"I don't suggest that she went willingly," said Baker.
"But you do suggest that, being convinced she had gone, your search of the house was not very thorough?"
"I didn't mean to suggest that, either, sir," answered Baker, some resentment in his tone.
"We want Zena here, Wigan, to ask one of her absurd questions," Quarles went on. "I'll ask one in her place. Why was the police station rung up at all?"
"The woman rushed to the 'phone for help, and——"
"My dear Wigan, the directory is open at the page giving the number of the police station. What was her assailant doing while she turned up the number and rang up the exchange?"
"Probably he wasn't in the room, and her woman's wit——"
"Ah, you've been reading sensational fiction," he interrupted. "Let us stick to facts. The call must have been a deliberate one and would take time. There was evidently no desperate struggle in this room last night. The position of the two chairs by the hearth suggests that two persons at some time during the evening were sitting here together—one of them a man, since the hearth shows that he smoked. The time would be somewhere between six o'clock, when the servant went out, and nine-thirty, when the telephone message was received. If Baker can fix the time of the taxi's arrival in Melbury Avenue, perhaps we can be even more accurate."
"The taxi wasn't there at half-past seven," said the constable.
"Then we may say between seven-thirty and nine-thirty," said Quarles. "Now the only thing which suggests violence of any kind is the instrument hanging over the table. Had the person using it been forcibly dragged away, the instrument might have fallen in that position, but it would have been a stupendous miracle if the receiver had swung to its place on the hook. No, Wigan, the receiver was replaced carefully to cut the connection, and the instrument was probably hung as it is deliberately to attract attention. I come back to my question, then: Why was the police station rung up at all?"