malter himself opened the door of his small private hotel; a quiet, reserved man who looked like a retired butler. he was the sort of man who is slow of speech, and he had not replied to matherfield's guarded inquiry about mr. robert hannaford when a door in the little hall opened, and a girl appeared, who, hearing the inspector's question, immediately came forward as if in answer.
hetherwick recognised this girl. he had seen her only the previous afternoon in fountain court, in company with a man whom he knew slightly—kenthwaite, a fellow-barrister. kenthwaite, evidently, was doing the honours—showing her round the temple; hetherwick, in fact, in passing them, had overheard kenthwaite telling his companion something of the history of the old houses and courts around them. and the girl had attracted him then. she was a pretty girl, tall, slim, graceful, and in addition to her undoubted charm of face and figure, she looked to have more than an average share of character and intelligence, and was listening to her guide with obvious interest and appreciation. hetherwick had set her down as being, perhaps, a country cousin of kenthwaite's, visiting london, maybe, for the first time. anyhow, in merely passing her and kenthwaite he had noticed her so closely that he now recognised her at once; he saw, too, that she recognised him. but there was another matter more pressing than that—and she had gone straight to it.
"are these gentlemen asking for my grandfather?" she inquired, coming still nearer and glancing from the hotel proprietor to the two callers. "he's not come in——"
hetherwick was glad to hear that the dead man was the girl's grandfather. certainly it was a close relationship, but, after all, not so close as it might have been. and he was conscious that the inspector was relieved, too.
"we're asking about mr. robert hannaford," he said. "is he your grandfather—ex-superintendent hannaford, of sellithwaite? just so—well, i'm very sorry to bring bad news about him——"
he broke off, watching the girl keenly, as if he wanted to make sure that she would take the news quietly. and evidently reassured on that point, he suddenly went on definitely:
"you'll understand?" he said. "it's—well, the worst news. the fact is——"
"is my grandfather dead?" interrupted the girl. "if that's it, please say so—i shan't faint, or anything of that sort. but—i want to know!"
"i'm sorry to say he is dead," replied matherfield. "he died suddenly in the train at charing cross. a seizure, no doubt. was he well when you saw him last?"
the girl turned to the hotel proprietor, who was standing by, evidently amazed.
"never saw a gentleman look better or seem better in my life than he did when he went out of that door at half-past six o'clock!" he exclaimed. "best of health and spirits!"
"my grandfather was quite well," said the girl quietly. "i never remember him being anything else but well—he was a very strong, vigorous man. will you please tell me all about it?"
matherfield told all about it, turning now and then to hetherwick for corroboration. in the end he put a question.
"this man that mr. hetherwick saw in your grandfather's company?" he suggested. "do you recognise anyone from that description?"
"no!—no one," answered the girl. "but my grandfather knew people in london whom i don't know. he has been going about a good deal since we came here, three days ago—looking out for a house."
"well, we shall have to find that man," remarked matherfield. "of course, if you'd recognised the description as that of somebody known to you——"
"no," she said again. "i know nobody like that. but now—do you wish me to go with you—to him?"
"it's not necessary—i wouldn't to-night, if i were you," replied matherfield. "i'll call again in the morning. meanwhile, leave matters to us and the doctors. you've friends in london, i suppose?"
"yes, we have friends—relations, in fact," said the girl. "i must let them know at once."
matherfield nodded and turned to the door. but hetherwick lingered. he and the girl were looking at each other. he suddenly spoke.
"i saw you this afternoon," he said, "in fountain court, with a man whom i know slightly, mr. kenthwaite. is he, by any chance, one of the relations you mentioned just now? because, if so, he lives close by me. i can tell him, if you wish."
"no," she answered, "not a relative. we know him. you might tell him, if you please, and if it's no trouble."
"no trouble at all," said hetherwick. "and—if i may—i hope you'll let me call in the morning to hear if there's anything i can do for you?"
the girl gave him a quick, responsive glance.
"that's very kind of you," she said. "yes."
hetherwick and the police inspector left the little hotel and walked up the street. matherfield seemed to be in a brown study. somewhere up in the strand and farther away down fleet street the clocks began striking.
"seems to me," exclaimed matherfield suddenly, "seems to me, mr. hetherwick, this is—murder!"
"you mean poison?" said hetherwick.
"likely! why, yes, of course, it would be poison. we must have that man! you can't add to your description of him?"
"you've already got everything that i can tell. pretty full and accurate, too. i should say you oughtn't to have much difficulty in laying hands on him—from my description."
matherfield made a sound that was half a laugh and half a groan.
