“Well, sir,” said the detective, as the man and woman turned away from the window and vanished, “what do you make of ’em? Do you recognize ’em?”
“I recognize the man,” I replied, “and I believe I have seen the woman before, but they aren’t the people I expected to see.”
“Oh, dear!” said he. “That’s a bad lookout. Because I don’t think there is anybody else there.”
“Then,” I said, “we have made a false shot—and yet—well, I don’t know. I had better think this over and see if I can make anything of it.”
I turned into the studio, where I found Marion—who had been listening attentively to this dialogue—in markedly better spirits.
“It seems a regular muddle,” she remarked cheerfully. “They have come to arrest the wrong man and now it appears that he isn’t there.”
“Don’t talk to me for a few minutes, Marion, dear,” said I. “There is something behind this and I want to think what it can be. I have seen that woman somewhere, I feel certain. Now where was it?”
I cudgelled my brains for some time without succeeding in recovering the recollections connected with her. I re-visualized the face that I had seen through the glass, with its deep-set, hollow eyes and strong, sharply sloping eyebrows, and tried to connect it with some person whom I had seen, but in vain. And then in a flash it came to me. She was the widow whom I had noticed at the inquest. The identification, indeed, was not very complete, for the veil that she had worn on that occasion had considerably obscured her features. But I had no doubt that I was right, for her present appearance agreed in all that I could see with that of the woman at the inquest.
The next question was, Who could she be? Her association with the bottle-nosed man connected her in some way with what Thorndyke would have called “the case”; for that man, whoever he was, had certainly been shadowing me. Then her presence at the inquest had now a sinister suggestiveness. She would seem to have been there to watch developments on behalf of others. Could she be a relative of Mrs. Morris? A certain faint resemblance seemed to support this idea. As to the man, I gave him up. Evidently there were several persons concerned in this crime, but I knew too little about the circumstances to be able to make even a profitable guess. Having reached this unsatisfactory conclusion, I turned, a little irritably, to Marion, exclaiming:
“I can make nothing of it. Let us get on with some work to pass the time.”
Accordingly we began, in a halfhearted way, upon Polton’s two moulds. But the presence of the two detectives was disturbing, especially when, having finished the exterior, they brought their pails and ladders inside and took up their station at the lobby window. We struggled on for a time; but when, about noon, Miss Boler made her appearance with a basket of provisions and a couple of bottles of wine, we abandoned the attempt, and occupied ourselves in tidying up and laying a table.
“Don’t you think, Marion,” I said, as we sat down to lunch (having provided for the needs of the two “painters,” who lunched in the lobby), “that it would be best for you and Arabella to go home before any fuss begins?”
“Whatever Miss Marion thinks,” Arabella interposed firmly, “I am not going home. I came down expressly to see this villain captured, and here I stay until he is safely in custody.”
“And I,” said Marion, “am going to stay with Arabella. You know why, Stephen. I couldn’t bear to go away and leave you here after what you have told me. We shall be quite safe in here.”
“Well,” I temporized, seeing plainly that they had made up their minds, “you must keep the door bolted until the business is over.”
“As to that,” said Miss Boler, “we shall be guided by circumstances;” and from this ambiguous position neither she nor Marion would budge.
Shortly after lunch I received a further shock of surprise. In answer to a loud single knock, I hurried out to open the door. A tradesman’s van had drawn up at the kerb, and two men stood on the threshold, one of them holding a good-sized parcel. I stared at the latter in astonishment, for I recognized him instantly as the second shadower of the Dartmouth Park Hill adventure; but before I could make any comment both men entered—with the curt explanation “police business”—and the last-comer shut the door, when I heard the van drive off.
“I am Detective-sergeant Porter,” the stranger explained. “You know what I am here for, of course.”
“Yes,” I replied, and, turning to the other man, I said: “I think I have seen you before. Are you a police-officer, too?”
My acquaintance grinned. “Retired Detective-sergeant,” he explained, “name of Barber. At present employed by Dr. Thorndyke. I think I have seen you before, Sir,” and he grinned again, somewhat more broadly.
“I should like to know how you were employed when I saw you last,” said I. But here Sergeant Porter interposed: “Better leave explanations till later, Sir. You’ve got a back gate, I think.”
“Yes,” said one of the “painters.” “At the bottom of the garden. It opens on an alley that leads into the next road—Chilton Road.”
“Can we get into the garden through the studio?” the Sergeant asked; and on my answering in the
