Coldwell looked at the wrapper; it was thick with dust. Even as he turned back one corner of the rag a fine cloud arose.
“Do you know anything about these, Mrs. Inglethorne?”
She shook her head.
“Or the pistol?”
The woman was paralyzed; her face had gone a ghastly grey as she realized the enormous significance of that find. There they had lain, month after month, at least £500 worth of jewellery, the results of one of her lodger’s little coups, and she none the wiser.
“Never—seen—it!” Mrs. Inglethorne found a difficulty in breathing.
“This has been used as a hiding-place before,” said the inspector, as he laid the pistol and rings upon the deal table.
He examined the Browning, noted its make and number, and, having carefully removed the magazine and dislodged the cartridges from the chamber, smelt at the barrel.
“It has been fired recently, I should imagine; it still smells of cordite. Is this yours, Dawlish?”
“No, sir; I’ve never seen it before.”
“Humph!” The inspector sat down on the bed in exactly the place where the girl had sat the night before. He looked round for Mrs. Inglethorne, but that untidy woman had vanished.
“Nobody told you about that hiding-place?”
“No, sir—”
“Hullo, Elizabeth!” It was Leslie’s interruption. The frail child stood in the doorway, shyly smiling at the beautiful lady of her dreams.
She whispered something that the girl could not catch, and Leslie went nearer to her, took the two thin hands in hers, and, stooping, kissed the pale cheeks.
“Tea?” she said with a laugh. “No, dear, I don’t think we want tea. It was very nice of you to come—”
The child’s eyes were fixed on the table; they were wide open, and in their depths Leslie saw a look of fear.
“What is it?” asked Leslie.
“That big gun,” whispered the child. “Mother had it this morning, and I was so frightened.”
The sharp-eared Coldwell heard.
“Your mother had it this morning, my dear?” he said kindly. “Where did she have it?”
“In the kitchen. A gentleman left it—a little gentleman with a yellow face. Mother brought it into the kitchen and said we all ought to be killed.”
She clapped her hands to her mouth with an exclamation of fright, for only then did she remember the strict injunctions laid upon her. Coldwell strode out of the room to the head of the stairs and called Mrs. Inglethorne in a stentorian voice. It was a long time before he had an answer, and then, by the tremulous voice, he guessed that part of the conversation between himself and the child had been overheard.
“Come up here,” he said curtly, and Mrs. Inglethorne came lumbering up the stairs.
“This pistol came to your house this morning—from whom?”
The woman’s mouth was dry with terror. She blinked from one to the other.
“A gentleman brought it,” she gulped. “He said it belonged to Mr. Dawlish—and would I put it under the floor—without a word of a lie, sir, if I never move from here.”
Coldwell’s gimlet eyes searched her unwholesome face.
“You told me you had never seen the pistol before. Who sent it?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know, sir. I’ve never seen the man before in my life, if I never move—”
“You’ll move!” said Coldwell grimly. “And darned quick, if you don’t tell me the truth!”
But to her story she stuck, swearing by numerous gods, some of whom were unfamiliar to Leslie, that she knew nothing whatever of the pistol except that it had been brought there by a perfect stranger who she thought was a friend of Peter Dawlish.
To Leslie Maughan’s astonishment, the inspector appeared to accept this story, and to find nothing venal in the act of concealment.
“You did a very foolish thing, Mrs. Inglethorne. The next time a perfect stranger comes and asks you to conceal firearms in your lodger’s room, you had better notify the police.”
He slipped the pistol into his pocket, and looked round for Elizabeth, but she had vanished.
“That lets you out, Dawlish,” he said. “At least, it does for the moment. If I were you, I would make an inspection of the room and see if there are other likely hiding-places where stuff could be planted.”
He had a consultation with the local inspector, and then he and Leslie walked back to their cab.
“You’ve let her down rather lightly, haven’t you, Mr. Coldwell?”
He gave her a quick sidelong glance.
“Minnow fishing never did appeal to me,” he drawled. “Especially while one of the big pikes are hovering around, and it’s the pike I’m after. And if this minnow doesn’t lead me to him, I’ll be astonished.”
“You accept Peter Dawlish’s story?”
He nodded, as he handed her into the cab. When he had followed and had slammed the rackety door and the machine was in motion, he explained.
“The detective who searched the house last night found that loose board and the hole underneath. He might have missed the diamond rings, but he couldn’t have missed the gun. Therefore, I knew it had been planted since. Peter might have put it there, of course, but the odds were all against that theory. The true story was the one told by the child. The little yellow-faced gentleman was probably one of the three who attacked Dawlish last night.”
For the first time she learnt of that surprising outrage which had been committed in Severall Street the night Peter had visited her.
He admitted a little irritably that the case had gone outside his own experience.
“Here’s a woman who has been masquerading as a man for the past fifteen years, found dead, with an emerald in her hand, worth, at a rough guess, a thousand pounds. She was shot at close quarters with the pistol I have in my pocket—”
She gasped.
“You don’t mean that?”
He nodded.
“I do mean it. I’d like to bet a month’s pay that I’m right. You think a murderer would be crazy to put
