“But he was so clever,” I answered. “He told me that at that hour he could not discover in which room his friend was really sleeping.”
“But the night-porter was on duty,” exclaimed the hotel manager. “He had the register and would have been able at once to tell you the number of the room.”
The fellow seemed so frank in revealing to me his money, the portraits of his family, and his private letters, that I had taken his statement as the truth.
Yet, even now, I could not believe that he had any sinister design—not until the Professor had examined those three carpet pins.
In response to close questions put to me by Señor Andrade, with whom was Señor Rivero, the head of the Detective Branch, I gave a description of my midnight visitor as accurately as I could. I told them how I had covered him with my automatic pistol, and how afterwards we had laughed together at our mental fear of each other.
Señor Rivero, the bald-headed, black-bearded chief of the branch of criminal investigation, suddenly stopped me when I mentioned the scar upon the neck of the advocate from Burgos.
“Did you notice that there was any deformity of his hands?” he asked quickly.
In an instant I recollected that the little finger of his right hand had been amputated at the first joint, and I told him so.
“Ah!” exclaimed the shrewd, dark-bearded official. “Perhaps we may here find something of interest. Just a few moments,” and he rose and left us.
We chatted with Señor Andrade for about a quarter of an hour when the detective returned with a bundle of papers and four photographs of a man taken in police style upon one negative, full face, three-quarter, half and profile.