The crushed policeman led the way to Baynes Mews and pointed out the
door where he had seen the figure of Tickler sitting. The door did not
yield to Surefoot's pressure. He took from his pocket some skeleton keys
which he had borrowed at the station without authority, and tried them
on the door. Presently he so manipulated the key that he succeeded in
snapping back the lock. He pushed open the door, sent a ray of light up
the dusty stairs, and climbed, breathing stertorously, to the top. He
came upon a landing and a barrier of matchwood, in which was a door. He
tried this and again had recourse to his skeleton key.
Without a warrant he had no right whatever to invade the privacy of an
English home; but Surefoot had never hesitated to break the law in the
interests of justice or the satisfaction of his curiosity.
He found he was in a large, bare room, almost unfurnished except for a
big, cheap-looking wardrobe, a chair, a table, a large mirror, and a
square of carpet. At the back of the room, behind the matchboarding
partition, was a wash-place. Singularly enough, there was no bed, not
even a couch. On the wall was an old print representing the marriage of
Queen Victoria. It was in a dusty maple frame and hung groggily. Mr.
Smith, who had a tidy mind, tried to straighten the picture, and
something fell to the floor. It was a white glove which contained
something heavy; it struck the floor with a clump. He picked it up and
laid it on the dressing-table. The glove was of kid, with three strips
of black lace at the back, and it held a key. It was nothing delicate in
the way of keys, but a large, old-fashioned door-key of a type
fashionable before the introduction of patent locks.
What was remarkable about this key was its colour: it had been painted
with silver paint.
Surefoot looked at the key thoughtfully. An amateur had painted it--the
inside of the business end had not been touched; the steel was bright
and evidently the key was often used.
He brought this beneath the one naked electric globe which served to
illuminate the room, but found nothing new about it. Putting the key in
his pocket, he continued his search, without, however, discovering
anything more noteworthy, until he found the cupboard. Its door seemed
part of the matchboard lining of the room, to the height of which it
rose. There was no handle, and the keyhole was so concealed in the
dovetailing that it might have passed unnoticed but for the fact that
Surefoot Smith was a very painstaking man.
He thought at first it was a Yale lock, but when he tested it out with
the aid of a big clasp-knife, which contained half a dozen tools, he
found it was a very simple "catch." The cupboard held a complete dress
suit, including silk hat and overcoat. On a shelf was a number of plain
but exquisitely woven handkerchiefs, socks, folded dress ties and the
like.
He searched the pockets but could find no clue to the ownership of the
suit. There was no maker's tab on the inside of the coat, or concealed
in the breast pocket. Even the trousers buttons were not inscribed with
the tailor's name.
He examined the dress shirts; they were similarly unidentifiable. He
found nothing more except a large bottle of expensive perfume, a monocle
attached to a broad silk ribbon, and a locked box. This he forced under
the lamp, and found three wigs, perfectly made. One was wrapped in
silver tissue, and it was either new or had been newly dressed.
"Bit queer, isn't it?" said Surefoot Smith aloud.
"Yes, sir," said the constable, who had been silent until that moment.
"I was talking to myself," said Surefoot coldly.
He made another round of the room, but without adding to the sum of his
knowledge.
He replaced everything where he had found it, except the key and the
glove. After all, there might be a perfectly simple explanation of his
finds. The man may have been an actor. The fact that Tickler had been
sitting on his doorstep, listening to his drunken song, meant little,
and would certainly carry no weight with a jury.
On the other hand, if the explanation was so simple, Surefoot Smith was
in a position of some embarrassment. Against his name, if the truth be
told, were many black marks for unauthorised entry. This might very well
be the cause of another.
He went out into the mews, locked the door, and walked silently into
Portland Place, followed by the policeman. And Surefoot Smith did not
forget that the constable might possibly be a witness at any inquiry
before the Commissioner.
"I think that is all, officer," he said, "but I am not blaming you for
failing to report. Things like that," he went on, "slip out of a man's
mind. For instance, I left my house yesterday and forgot to take my
pipe."
The officer murmured his polite surprise. He was a little mollified, and
was sufficiently intelligent to understand the reason for this change of
attitude.
"I suppose it's all right, sir, going into that place without a
warrant?" he said. "I'm asking because I'm a young officer, new to the
force----"
Surefoot Smith surveyed him soberly.
"I went," he said, with great deliberation, "because you reported a
suspicious circumstance. You told me you had reason to believe that the
murderer might be hiding in that loft."
The constable gasped at this atrocious charge, gasped but was
speechless.
"So that, if there's any trouble over it," said Surefoot, "we're both in
it. And my word's better than yours. Now go home and keep your mouth
shut--it won't be hard for you." He could not resist the temptation to
gibe. "In fact, I should say you were a pretty good mouth-shutter."
The key and the white glove he locked away in a drawer of his desk at
Scotland Yard. There was nothing remarkable about either article.
Surefoot Smith would indeed have been glad to sacrifice his finds for
one packet of cartridges, the bullets of which corresponded to those
extracted from the unfortunate Tickler. In his mind, however, he was
satisfied that there was some connection between that flat in Baynes
Mews and the murder of the little thief. The finding of the dress
clothes signified little; it might only mean that some swell, for
reasons best known to himself, wanted a place where he could change
without going home. Such things happen in the West End of London, and in
the east or any other end of any other large city.
The absence of the bed rather puzzled him, but here again it simply
removed one explanation of the flat being used. Yet, if he could have
foreseen the future, he would have known that he had in his possession a
clue more valuable than the science of ballistics could have given to
him.