“You were going to tell us something about a clue,” said Gordon gently.
“Ah yes: one of them came up to me afterwards—it was the one they call Ginger. I wonder why are boys with red hair called Ginger? Ginger is of a greenish-yellow tinge, if you come to think of it. Where was I? Yes, he came up to me with a photograph, and told me that it had fallen out of one of the pockets as they carried the body. That is almost impossible, you know, for a man always carries photographs in his breast pocket, and a thing can’t fall out of a man’s breast pocket unless you turn him upside down and shake him. Ginger was obviously scared at the thought that he might be concealing a clue—he referred to it as a ‘clue’ himself—and did not care to give it to the police; so he handed it over to me.”
“And you?”
“I have it here in my pocket—the breast pocket, observe. To tell the truth, I am a little absentminded, and it was only during the inquest that I remembered the photograph; it seemed to me too late then to mention anything about it in public.”
“Carmichael,” said Gordon very seriously, “if you don’t produce that photograph it will, I gather, be necessary to turn you upside down and shake you.”
“Of course, of course.” Carmichael fumbled in his pocket, and from a voluminous pocketbook produced with great deliberation the object of their impatience. It represented the head and shoulders of a young woman: the features were refined, and might in real life have been beautiful. The camera cannot lie, but the camera of the local “artist” generally finds it difficult to tell nothing but the truth: and this was the work of a Mr. Campbell, whose studio was no further off than Binver. Meanwhile the photograph was not in its first youth; and the style of coiffure represented suggested (with what could be seen of the dress) a period dating some ten years back. It was not signed or initialled anywhere.
“Well,” said Reeves, when the trove had been handed round, “that doesn’t prove that we’re much further on. But it looks as if we had come across a phase of Brotherhood’s life that wasn’t alluded to at the inquest.”
Gordon shuddered. “Just think if one went off the hooks suddenly, and people came round and tried to dig up one’s past from the old photographs and keepsakes one had hidden away in drawers! One should destroy everything—certainly one should destroy everything.”
But Reeves was no sentimentalist; he was a sleuthhound with nose down on the trail. “Let’s see,” he reflected, “I can’t remember at the moment what the present Binver photographer is called.”
“You will find it,” suggested Carmichael, “on that group over your head.” Reeves had it down in a minute.
“Yes, that’s right: Campbell,” he said. “Now, if one of us goes off in Binver and says he’s found this photograph, and would Mr. Campbell be kind enough to let us know the address it was originally sent to, so that we can restore it, that ought to do the trick. Photographers are full of professional etiquette, but I don’t see that we could go wrong here.”
“I don’t mind going,” said Marryatt; “as a matter of fact, I’ve got to ride in to see a man on business.”
“Heaven defend me,” said Reeves, “from having business with anybody at Binver!”
“You will, though, with this man, some day.”
“Why, who is it?”
“The undertaker,” said Marryatt.
“Undertakers,” said Carmichael, “have been very much maligned in literature. They are always represented as either cynical or morbid in the exercise of their profession. As a matter of fact, I am told that no class of men is more considerate or more tactful.”
“I’ll be back in three-quarters of an hour,” said Marryatt, buttoning the photograph away. “Carmichael, I hope you won’t produce any more clues while I’m away.”
When Marryatt had gone, and Carmichael had sauntered off to the billiard-room, Reeves sat on there fidgeting and discussing the possible significance of the latest find.
“It’s odd,” he said, “how one can live for years in the artificial life of a club like this and not know one’s neighbours in the least. We’re a world to ourselves, and an outside face like that conveys nothing to us; probably the name won’t either. What beats me at present about the photograph is this—how long ago would you say that photograph was taken?”
“I’m not an authority on ladies’ fashions, I’m afraid, but surely it’s prewar.”
“Exactly. Now, Brotherhood only came here just at the end of the war, at least, he only joined the Club then; I asked the Secretary about it. And ‘Davenant’ joined even later, only a year or two ago. When a man takes a house here, one assumes that he’s only come here for the golf. But it looks as if Brotherhood, or else his phantom self, Davenant, knew the Binver world already—at least well enough to possess photographs of its belles.”
“Not necessarily,” Gordon pointed out. “She may have had no later portrait to give him than that one, even if she gave it him only a year or two ago.”
“That’s true. And yet women generally keep their portraits pretty well up-to-date. Here’s another point—from the caddie’s account, it seems that this portrait must have been loose in the pocket; but he can’t always have carried it like that. … Good Lord, what a fool I am! What size was the empty frame in Davenant’s cottage?”
“Oh, just that size. It’s a common size, of course, but I suppose most likely it was that portrait which ‘Davenant’ caught up in a hurry before he left his house; and crammed it into his pocket anyhow. Assuming, of course,
