The Sergeant said, hiding a grin: "I thought you liked them difficult, sir."
"So I do," retorted Hemingway. "But I like something you can catch hold of! Here, every time I think I've got a line on something, it slips out of my grasp like something in a bad dream. If there's a sliding panel in that room, I'll eat my hat; I'd go to the stake no one tampered with that door-key; and now it begins to look as though the window wasn't touched either. It's witchcraft, that's what it is, or else I'm getting past my job."
"It is a fair stinker," agreed the Sergeant. "No use thinking about the chimney, I suppose?" The Inspector cast him a look of dislike.
"Or the roof," suggested the Sergeant. "There are attics above the bedrooms, and there are dormer-windows. Could a chap have got through the one over Mr. Herriard's room, and reached the window below?"
"No, he couldn't," said Hemingway crossly. "I've already looked into that, which just shows you the sort of' state I'm getting into, for a more fatheaded idea I've never met. You'll have to go off and interview this gardener, but you can drop me at the station first."
"All right, sir. But I can't help feeling that I shall find he's had the key all the time."
"If you didn't, I should very likely drop down in a fit," responded Hemingway.
They drove back to the police-station in depressed silence. Hemingway alighted there and went into the building. He found Inspector Colwall fortifying himself with very strong tea, and thankfully accepted a cup of this beverage.
"How are you getting on?" asked Colwall.
"I'm not," replied Hemingway frankly. "It reminds me of the Hampton Court maze more than of anything else. It doesn't matter what path you take: you always find yourself back at the starting-point again. Seems to me I'm trying to catch up with a regular Houdini. Handcuffs and locked chests would be nothing to this bird."
"I don't mind telling you I was glad to hand over the case to you," confided Colwall. "Of course, detection isn't, properly speaking, my line."
"It won't be mine by the time I'm through with this," said Hemingway, sipping his tea. "Here I've got no fewer than four hot suspects, and three possibles, all without alibis, and most of them with life-size motives, and I'm damned if I see my way to bringing it home to any of them."
"Four hot suspects?" said Colwall, working it out in his mind.
"Young Stephen, his sister, Mottisfont, and Roydon," said Hemingway.
"You don't reckon the fair young lady could have done it?"
"l, ve put her in as a possible, but I wouldn't lay a penny on her myself."
"Who are your other possibles, if you don't mind my asking?"
"The valet and the butler."
Colwall seemed a little surprised. "Sturry? What makes you think he might have had a hand in it?"
"Vulgar prejudice," responded Hemingway promptly. "He handed me a very dirty look this afternoon, so very likely I'll pin the murder on to him, if all else fails."
Inspector Colwall recognised a joke, and laughed. "You do talk!" he said. "Myself, I had a hunch it was young Herriard. Ugly-tempered chap, he is."
"He's got the biggest motive," conceded Hemingway. "Though murder isn't always committed for high stakes, mind you! Not by a long chalk. There's young Roydon, wanting money to back his play."
"Yes; I went into that before you came down, but it seemed to me a bit unlikely. Of course, Miss Herriard could have done it, I suppose. I shouldn't think she'd stick at much."
"I'm quite willing to arrest her, or Mottisfont, if you'll just tell me how either of them got into the room," said Hemingway.
Colwall shook his head. "It's a mystery, that's what it is. You don't think the old lady had anything to do with it, do you?"
"What, Mrs. Joseph Herriard?" exclaimed Hemingway.
"Talk about far-fetched ideas! No, I don't. What would she do it for?"
"I don't know," Colwall confessed. "It only struck me that she hadn't got an alibi either, and neither you nor I ever suspected her at all. I suppose she might have had a motive."
"Well, it hasn't come to light," said Hemingway. "What's more, it won't help me if it does. I've plenty of motives already, not to mention one damaging piece of evidence, in the shape of Stephen's Cigarette-case. Not that it's any good to me, unless I can discover how the murder was committed."
"No, I see that," agreed Colwall. "And there was a good deal of uncertainty about the cigarette-case, wasn't there? Seems young Herriard had lent it to Miss Dean, and anyone might have picked it up."
"Yes, I've heard all that, but I don't think much of it," said Hemingway. "People don't go picking up cigarettecases that don't belong to them: at least, not in that kind of society, they don't. It was identified as Stephen's, and he owned it; and I haven't so far heard that anyone else's finger-prints were found on it,"
"No, they weren't," said Colwall. "There weren't any finger-prints on it at all, as I remember."
Hemingway set down his cup and saucer. "There must have been some prints! Do you mean they were too blurred to be identified?"
Colwall stroked his chin. "I remember seeing the report on it last night, and I'm pretty certain it said there were no marks on it at all."
"Look here!" Hemingway said. "On their own admissions, young Herriard and Miss Dean both handled that case! Are you telling me they left no prints?"
"Well, I'm only repeating what was on the report," said Colwall defensively.
"And you saw that report, and never thought to mention that there was a curious circumstance attached to it! Why wasn't I shown it?"
"You could have seen it if you'd asked for it. There just wasn't anything to it. We'd established that the case belonged to Stephen Herriard; the experts didn't find any finger-prints on it; and that's all there was to it."
"I should have known better than to have taken anyone's word for it!" said Hemingway in bitter accents. "Didn't it strike you that it was highly unusual, not to say suspicious, that there weren't any finger-prints on the case?"
"I suppose," said Colwall, whose brain moved slowly, "it must have been wiped."
"Yes," retorted Hemingway. "That's just what I suppose, too! And if you think young Herriard dropped it, all accidental-like, first taking the precaution of wiping his finger-prints off it, all I can say is that you've got a nice, unsuspicious nature, Inspector!"
Colwall bridled a little at this, but as the inference of Hemingway's words sank into his mind, he flushed, and said: "Of course, it's your business to spot things like that. I don't deny that what with one thing and another it just didn't occur to me that it was funny, not finding any prints on the case. Couldn't have got wiped off in young Herriard's pocket, could they?"
"No," Hemingway said positively. "They might have got a bit blurred, but you'd be bound to find some trace. Ever cleaned a bit of silver, and tried to get your own finger-prints Off it? It takes some elbow-grease, I give you my word."
"That's right, it does," nodded Colwall "Same with brasswork. But this was a gold case. One of those large, flat ones, with a monogram on it."
"I ought to have had a look at it in the first place," Hemingway said, annoyed with himself. "Come on! Let's go and have a talk with your expert!"
But no expert was needed to convince him that the cigarette-case had been wiped clean of all betraying marks. It was still held in the crutch in which it had been placed upon discovery, and its smooth golden surface showed no smudge or blemish.
"Might just have come out of the shop," grunted Colwall. "Looks like new, barring a few scratches. Well, none of my men destroyed any prints, that I will answer for!"
"I don't suppose they did. This case has been carefully polished."
"Well, that has torn it!" Colwall said. "Do you figure it was planted in the room to throw suspicion on young Herriard?"