"A very valuable piece of evidence, sir," was the inspector's reply,
placing it in his pocket. "We shall get at the bottom of the affair
now, depend upon it. The only thing is, we mustn't act too eagerly. We
must have them all--or none; that's my opinion."
Then, with his two men, he methodically searched the room, they
carefully replacing everything as they found it in a manner which showed
them to be expert investigators of crime. Indeed, while Pickering was
an inspector of police, the two men were sergeants of the branch of the
Criminal Investigation Department attached to the station. They
examined quite a heterogeneous collection of things--the usual things
one finds in a man's rooms. From a drawer in a kind of sideboard I took
out a quantity of letters, beneath which I found a woman's necklace, a
magnificent antique thing in diamonds and emeralds, which had apparently
been hurriedly concealed there, and perhaps forgotten.
Pickering took it in his hand and examined it close to his lamp.
"Real, without a doubt, and a costly one, too! Been taken off some rich
woman, perhaps. See! the snap has been broken. Perhaps they are afraid
to get rid of it at once, so are keeping it. For the present let's put
it back."
As I replaced it I saw in the corner of the drawer a ring--a gold one
with an engraved amethyst. This I at once recognised as poor Eric's
signet ring! Concealed among papers, pamphlets, string, medicine
bottles and other odds and ends, were other articles of jewellery mostly
costly, as well as several beautiful ropes of pearls.
Were they, we wondered, the spoils of the dead? What had been the fate
of Eric Domville? Had he been entrapped there, despoiled, as others had
been, and then allowed to descend those fatal stairs to his doom?
That was Pickering's opinion, just as it was mine.
I longed to be allowed time to inspect the few letters beneath which the
emerald necklace had been concealed, but Pickering urged me on, saying
that we had yet much to do before morning.
So we entered the other rooms leading from the landing, but all were
disappointing--all save one.
The door was opposite that wherein Eric had faced his enemies, and when
we opened it we saw that it was a dirty faded place which had once been
a bedroom, but there was now neither bedstead nor bedding. Upon the
floor was an old drab threadbare carpet, in the centre of which was a
large dark stain.
"Look!" I cried, pointing to it and bending to examine it more closely.
"Yes, I see," remarked the inspector, directing his lamp full upon it.
"That's blood, sir--blood without the least doubt!"
"Blood!" I gasped. "Then Domville was probably invited in here and
struck down by those fiends--the brutes!"
Edwards went on his knees, and by the aid of his lamp examined the stain
more carefully, touching it with his fingers.
"It's hardly quite dry, even now," he remarked. "It's soaked right in--
through the boards, probably."
I stood appalled at the sight of that gruesome evidence of a crime. I
was not familiar with such revolting sights, as were my companions.
How, I wondered, had Eric been struck down? What motive had Sybil's
friend in reporting that he was alive and in Paris, when he was not?
Pickering, in the meanwhile, made a tour of the room. From a chair that
had recently been broken he concluded that the person attacked had
defended himself with it desperately, while there was a great rent in
one of the dirty lace curtains that hung at the window, and it was
slightly blood-stained, as though it had got caught in the struggle.
The last room we examined, which lay at the rear of the house, presented
another peculiar feature, inasmuch as it was entirely bare save a table,
a chair and a meagre bed, and it showed signs of rather recent
occupation. Beside the grate was a cooking-pot, while on the table a
dirty plate, a jug and a knife showed that its occupant had cooked his
own food.
Pickering made a tour of the place, throwing the light of his lantern
into every corner, examining the plate and taking up some articles of
man's clothing that lay in confusion upon the bed. Then suddenly he
stopped, exclaiming,--
"Why, somebody's been kept a prisoner here! Look at the bars before the
window, and see, the door is covered with sheet-iron and strengthened.
The bolts, too, show that whoever was put in here couldn't escape. This
place is a prison, that's evident," and taking up a piece of hard, stale
bread from the table he added, "and this is the remains of the
prisoner's last meal. Where is he now, I wonder?"
"Down below," suggested the detective Edwards.
"I fear so," the inspector said, and taking me to the window showed me
how it only looked out upon the roof of the next house and in such a
position that the shouts of anyone confined there would never be heard.
"They probably kept their victims here to extort money, and then when
they had drained them dry they gave them their liberty. They went
downstairs," he added grimly, "but they never gained the street."