"Could you make an excuse to let me have a look at Miss Hailsham?" Flamborough inquired.
"She’s not here to-day," Silverdale answered. "Off with a sore throat, or something of that sort. But if you’ll come back another time, I can take you to her room if you wish. You can pose as a visitor whom I’m showing round, if you don’t want to appear officially."
"Very good, sir. I’ll drop in some other day. Now, another point, if you don’t mind. Mrs. Silverdale wore a signet ring. Can you tell me anything about it? Did she get it from you or did she buy it herself?"
"I didn’t make her a present of it," Silverdale answered promptly. "I believe she got it made by some jeweller or other. I remember a few years ago she took it into her head to seal all her letters—some passing fad in the crowd she used to associate with, I suppose. But once she started doing it, she kept it up. I think she must have got the signet ring made for that purpose."
Inspector Flamborough nodded thoughtfully as though he attached some importance to this information. Then, in a casual tone he inquired:
"You weren’t at home last night, of course? Where were you?"
"I was—"
Suddenly a thought seemed to cross Silverdale’s mind and he halted abruptly in his sentence. Then he amended his statement most obviously.
"I spent the night working here."
Inspector Flamborough noted the words in his pocket-book with marked deliberation. Then he looked round the room and seemed dissatisfied with something. As though to give himself time to think before asking another question, he moved over to the window and gazed down thoughtfully into the main thoroughfare below. Whatever his reflections may have been, the result of them was singularly feeble. He turned back to Silverdale and put a final question:
"I suppose you can’t think of any other point that might help us to throw light on this business, sir?"
Silverdale shook his head decidedly.
"I’m quite in the dark about it all."
The Inspector looked him up and down deliberately for a moment.
"Well, in that case, sir, I don’t think we need take up any more of your time. I’ll remove the police from your house. It’s been disinfected already by the sanitary people, so you can go back there any time you choose, now. Thanks for the help you’ve given us."
Flamborough did not speak to Sir Clinton until they had put the length of a corridor between themselves and Silverdale’s laboratory.
"I think I’ll drop in and see Dr. Markfield again, sir," he explained. "I’m not at all satisfied about some things."
"Do so, Inspector. I quite agree with you!"
"I’ll make an excuse about the arrangements for this analysis. Not that I’ll lay much stress on Markfield’s results when we get them, sir. He’s made a bad impression on me over that evidence he gave us before. People shouldn’t equivocate in a murder case merely to shield their friends. We’ve troubles enough without that sort of thing."
"Well, handle him tactfully, Inspector, or he may turn stubborn. If he takes refuge in ‘I don’t remember,’ or anything of that sort, you’ll not get much out of him." Sir Clinton observed.
"I shan’t frighten him," Flamborough assured him, as they approached Markfield’s room.
As they entered, Markfield looked up in surprise at seeing them once more.
"It’s just occurred to me that I forgot to make arrangements about handing that stuff over to you for analysis," Flamborough said, as he went forward. "It’ll be in sealed jars, of course; and I’d prefer to hand it over to you personally. I suppose I could always get hold of you either here or at your house?"
"You’d better come here. My housekeeper’s away just now nursing some relation who’s down with ’flu, and my house is empty except when I happen to be at home myself. You’ll find me here between nine in the morning and six at night—except for lunch-time, of course. I generally clear out of here at six and dine down town."
"I suppose you have a long enough day of it," the Inspector said in a casual tone. "You don’t come back here and work in the evening?"
"Sometimes, if there’s something interesting that brings me back. But I haven’t done that for weeks past."
"This place is shut up at night, isn’t it? I mean, you don’t keep a porter or a watchman on the premises?"
"No. But each of the seniors has a private key, of course. I can get in any time I wish. It’s the same at the Research Station."
The Inspector seemed to be struck by an idea.
"Any valuable stuff on the premises, by any chance?"
"Nothing a thief could make much out of. There’s a thousand or fifteen hundred pounds worth of platinum, dishes, electrodes, and so forth, in the safe. I believe the man on the beat is supposed to give special attention to the place and notify anything suspicious immediately; but I’ve never known anything of the sort to happen."
"Rather a difficult position for our men if the staff can come and go freely at night," the Inspector pointed out. "If a constable sees a light in the window, what’s he to make of it? Does Dr. Silverdale work late often?"
"I really couldn’t tell you."
"You don’t see much of him privately, sir?"
"Very little," Markfield answered. "Only when I run across him by accident down town, like last night."
"You met him, did you?"
"Hardly even that. I happened to drop into the Grosvenor for dinner after I left here. I can’t get meals at home just now unless I cook ’em myself. As I was finishing my coffee, Silverdale came into the dining-room with Miss Deepcar and took a table in the window recess. I didn’t disturb them, and I don’t think they noticed me."
"Then they were just beginning dinner when you left the place? What time was that, can you tell me?"
Markfield looked suspiciously at the Inspector.
"You’re trying to get me to say something that you want to use against—well, someone else, shall we say? I don’t care about it, frankly. But since you could get the information from the waiter who served them, there’s no harm done. I went to the Grosvenor at 6.35 or thereabouts. I was going down to the Research Station afterwards to pick up some notes, so I dined early that night. Silverdale and Miss Deepcar came in just as I was finishing dinner—that would be about a quarter past seven or thereby. I expect they were going on to some show afterwards."
"Was she in evening dress?"
"Ask me another. I never can tell whether a girl’s in evening dress or not, nowadays, with these new fashions."
Inspector Flamborough closed his notebook and took his leave, followed by Sir Clinton. When they reached the street again and had got into the waiting car, the Chief Constable turned to his subordinate.
"You collected a lot of interesting information that time."
"I noticed you left it all to me, sir; but I think I got one or two things worth having. It’s a bit disconnected; and it’ll take some thinking before it’s straightened out."
"What’s your main inference, as things stand?" Sir Clinton inquired.
"Well, sir, it’s a bit early yet. But I’ve been wondering about one thing, certainly."
"And that is?"
"And that is whether Peeping Tom’s name wasn’t Thomasina," Flamborough announced gravely.
"There are two sexes, of course," Sir Clinton admitted with equal gravity. "And inquisitiveness is supposed to be more strongly developed in the female than in the male. The next thing will be to consider whether Mr. Justice shouldn’t be rechristened Justitia. One ought to take all possibilities into account."
Chapter Eight. THE HASSENDEAN JOURNAL
When Ronald Hassendean’s journal was found to consist of four bulky volumes of manuscript, Sir Clinton hastily disclaimed any desire to make its acquaintance in extenso and passed over to Inspector Flamborough the task of ploughing through it in detail and selecting those passages which seemed to have direct bearing on the case. The Inspector took the diary home with him and spent a laborious evening, lightened at times by flashes of cynical enjoyment when the writer laid bare certain aspects of his soul. Next day Flamborough presented himself at Sir Clinton’s office with the books under his arm; and the paper slips which he had used as markers made a formidable array as they projected from the edges of the volumes.