The Cask, Freeman Wills Crofts [snow like ashes series .txt] 📗

with a powerful lens for traces of sawdust. All their contents were also inspected, Felix’s two-seater, which was standing in the coach-house, receiving its full share of attention. Then the searchers moved to the house, one room after another being gone over in the same painstaking way, but it was not till they were doing Felix’s dressing-room, that Burnley made his first discovery.

Several of Felix’s suits were hanging in a press, and in the right-hand side pocket of one of the coats⁠—that of a blue lounge suit⁠—there was a letter. It was crumpled and twisted, as if thrust carelessly into the pocket. Burnley did not at first notice anything interesting or important about it, till, reading it for the second time, it flashed across his mind that here, perhaps, was the very thing for which they had been searching⁠—the link in that chain of evidence against Felix which up to then had been missing.

The letter was written on a sheet of rather poor quality notepaper in a woman’s hand, rather uneducated both as to caligraphy and diction⁠—such a letter, thought Burnley, as might be written by a barmaid or waitress or shopgirl. There was no water or other distinctive mark on it. It bore no address, and ran as follows:⁠—

“Monday.

“My Dearest Léon.⁠—It is with a heavy heart I take up my pen to write these few lines. What has happened to you, dearest? Are you ill? If you are, I will come out to you, no matter what happens. I can’t go on without you. I waited in all yesterday hoping you would come, same as I waited in all the Sunday before, and every night of the week, but you didn’t come. And the money is nearly done, and Mrs. Hopkins says if I can’t pay next week I’ll have to go. I’ve sometimes thought you were tired of me and weren’t going to come back at all, and then I thought you weren’t that sort, and that you were maybe ill or away. But do write or come, for I can’t go on any longer without you.

“Your heartbroken

“Emmie.”

When Burnley glanced over this melancholy epistle it seemed at first merely to indicate that Felix was no better than he might be, and it was not till he had read it again that its immense significance struck him. What if this paper supplied the motive of the murder? What if it had opened to Mme. Boirac a chapter in Felix’s life which otherwise would have remained closed, and which he intended should remain closed? As Burnley thought over it he believed he could at least dimly reconstruct the scene. Felix and Madame had arrived at St. Malo, and then in some way, by some act of extraordinary carelessness on Felix’s part, she got hold of the letter. A quarrel would be inevitable. What would Felix do? Probably first snatch the letter from her and thrust it into his pocket out of sight. Then, perhaps, try to pacify the angry lady, and, finding this impossible, the quarrel would get worse and worse till finally in a paroxysm of passion he would seize her throat and choke out her life. The murder committed, he would be so upset that he would quite probably forget all about the letter. The oversights of criminals were notorious.

The more the Inspector considered the matter, the more likely his theory seemed. But here again he had to recognise it was entirely surmise. No proof that this had taken place was forthcoming. It was another case of the thus-far-and-no-farther evidence he had been deploring in the train. At all events it suggested another line of inquiry. This girl must be found and the relations between her and Felix gone into. Burnley foresaw much arduous work in front of him.

At length he put the letter away in his notebook, and the search continued. Finally, as it was beginning to get dusk, every room had been done except the study where Felix and the Inspector had had their midnight discussion.

“I think we had better come back tomorrow,” said Burnley. “There’s no use in searching by lamplight.”

Accordingly, the next morning saw them again at work. They crawled over the floor so as to get every part of the carpet between themselves and the light, but could find no impressions. They peered with their lenses in the pile of the carpet, they felt between the arms and seats of the padded leathern chairs, all to no purpose. And then Burnley made his second discovery.

Between the study and the dining-room adjoining there was a door, evidently unused, as it was locked and the key was gone. On the study side this door was covered by a heavy curtain of dark-green plush. In front of the curtain, and standing with its back to it, was a small chair whose low, leather-padded back formed a half-circle with the arms. In his anxiety to leave no part of the carpet unexamined, Burnley had moved this chair aside.

As he stooped at the place where the chair had been, a bright object sticking to the curtain caught his eye. He looked more closely. A small, slightly bent, gold safety-pin, bearing a tiny row of diamonds, was caught in the braid at the top of the hem. The point had not penetrated, and the pin fell to the floor when Burnley touched the plush.

He picked it up.

“That’s rather a fine thing even for a natty boy like Felix,” he said as he showed it to Kelvin. And then he stood quite still as it flashed across his mind that here, perhaps, was another link in the chain that was being forged about Felix⁠—a link possibly even more important than any of the foregoing. What if it did not belong to Felix at all? It looked too dainty and delicate for a man’s use. What if it was a lady’s? And, most important question of all, what if that lady was Mme. Boirac? If this proved true,