CHAPTER XXV
THE CARD ON THE DOOR
The chief made no immediate reply to Fullaway's somewhat excitedoutburst; he led his little party from the room, and in the corridorturned to Celia and the cafe keeper.
"That's all, Miss Lennard, thank you," he said. "Sorry to have to ask youto take part in these painful affairs, but it can't be helped. M.Bonnechose, I'm obliged to you--you'll hear from me again very soon. Inthe meantime, keep counsel--don't talk to anybody except Madame--nogossiping with customers, you know. Mr. Allerdyke, will you see MissLennard downstairs and into a cab, and then join Mr. Fullaway and meagain?--we must have a talk with the police and the hotel people."
When Allerdyke went back into the hotel he found Blindway waiting for himat the door of a ground-floor room in which the chief, Fullaway, a Citypolice-inspector and a detective were already closeted with the landlordand landlady. The landlord, a somewhat sullen individual, who appeared tobe greatly vexed and disconcerted by these events, was already beingquestioned by the chief as to what he knew of the young man whose bodythey had just seen, and he was replying somewhat testily.
"I know no more about him than I know of any chance customer," he wassaying when Allerdyke was ushered in by Blindway, who immediately closedthe door on this informal conclave. "You see what this house is?--asecond-class house for gentlemen having business in this part, roundabout the Docks. We get a lot of commercial gentlemen, sea-faring men,such-like. Lots of our customers are people who are going to foreignplaces--Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, and so on--they put up here just forthe night, before sailing. I took this young man for one of that sort--infact, I think he made some inquiry about one of the boats."
"He did," affirmed the landlady. "He asked William, the head-waiter, whattime the Rotterdam steamer sailed this morning."
"And that's about all we know," continued the landlord. "I never took anyparticular notice of him, and--"
"Just answer a few questions," said the chief, interrupting him quietly."We shall get at what we want to know more easily that way. What time didthis young man come to the hotel yesterday?"
The landlord turned to his wife with an expressive gesture.
"Ask her," he answered. "She looks after all that--I'm not so much inthe office."
"He came at seven o'clock last night," said the landlady. "I was in theoffice, and I booked him and gave him his room--27."
"Was he alone?"
"Quite alone. He'd the suit-case that's upstairs in the room now, and anovercoat and an umbrella."
"Of course," said the chief, "he gave you some name--some address?"
"He gave the name and address of Frank Herman, Walthamstow," replied thelandlady, opening a ledger which she had brought into the room. "Thereyou are--that's his writing."
The chief drew the book to him, glanced at the entry, and closed the bookagain, keeping a finger in it.
"Well, what was seen of him during the evening!" he asked.
"Nothing much," replied the landlady. "He had his supper in thecoffee-room--a couple of chops and coffee. He was reading the papers inthe smoking-room until about half-past ten; I saw him myself goingupstairs between that and eleven. As I didn't see him about next morningand as his breakfast wasn't booked, I asked where he was, and thechambermaid said there was a card on his door saying that he wasn't to becalled till eleven."
"Where is that card?" asked the chief.
"It's here in this envelope," answered the landlady, who seemed to bemuch more alert and much sharper of intellect than her husband. "I tookcare of it when we found out what had happened. I suppose you'll takecharge of it?"
"If you please," answered the chief. He took the envelope, lookedinside it to make sure that the card was there, and turned to thelandlady again.
"Yes?" he said. "When you found out what had happened. Now, who did findout what had happened?"
"Well," answered the landlady, "the chambermaid came down soon aftereleven, and said she couldn't get 27 to answer her knock. Of course, Iunderstood that he wanted to catch the Rotterdam boat which sailed aboutnoon, so I sent my husband up. And as he couldn't get any answer--"
"I went in with the chambermaid's key," broke in the landlord, "and therehe was--just as you've seen him--dead. And if you ask me, he was cold,too--been dead some time, in my opinion."
"The surgeon said several hours--six or seven," remarked the inspector inan aside to the chief. "Thought he'd been dead since four o'clock."
"No signs of anything in the room, I suppose?" asked the chief. "Nothingdisturbed, eh?"
"Nothing!" replied the landlord stolidly. "The room was as you'd expectto find it; tidy enough. And nothing touched--as the police that werecalled in at first can testify. They can swear as his money was all rightand his watch and chain all right--there'd been no robbery. And," headded with resentful emphasis, "I don't care what you nor nobodysays!--'tain't no case of murder, this! It's suicide, that's what it is.I don't want my house to get the name and character of a murder place! Ican't help it if a quiet-looking, apparently respectable young fellowcomes and suicides himself in my house--there's nobody can avoid that, asI know of, but when it comes to murder--"
"No one has said anything about murder so far," interrupted the chiefquietly. "But since you suggest it, perhaps we'd better ask who you'd gotin the house last night." He opened the register at the page in which hehad kept his finger, and looked at the last entries. "I see thatthree--no, four--people came in after this young man who called himselfFrank Herman. You booked them, I suppose?" he went on, turning to thelandlady. "Were they known to you?"
"Only one--that one, Mr. Peter Donaldson, Dundee," answered thelandlady. "He's the representative of a jute firm--he often comes here.He's in the house now, or he was, an hour ago--he'll be here for two orthree days. Those two, Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen--they appeared to beforeigners. They were here for the night, had breakfast early, and wentaway by some boat--our porter carried their things to it. Quiet, elderlyfolks, they were."
