence, and a person he wishes to introduce to you. Name o' Bellamy."
"Oh, hell!" said Randal, in a voice like his brother's, "fetch him up."