And so, once more, we returned to Number 10. No one had entered the house next door during our absence—and no one had come out, at any rate at the front. Of that Fosdick, who was still on duty, was sure. And then there commenced a weary vigil. Personally, I make no bones about it, I dozed through most of the afternoon. We were in the room which communicated with Number 12, but though we pulled back the panel on our side, no sound came from the next house. If she was carrying out her intention of restoring some semblance of order she was being very quiet about it.
Just once we heard the noise of drawers being pulled out, and what sounded like their contents being scattered on the floor; and later on footsteps in the next room caused MacIver to noiselessly slide back the panel into its closed position. But that was all we heard, while the sleepy afternoon drowsed on and the shadows outside grew longer and longer.
I think MacIver was nodding himself when there suddenly came the sound that banished all sleep. It was a scream—a woman’s scream—curiously muffled, and it came from Number 12. It was not repeated, and as we dashed open the other panel the house was as silent as before. We rushed through into the passage and thence into the bedrooms: everywhere the same scene of disorder. Clothes thrown here and there: bedclothes ripped off and scattered on the floor.
“She’s restored a semblance of order all right,” said MacIver grimly, as we went downstairs.
And then he paused: a light was filtering out from the half-opened cellar door.
“The end of the search, Mac,” said Drummond. “Go easy.”
At first as we stood on the top of the stairs we could see nothing. A solitary candle guttered on the floor, throwing monstrous shadows in all directions: and then we smelt it once again—that strange bitter sweet smell—the smell of death.
MacIver’s torch flashed out—to circle round and finally concentrate on something that lay just beyond the buttress wall still stained with Robin Gaunt’s blood. And there was no need to ask what that something was: the poison had claimed another victim.
She lay there—the woman who had taken Miss Simpson’s place—and the scream we had heard had been with her last breath. The same dreadful distortion: the same staring look of horror in the eyes—everything was just the same as in the other cases. But somehow with a woman it seemed more horrible.
“My God! but it’s diabolical stuff,” cried MacIver fiercely as he bent over the woman. “How did it happen, I wonder?”
“It’s on her hand,” said Drummond. “She’s cut it on something. Look, man—there’s a bit of a broken bottle beside her with liquid in it. For Heaven’s sake be careful: the whole place is saturated with the stuff.”
“We’ll leave the body exactly as it is,” said the Inspector, “until Sir John Dallas comes. I’ll go and telephone him now. Captain Drummond, will you and Mr. Stockton mount guard until I return?”
“Certainly,” answered Drummond, and we followed the Inspector up the stairs.
“So that’s what they came to look for,” I remarked as the front door closed behind MacIver.
“Seems like it,” agreed Drummond, lighting a cigarette thoughtfully. “And yet it’s all a little difficult. A fellow may quite easily forget his handkerchief when he goes out, but he ain’t likely to forget his trousers. What I mean, Stockton, is this. The whole thing has been done from the very beginning with the sole idea of getting the secret of that poison. Are we really to believe that after committing half-a-dozen murders and a few trifles of that description they went off and left it behind? Is that the only sample in existence? And if it isn’t, what is the good of worrying about it? Why send back for it at all? It looked as if it was quite a small bottle.
“There’s another point,” he went on after a moment. “Where was that bottle this morning? I’ll stake my dying oath that it wasn’t lying about in the cellar. It was either hidden there somewhere, or that woman took it down there with her. Great Scott! but it’s a baffling show!”
We sat on in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. For me it was Robin who filled them: what had happened to him—where was he now? Or had they killed him? Or had he died as the result of his injuries? It was a possible solution to many things.
“If Gaunt is dead, Drummond,” I said after a while, “it may account for a lot. It’s not likely that he had very large supplies of the stuff in his rooms. And we know anyway that a lot of it was wasted when you shot our friend the night before last. So it seems to me to be perfectly feasible that that bottle down below contained the only existing sample—which in the event of Gaunt’s death would become invaluable to them. They may not know his secret: in which case their only hope would be to get a sample.”
“But why leave it behind?” he objected. “Why go to the worry and trouble of hiding it in the cellar? For I think it must have been hidden there: the idea that that unfortunate woman should have carried it down there seems pointless. It’s just my trouser example, Stockton.”
“Each one may have thought the other had it,” I said, but he shook his head.
“You may be right,” he remarked, “but I don’t believe it was that that she was looking for. And my opinion is that the clue to the whole thing is contained in that bloodstained handkerchief, if only one could interpret it. 3 P 7 A N T. It’s directions for something: it can’t be meaningless.”
Once again we relapsed into silence, until the sound of a taxi outside announced the arrival of someone. It was MacIver, and