"lord bless you!" he said. "it's like seeking a needle in a bundle of hay, searching for a given man in london! i mean, of course, sometimes. more often than not, in fact. here's this chap rushes up the stairs at charing cross, vanishes—where? one man amongst seven millions of men and women! however——"
then they parted, and hetherwick, full of thought, went home to his chambers and to bed, and lay equally thoughtful for a long time before he went to sleep. he made a poor night of it, but soon after eight o'clock he was in kenthwaite's chambers. kenthwaite was dressing and breakfasting at the same time—a ready-packed brief bag and an open time-table suggested that he was in a hurry to catch a train. but he suspended his operations to stare, open-mouthed, wide-eyed at hetherwick's news.
"hannaford!—dead!" he exclaimed. "great scott!—why, he was as fit as a fiddle at noon yesterday, hetherwick! he and his grand daughter called on me, and i took 'em to lunch—i come from sellithwaite, you know, so of course i knew them. hannaford had to go as soon as we'd lunched—some appointment—so i showed the girl round a bit. nice girl, that—clever. name of rhona. worth cultivating. and the old man's dead! bless me!"
"i don't think there's much doubt about foul play," observed hetherwick.
"looks uncommonly like it," said kenthwaite. he went on with his double task. "well," he added, "sorry, but i can't be of any use to miss hannaford to-day—got to go down to a beastly quarter sessions case, my boy, and precious little time to catch my train. but to-morrow—perhaps you can give 'm a hand this morning?"
"yes," answered hetherwick. "i'm doing nothing. i'll go round there after a while. i'm interested naturally. it's a queer case."
"queer! seems so, rather," assented kenthwaite. "well—give miss hannaford my sympathy and all that, and tell her that if there's anything i can do when i get back—you know what to say."
"she said she'd relations here in london," remarked hetherwick.
"cousins—aunts—something or other—over tooting way, i think," agreed kenthwaite. "twenty past eight!—hetherwick, i'll have to rush for it!"
he swallowed the last of his coffee, seized the bag and darted away; hetherwick went back to his own chambers and breakfasted leisurely. and all the time he sat there he was pondering over the event of the previous midnight, and especially upon the sudden disappearance of the man with the stained fingers. to hetherwick that disappearance seemed to argue guilt. he figured it in this way—the man who ran away at charing cross had poisoned this other man in some clever and subtle fashion, by means of something which took a certain time to take effect, and, when that time arrived, did its work with amazing swiftness. hetherwick, in his war service, had seen men die more times than he cared to remember. he had seen some men shot through the brain; he had seen others shot through the heart. but he had never seen any of these men—some of them shot at his very side—die with the extraordinary quickness with which hannaford had died. and he came to a conclusion: if the man with the stained fingers had poisoned hannaford, then he was somebody who had a rare and a profound knowledge of poisons.
he went round to surrey street at ten o'clock. miss hannaford, said the hotel proprietor, had gone with her aunt, a mrs. keeley, who had come early that morning, to see her grandfather's dead body—some police official had fetched them. but she had left a message for anyone who called—that she would not be long away. and hetherwick waited in the little dingy coffee-room; there were certain questions that he wanted to put to rhona hannaford, also he wanted to give her certain information.
"very sad case this, sir," observed the hotel proprietor, hovering about his breakfast-tables. "cruel end for a fine healthy gentleman like mr. hannaford!"
"very sad," agreed hetherwick. "you said last night—or, rather, this morning—that mr. hannaford was in good health and spirits when he went out early in the evening?"
"the best, sir! he was a cheery, affable gentleman—fond of his joke. joked and laughed with me as i opened the door for him—never thinking, sir, as i should never see him again alive!"
"you don't know where he was going?"
"i don't, sir. and his granddaughter—clever young lady, that, sir—she don't know, neither. she went to a theatre, along of her aunt, the lady that came early this morning. we wired the bad news to her first thing, and she came along at once. but him—no, i don't know where he went to spend his evening. been in and out, and mostly out, ever since they were here, three days ago. house-hunting, so i understood."
rhona hannaford presently returned, in company with a motherly-looking woman whom she introduced as her aunt, mrs. keeley. then hetherwick remembered that he had not introduced himself; rectifying that omission, he found that kenthwaite had told rhona who he was when he passed them the previous afternoon. he delivered kenthwaite's message and in his absence offered his own services.
"it's very good of you," said rhona. "i don't know that there's anything to do. the police seem to be doing everything—the inspector who was here last night was very kind just now, but, as he said, there's nothing to be done until after the inquest."
"yes," said hetherwick. "and that is—did he say when?"
"to-morrow morning. he said i should have to go," replied rhona.
"so shall i," observed hetherwick. "they'll only want formal evidence from you. i shall have to say more. i wish i could say more than i shall have to say."
the two women glanced at him inquiringly.
"i mean," he continued, "that i wish i had stopped the other man from leaving the train. i suppose you have not heard anything from the police about him—that man?"
"nothing. they had not found him or heard of him up to just now. but you can tell me something that i very much want to know. you saw this man with my grandfather for some little time, didn't you?"