"And the fourth--John Barcombe, Manchester--you didn't know him?" askedthe chief, pointing to the last entry. "I see you gave him Number 29--twodoors from Herman."
"Yes," said the landlady. "No--I didn't know him. He came in about nineo'clock and had some supper before he went up. He'd his breakfast ateight o'clock this morning, and went away at once. Lots of ourcustomers do that--they're just in for bed and breakfast, and wescarcely notice them."
"Did you notice this man--Barcombe?" asked the chief.
"Well, not particularly. But I've a fair recollection of him. A ratherpale, stiffish-built man, lightish brown hair and moustache, dressed in adark suit. He'd no luggage, and he paid me for supper, bed, and breakfastwhen he booked his room," replied the landlady. "Quite a quiet,respectable man--he said something about being unexpectedly obliged tostop for the night, but I didn't pay any great attention."
The chief looked attentively at the open page of the register. Then hedrew the attention of those around him to the signature of John Barcombe.It was a big, sprawling signature, all the letters sloping downward fromleft to right, and being of an unusual size for a man.
"That looks to me like a feigned handwriting," he said. "However, notethis. You see that entry of Frank Herman? Observe his handwriting. Nowcompare it with the writing on the card which was fixed on the door of27--Herman's room. Look!"
He drew the card out of its envelope as he spoke and laid it beside theentry in the register. And Marshall Allerdyke, bending over his shoulderto look, almost cried out with astonishment, for the writing on the cardwas certainly the same as that which Chettle had shown him on thepost-card found on Lydenberg, and on the back of the photograph of JamesAllerdyke discovered in Lydenberg's watch. It was only by a big effortthat he checked the exclamation which was springing to his lips, andstopped himself from snatching up the card from the table.
"You observe," said the chief quietly, "you can't fail to observe thatthe writing in the register, is not the writing of the card pinn
ed on thedoor of Number 27. They are quite different. The writing of Frank Hermanin the register is in thick, stunted strokes; the writing on the card isin thin, angular, what are commonly called crabbed strokes. Yet it issupposed that Herman put that card outside his bedroom door. How is it,then, that Herman's handwriting was thick and stunted when he registeredat seven o'clock and slender and a bit shaky when he wrote this card at,say, half-past ten or eleven? Of course, Herman, or whatever his realname is, never wrote the line on that card, and never pinned that card onhis door!"
The landlord opened his heavy lips and gasped: the landlady sighed with agradually awakening interest. Amidst a dead silence the chief went onwith his critical inspection of the handwriting.
"But now look at the signature of the man who called himself JohnBarcombe, of Manchester. You will observe that he signed that name in agreat, sprawling hand across the page, and that the letters slope fromleft to right, downward, instead of in the usually accepted fashion ofleft to right, upward. Now at first sight there is no great similarityin the writing of that entry in the register and that on the card--one isrounded and sprawling, and the other is thin and precise. But there isone remarkable and striking similarity. In the entry in the registerthere are two a's--the a in Barcombe, the a in Manchester. On the oneline on the card found pinned to the door there are also two a's--the ain please; the a in call. Now observe--whether the writing is big,sprawling, thin, precise; feigned, obviously, in one case, natural, Ithink, in the other, all those four a's are the same! This man has grownso accustomed to making his a's after the Greek fashion--a--done in oneturn of the pen--that he has made them even in his feigned handwriting!There's not a doubt, to my mind, that the card found on Herman's door waswritten, and put on that door, by the man who registered as JohnBarcombe. And," he added in an undertone to Allerdyke, "I've no doubt,either, that he's the man of the Eastbourne Terrace affair."
The landlord had risen to his feet, and was scowling gloomily ateverybody.
"Then you are making it out to be murder?" he exclaimed sulkily. "Justwhat I expected! Never had police called in yet without 'em makingmountains out of molehills! Murder, indeed!--nothing but a case ofsuicide, that's what I say. And as this is a temperance hotel, and not alicensed house, I'll be obliged to you if you'll have that body takenaway to the mortuary--I shall be having the character of my place takenaway next, and then where shall I be I should like to know!"
He swung indignantly out of the room, and his wife, murmuring that it wascertainly very hard on innocent people that these things went on,followed him. The police, giving no heed to these protests, proceeded toexamine the articles taken from the dead man's clothing. Whatever hadbeen the object of the murderer, it was certainly not robbery. There wasa purse and a pocket-book, containing a considerable amount of money ingold and notes; a good watch and chain, and a ring or two of some value.
"Just the same circumstances as in the Eastbourne Terrace affair," saidthe chief as he rose. "Well--the thing is to find that man. You've nodoubt whatever, Mr. Fullaway, that this dead man upstairs is the man youknew as Ebers, a valet at your hotel?"
"None!" answered Fullaway emphatically. "None whatever. Lots of peoplewill be able to identify him."
"That's good, at any rate," remarked the chief. "It's a long steptowards--something. Well, I must go."
Allerdyke was in more than half a mind to draw the chief aside and tellhim about Chettle's discoveries as regards the handwriting, but while hehesitated Fullaway tugged earnestly at his sleeve.
"Come away!" whispered Fullaway. "Come! We're going to cut in at thisourselves!"