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Superintendent Merrington's ring at the doorbell brought forth an elderly woman with an expressionless face surmounted by a frilled white cap. She informed them in an expressionless voice that Captain Nepcote's apartments were on the second floor. Having said this much, she disappeared into a small lobby room off the entrance hall, leaving them free to enter.
"I have Nepcote's address included in the list of guests who were at the moat-house at the time of the murder," he added, opening his pocket-book and hastily scanning it. "Ah, here it is 10 Sherryman Street. I'll send for a taxi-cab. Is there anything I can do for you in return for your kindness in bringing me this information?"
I've handled no pearls for twelve months." "Would you know the Heredith necklace if it were offered to you?" "I would not, and I've already told ye it was not offered to me." Colwyn was nonplussed and disappointed, but the recollection of Nepcote's furtive glance and hasty concealment of the diamond merchant's card on the previous night prompted him to a further effort.
"Is it consistent that the two telegrams were sent to different addresses? They would have been either both sent to the moat-house, or both sent to his London flat that is, if they were sent by the War Office. Only a relative or a personal friend would take the trouble to send to different addresses. There lies the weak point of Nepcote's statement."
As they approached it Colwyn, with a slight movement of his head, drew his companion's attention to the upper windows which belonged to Nepcote's flat. The blinds were down. "It looks as if Nepcote left last night," he said.
Inquiries set afoot in London, with the object of discovering all that could be learnt of Nepcote's career and Violet Heredith's single life, occupied an important share in Scotland Yard's renewed investigations into the Heredith murder. Caldew was sent to Heredith to look for new facts.
At this point Nepcote ceased speaking again, interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing, and when it passed his eyes turned towards the window, as though he were listening to the gentle patter of rain on the panes. For a space the two men sat with no sound in the room except Nepcote's laboured breathing.
The first thing she saw was a revolver Nepcote's revolver lying at her feet near the head of the bed. Then her eyes turned to the bed, and she saw Mrs. Heredith, bleeding from the mouth and nose. While she was attempting to render her some assistance she heard footsteps on the stairs, and thought of her own safety.
The tracing of Nepcote's movements on the night of the murder was to him one of the minor points of the problem, like the first pawn move in chess essential, but without real significance, in view of the inevitable inference of the flight. "I have been working on the case from this end," he said. "In what direction?" "Trying to arrive at the beginning of the mystery.
He had seen nothing of the target shooting in the gun-room the day before the murder, but he thought it quite possible that Captain Nepcote's revolver might have lain there unnoticed until the following night, because the men of the house party were a poor shooting lot who were not likely to use the gun-room much.
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