She could not remember. No one was paying attention to anything but getting into the theatre, and in any case she never noticed people on the street.
"I'm sorry," she said shakily, when he was taking his departure. "I'd like to be of use if I could. I keep seeing that knife, and I'd do anything to have the man that did it arrested." And as Grant went out he dismissed her from his mind.
Her husband, whom he had to travel into the City to see — he could have had them all to the Yard, but he wanted to see how they were occupying their time on this the first day after the murder — was more helpful. There had been a fair amount of churning in the queue, he said, as the doors were opened, so that their relations with their neighbors had altered a bit. As far as he could remember, the person who had stood beside the dead man and in front of himself was a man who had belonged to a party of four in front of that again, and had gone in with them. He, like his wife, said that he had not consciously seen the man until he had fallen.
The other five Grant found equally innocent and equally unhelpful. None had noticed the man. That amazed Grant just a little. How had no one seen him? He must have been there all the time. One doesn't shove in at the head of a queue without attracting a most uncomfortable amount of attention. And even the most unobservant of people will recall what their eyes have seen even if they were unconscious of taking notice at the time. Grant was still puzzling when he got back to the Yard.
There he sent a notice to the Press which asked any one who had seen a man leave the queue to communicate with Scotland Yard. Also a full description of the dead man, and as much of the progress of the investigations as was to be given to the public. Then he summoned Williams and demanded an account of his stewardship. Williams reported that the dead man's fingerprints had been photographed according to instructions and sent up for investigation, but he was unknown to the police. No corresponding fingerprints were to be found among those betraying dockets. The revolver expert could find nothing individual about the revolver. It was probably second hand, had been used quite a lot, and was of course a very powerful weapon.
"Huh!" said Grant disgustedly. "Some expert!" and Williams smiled.
"Well, he did say there was nothing distinctive about it," he reminded.
And then he explained that before sending the revolver to the experts he had tested it for fingerprints, and finding quite a lot had had them photographed. He was now waiting, for the prints.
"Good man," said Grant, and went in to see the superintendent, carrying the Print of the dead man's fingertips with him. He gave Barker a précis of the day's events without adducing any theories about foreigners beyond remarking that it was a very un-English crime.
"Precious unproductive kind of clues we've got," said Barker. "All except the dagger, and that's more like something out of a book than part of an honest-to-goodness crime."