"from st. james's park to charing cross."
"did you overhear their conversation, or any of it?"
"a good deal—at first. afterwards, your grandfather began to whisper, and i heard nothing of that. but one reason i had for calling upon you this morning was that i might tell you what i did overhear, and another that i might ask you some questions arising out of what i heard. mr. hannaford was talking to this man, now missing, about some portrait or photograph. evidently it was of a lady whom he, your grandfather, had known ten years ago; whom the other man had also known. your grandfather said that when they got to his hotel he would show the portrait to the other man who, he asserted, would be sure to recognise it. now, had mr. hannaford said anything to you? do you know anything about his bringing any friend of his to this hotel last night? and do you know anything about any portrait or photograph such as that to which he referred?"
"about bringing anyone here—no! he never said anything to me about it. but about a photograph, or rather about a print of one—yes. i do know something about that."
"what?" asked hetherwick eagerly.
"well, this," she answered. "my grandfather, who, as i dare say you know by this time, was for a good many years superintendent of police at sellithwaite, had a habit of cutting things out of newspapers—paragraphs, accounts of criminal trials, and so on. he had several boxes full of such cuttings. when we were coming to town the other day i saw him cut a photograph out of some illustrated paper he was reading in the train, and put it away in his pocket-book—in a pocket-book, i ought to say, for he had two or three pocket-books. this morning i was looking through various things which he had left lying about on his dressing-table upstairs, and in one of his pocket-books i found the photograph which he cut out in the train. that must be the one you mention—it's of a very handsome, distinguished-looking woman."
"if i may see it——" suggested hetherwick.
within a couple of minutes he had the cutting in his hand—a scrap of paper, neatly snipped out of its surrounding letterpress, which was a print of a photograph of a woman of apparently thirty-five to forty years of age, evidently of high position, and certainly, as rhona hannaford had remarked, of handsome and distinguished features. but it was not at the photograph that hetherwick gazed with eyes into which surmise and speculation were beginning to steal; after a mere glance at it, his attention fixed itself on some pencilled words on the margin at its sides:
"through my hands ten years ago!"
"is that your grandfather's writing?" he inquired suddenly.
"yes, that's his," replied rhona. "he had a habit of pencilling notes and comments on his cuttings—all sorts of remarks."
"he didn't mention this particular cutting to you when he cut it out?"
"no—he said nothing about it. i saw him cut it out, and heard him chuckle as he put it away, but he said—nothing."
"you don't know who this lady is?"
"oh, no! you see, there's no name beneath it. i suppose there was in the paper, but he cut out nothing but the picture and the bit of margin. but from what he's written there, i conclude that this is a portrait of some woman who had been in trouble with the police at some time or other."
"obvious!" muttered hetherwick. he sat silently inspecting the picture for a minute or two.
"look here," he said suddenly, "i want you to let me help in trying to get at the bottom of this—naturally you want to have it cleared up. and to begin with, let me have this cutting, and for the present don't tell anyone—i mean the police or any inquirers—that i have it. i'd like to have a talk about it to kenthwaite. you understand? as i was present at your grandfather's death, i'd like to solve the mystery of it. if you'll leave this to me——"
"oh, yes!" replied rhona. "but—you think there has been foul play?—that he didn't die a natural death?—that it wasn't just heart failure or——"
the door of the little coffee-room was opened and matherfield looked in. seeing hetherwick there, he beckoned him into the hall, closing the door again as the young barrister joined him. hetherwick saw that he was full of news, and instantly thought of the man with the stained fingers.
"well?" he said eagerly, "laid your hands on that fellow?"
"oh, him?—no!" answered matherfield. "not a word or sign of him—so far! but the doctors have finished their post-mortem. and there's no doubt about their verdict. poisoned!"
matherfield sank his voice to a whisper as he spoke the last word. and hetherwick, ready though he was for the news, started when he got it—the definiteness of the announcement seemed like opening a window upon a vista of obscured and misty distances. he glanced at the door behind him.
"of course, they'll have to be told, in there," said matherfield, interpreting his thoughts. "but the thing's certain. our surgeon suspected it from the first, and he got a home office specialist to help at the autopsy—they say the man was poisoned by some drug or other—i don't understand these things—that had been administered to him two or three hours before he died, and that when it did work, worked with absolutely lightning-like effect."
"yes," muttered hetherwick thoughtfully. "lightning-like effect—good phrase. i can testify that it did that!"
matherfield laid a hand on the door.
"well," he said, "i'd better tell these ladies. then—there are things i want to know from the granddaughter. i've seen her—and her aunt—before this morning. i found out that hannaford brought up and educated this girl, and that she lived with him in sellithwaite since she left school, so she'll know more about him than anybody. and i want to learn all i can. come in with me."
