“I’m afraid, sir,” said the attendant, “that the gentleman who has gone has taken your coat. They were on the same peg, I know. I am very sorry, sir.”
The major was speechless with wrath. What the devil was the good of being sorry; and how the deuce was he to get his coat back?
“But,” I interposed, “if the stranger has got your coat, then this coat must be his.”
“I know,” said Podbury; “but I don’t want his beastly coat.”
“No,” I replied, “but it may be useful for identification.”
This appeared to afford the bereaved officer little consolation, but as the car was now ready, he bustled away, and I, having directed the man to put the coat away in a safe place, went back to my patient.
Mrs. Chater was by now fairly recovered, and had developed a highly vindictive interest in her late assailant. She even went so far as to regret that he had not taken at least some of her diamonds, so that robbery might have been added to the charge of attempted murder, and expressed the earnest hope that the officers would not be foolishly gentle in their treatment of him when they caught him.
“By the way, Dr. Jervis,” said Miss Halliwell, “I think I ought to mention a rather curious thing that happened in connection with this dance. We received an acceptance from a Mr. Harrington-Baillie, who wrote from the Hotel Cecil. Now I am certain that no such name was proposed by any of the spinsters.”
“But didn’t you ask them?” I inquired.
“Well, the fact is,” she replied, “that one of them, Miss Waters, had to go abroad suddenly, and we had not got her address; and as it was possible that she might have invited him, I did not like to move in the matter. I am very sorry I didn’t now. We may have let in a regular criminal—though why he should have wanted to murder Mrs. Chater I cannot imagine.”