They reached Town at twelve—owing to Wimsey’s brisk work at the wheel—and went straight to Scotland Yard, dropping Bunter, at his own request, as he was anxious to return to the flat. They found the Chief Commissioner in rather a brusque mood—angry with the Banner and annoyed with Parker for having failed to muzzle Pillington.
“God knows where she will be found next. She’s probably got a disguise and a getaway all ready.”
“Probably gone already,” said Wimsey. “She could easily have left England on the Monday or Tuesday and nobody a penny the wiser. If the coast had seemed clear, she’d have come back and taken possession of her goods again. Now she’ll stay abroad. That’s all.”
“I’m very much afraid you’re right,” agreed Parker, gloomily.
“Meanwhile, what is Mrs. Forrest doing?”
“Behaving quite normally. She’s been carefully shadowed, of course, but not interfered with in any way. We’ve got three men out there now—one as a coster—one as a dear friend of the hall-porter’s who drops in every so often with racing tips, and an odd-job man doing a spot of work in the backyard. They report that she has been in and out, shopping and so on, but mostly having her meals at home. No one has called. The men deputed to shadow her away from the flat have watched carefully to see if she speaks to anyone or slips money to anyone. We’re pretty sure the two haven’t met yet.”
“Excuse me, sir.” An officer put his head in at the door. “Here’s Lord Peter Wimsey’s man, sir, with an urgent message.”
Bunter entered, trimly correct in bearing, but with a glitter in his eye. He laid down two photographs on the table.
“Excuse me, my lord and gentlemen, but would you be so good as to cast your eyes on these two photographs?”
“Fingerprints?” said the Chief, interrogatively.
“One of them is our own official photograph of the prints on the £10,000 cheque,” said Parker. “The other—where did you get this, Bunter? It looks like the same set of prints, but it’s not one of ours.”
“They appeared similar, sir, to my uninstructed eye. I thought it better to place the matter before you.”
“Send Dewsby here,” said the Chief Commissioner. Dewsby was the head of the fingerprint department, and he had no hesitation at all.
“They are undoubtedly the same prints,” he said.
A light was slowly breaking in on Wimsey.
“Bunter—did these come off that wineglass?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“But they are Mrs. Forrest’s!”
“So I understood you to say, my lord, and I have filed them under that name.”
“Then, if the signature on the cheque is genuine—”
“We haven’t far to look for our bird,” said Parker, brutally. “A double identity; damn the woman, she’s made us waste a lot of time. Well, I think we shall get her now, on the Findlater murder at least, and possibly on the Gotobed business.”
“But I understood there was an alibi for that,” said the Chief.
“There was,” said Parker, grimly, “but the witness was the girl that’s just been murdered. Looks as though she had made up her mind to split and was got rid of.”
“Looks as though several people had had a near squeak of it,” said Wimsey.
“Including you. That yellow hair was a wig, then.”
“Probably. It never looked natural, you know. When I was there that night she had on one of those close turban affairs—she might have been bald for all one could see.”
“Did you notice the scar on the fingers of the right hand?”
“I did not—for the very good reason that her fingers were stiff with rings to the knuckles. There was pretty good sense behind her ugly bad taste. I suppose I was to be drugged—or, failing that, caressed into slumber and then—shall we say, put out of circulation! Highly distressin’ incident. Amorous clubman dies in a flat. Relations very anxious to hush matter up. I was selected, I suppose, because I was seen with Evelyn Cropper at Liverpool. Bertha Gotobed got the same sort of dose, too, I take it. Met by old employer, accidentally, on leaving work—£5 note and nice little dinner—lashings of champagne—poor kid as drunk as a blind fiddler—bundled into the car—finished off there and trundled out to Epping in company with a ham sandwich and a bottle of Bass. Easy, ain’t it—when you know how?”
“That being so,” said the Chief Commissioner, “the sooner we get hold of her the better. You’d better go at once, Inspector; take a warrant for Whittaker or Forrest—and any help you may require.”
“May I come?” asked Wimsey, when they were outside the building.
“Why not? You may be useful. With the men we’ve got there already we shan’t need any extra help.”
The car whizzed swiftly through Pall Mall, up St. James’s Street and along Piccadilly. Halfway up South Audley Street they passed the fruit-seller, with whom Parker exchanged an almost imperceptible signal. A few doors below the entrance to the flats they got out and were almost immediately joined by the hall-porter’s sporting friend.
“I was just going out to call you up,” said the latter. “She’s arrived.”
“What, the Whittaker woman?”
“Yes. Went up about two minutes ago.”
“Is Forrest there too?”
“Yes. She came in just before the other woman.”
“Queer,” said Parker. “Another good theory gone west. Are you sure it’s Whittaker?”
“Well, she’s made up with old-fashioned clothes and greyish hair and so on. But she’s the right height and general appearance. And she’s running the old blue-spectacle stunt again. I think it’s the right one—though of course I didn’t get close to her, remembering your instructions.”
“Well, we’ll have a look, anyhow. Come along.”
The coster had joined them now, and they all entered together.
“Did the old girl go up to Forrest’s flat all right?” asked the third detective of the porter.
“That’s right. Went straight to the door and started something about a subscription. Then Mrs. Forrest pulled her in quick and slammed the door. Nobody’s come down since.”
“Right. We’ll take ourselves up—and mind you don’t
