Chapter ELEVEN

The crushed policeman led the way to Baynes Mews and pointed out the door where he had seen the figure of Tickler sitting. The door did not yield to Surefoot's pressure. He took from his pocket some skeleton keys which he had borrowed at the station without authority, and tried them on the door. Presently he so manipulated the key that he succeeded in snapping back the lock. He pushed open the door, sent a ray of light up the dusty stairs, and climbed, breathing stertorously, to the top. He came upon a landing and a barrier of matchwood, in which was a door. He tried this and again had recourse to his skeleton key.

Without a warrant he had no right whatever to invade the privacy of an English home; but Surefoot had never hesitated to break the law in the interests of justice or the satisfaction of his curiosity.

He found he was in a large, bare room, almost unfurnished except for a big, cheap-looking wardrobe, a chair, a table, a large mirror, and a square of carpet. At the back of the room, behind the matchboarding partition, was a wash-place. Singularly enough, there was no bed, not even a couch. On the wall was an old print representing the marriage of Queen Victoria. It was in a dusty maple frame and hung groggily. Mr. Smith, who had a tidy mind, tried to straighten the picture, and something fell to the floor. It was a white glove which contained something heavy; it struck the floor with a clump. He picked it up and laid it on the dressing-table. The glove was of kid, with three strips of black lace at the back, and it held a key. It was nothing delicate in the way of keys, but a large, old-fashioned door-key of a type fashionable before the introduction of patent locks.

What was remarkable about this key was its colour: it had been painted with silver paint.

Surefoot looked at the key thoughtfully. An amateur had painted it--the inside of the business end had not been touched; the steel was bright and evidently the key was often used.

He brought this beneath the one naked electric globe which served to illuminate the room, but found nothing new about it. Putting the key in his pocket, he continued his search, without, however, discovering anything more noteworthy, until he found the cupboard. Its door seemed part of the matchboard lining of the room, to the height of which it rose. There was no handle, and the keyhole was so concealed in the dovetailing that it might have passed unnoticed but for the fact that Surefoot Smith was a very painstaking man.

He thought at first it was a Yale lock, but when he tested it out with the aid of a big clasp-knife, which contained half a dozen tools, he found it was a very simple "catch." The cupboard held a complete dress suit, including silk hat and overcoat. On a shelf was a number of plain but exquisitely woven handkerchiefs, socks, folded dress ties and the like.

He searched the pockets but could find no clue to the ownership of the suit. There was no maker's tab on the inside of the coat, or concealed in the breast pocket. Even the trousers buttons were not inscribed with the tailor's name.

He examined the dress shirts; they were similarly unidentifiable. He found nothing more except a large bottle of expensive perfume, a monocle attached to a broad silk ribbon, and a locked box. This he forced under the lamp, and found three wigs, perfectly made. One was wrapped in silver tissue, and it was either new or had been newly dressed.

"Bit queer, isn't it?" said Surefoot Smith aloud.

"Yes, sir," said the constable, who had been silent until that moment.

"I was talking to myself," said Surefoot coldly.

He made another round of the room, but without adding to the sum of his knowledge.

He replaced everything where he had found it, except the key and the glove. After all, there might be a perfectly simple explanation of his finds. The man may have been an actor. The fact that Tickler had been sitting on his doorstep, listening to his drunken song, meant little, and would certainly carry no weight with a jury.

On the other hand, if the explanation was so simple, Surefoot Smith was in a position of some embarrassment. Against his name, if the truth be told, were many black marks for unauthorised entry. This might very well be the cause of another.

He went out into the mews, locked the door, and walked silently into Portland Place, followed by the policeman. And Surefoot Smith did not forget that the constable might possibly be a witness at any inquiry before the Commissioner.

"I think that is all, officer," he said, "but I am not blaming you for failing to report. Things like that," he went on, "slip out of a man's mind. For instance, I left my house yesterday and forgot to take my pipe."

The officer murmured his polite surprise. He was a little mollified, and was sufficiently intelligent to understand the reason for this change of attitude.

"I suppose it's all right, sir, going into that place without a warrant?" he said. "I'm asking because I'm a young officer, new to the force----"

Surefoot Smith surveyed him soberly.

"I went," he said, with great deliberation, "because you reported a suspicious circumstance. You told me you had reason to believe that the murderer might be hiding in that loft."

The constable gasped at this atrocious charge, gasped but was speechless.

"So that, if there's any trouble over it," said Surefoot, "we're both in it. And my word's better than yours. Now go home and keep your mouth shut--it won't be hard for you." He could not resist the temptation to gibe. "In fact, I should say you were a pretty good mouth-shutter."

The key and the white glove he locked away in a drawer of his desk at Scotland Yard. There was nothing remarkable about either article. Surefoot Smith would indeed have been glad to sacrifice his finds for one packet of cartridges, the bullets of which corresponded to those extracted from the unfortunate Tickler. In his mind, however, he was satisfied that there was some connection between that flat in Baynes Mews and the murder of the little thief. The finding of the dress clothes signified little; it might only mean that some swell, for reasons best known to himself, wanted a place where he could change without going home. Such things happen in the West End of London, and in the east or any other end of any other large city.

The absence of the bed rather puzzled him, but here again it simply removed one explanation of the flat being used. Yet, if he could have foreseen the future, he would have known that he had in his possession a clue more valuable than the science of ballistics could have given to him.