ANOTHER PLOT
Among my letters on the following morning was a small packet which I opened. Within was a tablet of dark-brown toilet-soap bearing the name of a well-known firm of manufacturers. With it was a typewritten letter upon dark-blue commercial paper with a printed heading. I was addressed as “H. Granfield, Esq.,” and the letter proved to be a polite intimation that as the firm in question was putting on to the market a new brand of toilet-soap, they begged me to accept with their compliments the enclosed sample. I was also informed that, if I liked it, I could purchase it of their agents, a certain firm of chemists in King Street, Hammersmith.
“Looks rather decent soap!” remarked Harry as I passed it to him, and then I re-wrapped it in its paper and placed it aside.
At eleven o’clock I sat with Rivero, Gabrielle and Harry Hambledon in the dull reception-room at Scotland Yard, that same room wherein I had given information concerning the whereabouts of Mateo Sanz.
The Superintendent who received us was a well-dressed courtly man, rather stout and elderly, who became intensely interested when I related the whole story, much as I have set it down in the foregoing pages.
The consultation was a momentous one. Rivero sat amazed when I described my chance meeting with Gaston Suzor, and the clever manner in which I had been inveigled into De Gex’s house in Stretton Street. Indeed, on comparing Gabrielle’s story with my own, I now saw that at the time I entered the house both she and the girl Engledue were in their normal health. The coffee had not then been served though Moroni had gone out of the room, no doubt to put the drug into the cup which was to be offered to Gabrielle Tennison, and which apparently was placed by mistake before the mystery-man himself. Or else the changing of the cups was to allay any suspicion that might arise in the mind of the other victim, which was perhaps most likely.
According to Gabrielle, it seemed that at the moment of her seizure Horton re-entered the room and said some words in a low tone to his master, whereupon the latter rose, left the table, and evidently went to greet me, leaving Gabrielle in Miss Engledue’s care.
Horton, even though he had been engaged in serving the dinner at the rear of the house, was apparently also on the look-out for me, and now I recollected that on my journey down from York, I had mentioned to Suzor my habit of going to visit my uncle in Orchard Street on certain evenings. He had asked me to dine with him on the seventh, but I had excused myself as my uncle would expect me that evening. He evidently held previous knowledge that the route I habitually took was through Stretton Street, hence the plot to get me within that house. Besides, it was quite likely that Suzor himself was watching for me and had sent Horton out to call me. In any case, the plot had been well-timed and elaborately thought out.
The fact was plain that Gabrielle Engledue, who had sent her luggage to the station cloak-room and was about to return to Madrid, was killed, probably by the scratch of a pin upon which orosin had been placed.
“All this is most astounding,” declared Superintendent Fletcher. “Of course, De Gex contrived that no inquiry would be made concerning the dead girl. He might have shown you the body of Miss Engledue, but he had some motive in keeping it from you, and obtaining a death certificate for the girl who was still living.”