“I shall want to take a photograph of this stick presently, Woodward. Will you be very careful to see that it is not touched by anybody beforehand?”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Wimsey stood the stick carefully in its corner again, and then, as though it had put a new train of ideas into his mind, walked across to the shoeshelf.
“Which were the shoes General Fentiman was wearing at the time of his death?”
“These, my lord.”
“Have they been cleaned since?”
Woodward looked a trifle stricken.
“Not to say cleaned, my lord. I just wiped them over with a duster. They were not very dirty, and somehow—I hadn’t the heart—if you’ll excuse me, my lord.”
“That’s very fortunate.”
Wimsey turned them over and examined the soles very carefully, both with the lens and with the naked eye. With a small pair of tweezers, taken from his pocket, he delicately removed a small fragment of pile—apparently from a thick carpet—which was clinging to a projecting brad, and stored it carefully away in an envelope. Then, putting the right shoe aside, he subjected the left to a prolonged scrutiny, especially about the inner edge of the sole. Finally he asked for a sheet of paper, and wrapped the shoe up as tenderly as though it had been a piece of priceless Waterford glass.
“I should like to see all the clothes General Fentiman was wearing that day—the outer garments, I mean—hat, suit, overcoat and so on.”
The garments were produced, and Wimsey went over every inch of them with the same care and patience, watched by Woodward with flattering attention.
“Have they been brushed?”
“No, my lord—only shaken out.” This time Woodward offered no apology, having grasped dimly that polishing and brushing were not acts which called for approval under these unusual circumstances.
“You see,” said Wimsey, pausing for a moment to note an infinitesimally small ruffling of the threads on the left-hand trouser leg, “we might be able to get some sort of a clue from the dust on the clothes, if any—to show us where the General spent the night. If—to take a rather unlikely example—we were to find a lot of sawdust, for instance, we might suppose that he had been visiting a carpenter. Or a dead leaf might suggest a garden or a common, or something of that sort. While a cobweb might mean a wine-cellar, or—or a potting-shed—and so on. You see?”
“Yes, my lord” (rather doubtfully).
“You don’t happen to remember noticing that little tear—well, it’s hardly a tear—just a little roughness. It might have caught on a nail.”
“I can’t say I recollect it, my lord. But I might have overlooked it.”
“Of course. It’s probably of no importance. Well—lock the things up carefully. It’s just possible I might have to have the dust extracted and analyzed. Just a moment—Has anything been removed from these clothes? The pockets were emptied, I suppose?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“There was nothing unusual in them?”
“No, my lord. Nothing but what the General always took out with him. Just his handkerchief, keys, money and cigar-case.”
“H’m. How about the money?”
“Well, my lord—I couldn’t say exactly as to that. Major Fentiman has got it all. There was two pound notes in his notecase, I remember. I believe he had two pounds ten when he went out, and some loose silver in the trouser pocket. He’d have paid his taxi-fare and his lunch at the Club out of the ten-shilling note.”
“That shows he didn’t pay for anything unusual, then, in the way of train or taxis backwards and forwards, or dinner, or drinks.”
“No, my lord.”
“But naturally, this Oliver fellow would see to all that. Did the General have a fountain pen?”
“No, my lord. He did very little writing, my lord. I was accustomed to write any necessary letters to tradesmen, and so on.”
“What sort of nib did he use, when he did write?”
“A J pen, my lord. You will find it in the sitting-room. But mostly I believe he wrote his letters at the Club. He had a very small private correspondence—it might be a letter or so to the Bank or to his man of business, my lord.”
“I see. Have you his checkbook?”
“Major Fentiman has it, my lord.”
“Do you remember whether the General had it with him when he last went out?”
“No, my lord. It was kept in his writing desk as a rule. He would write the checks for the household here, my lord, and give them to me. Or occasionally he might take the book down to the Club with him.”
“Ah! Well, it doesn’t look as though the mysterious Mr. Oliver was one of those undesirable blokes who demand money. Right you are, Woodward. You’re perfectly certain that you removed nothing whatever from those clothes except what was in the pockets?”
“I am quite positive of that, my lord.”
“That’s very odd,” said Wimsey, half to himself. “I’m not sure that it isn’t the oddest thing about the case.”
“Indeed, my lord? Might I ask why?”
“Why,” said Wimsey, “I should have expected—” he checked himself. Major Fentiman was looking in at the door.
“What’s odd, Wimsey?”
“Oh, just a little thing struck me,” said Wimsey, vaguely. “I expected to find something among those clothes which isn’t there. That’s all.”
“Impenetrable sleuth,” said the major, laughing. “What are you driving at?”
“Work it out for yourself, my dear Watson,” said his lordship, grinning like a dog. “You have all the data. Work it out for yourself, and let me know the answer.”
Woodward, a trifle pained by this levity, gathered up the garments and put them away in the wardrobe.
“How’s Bunter getting on with those calls?”
“No luck, at present.”
“Oh!—well, he’d better come in now and do some photographs. We can finish the telephoning at home. Bunter!—Oh, and, I say, Woodward—d’you mind if we take your fingerprints?”
“Fingerprints, my lord?”
“Good God, you’re not trying to fasten anything on Woodward?”
“Fasten what?”
“Well—I mean, I thought it was only burglars and people who had fingerprints
