“And your answers were smart, too,” he laughed. “You were careful not to commit yourself.”
“Do you think he’ll keep the appointment?” I asked eagerly.
“That remains to be seen,” answered my friend, glancing at the bull’s-eye to see if it were burning well. “If he’s not a blunderer he won’t.”
“Well, let’s hope he does,” I said. “You would arrest him, of course?”
“I don’t know,” he answered doubtfully. “We might learn more by keeping observation upon him for a day or two.”
“Well,” I said, “we haven’t yet searched the place thoroughly. Let’s see what is above.”
My companion followed me upstairs rather reluctantly, I thought, passing the room where the mysterious tragedy had occurred and ascending to the floor above. There were four bedrooms, each well-furnished, but finding that they contained nothing of a suspicious character we continued to the top floor, where there were several smaller low-ceilinged rooms opening from a narrow passage. Two of them were evidently the sleeping apartments of the servants, the third was filled with lumber, but the fourth, which overlooked the back premises, long and narrow, was fitted as a kind of workshop or laboratory. A curious smell greeted our nostrils as we opened the door—a smell very much like the perfume on the dead woman’s handkerchief.
We found a gas-jet and lit it, afterwards gazing round the place with some surprise. Upon shelves around the walls were various bottles containing liquids; on the table stood two curious-looking globes of bright steel, riveted like those of a steam-boiler, and connected by a long tubular coil rolled into three consecutive spirals which ended with a kind of nozzle. From the fact that an electric battery and a lathe also stood in the room we at once came to the conclusion that the master of that house had been engaged in some scientific investigations.
From place to place we went, searching every corner for any written document or letter, until at last I found, crumpled and cast into the empty grate, an old envelope on which I read the address: “Professor Douglas Dawson.”
“At any rate we’ve got the name of the occupant of this place,” I said, handing my find to the police-officer.