The Monday afternoon following the murder found Roper busy in the small and unpretentious building in Considine that served as the Police Station. As he worked he muttered to himself. “Take a Kodak with you on your holidays. I don’t think. When I get my holidays I’ll take darned good care to leave my photography apparatus at home.” He looked at the clock. “Just on three o’clock—the Inspector will be here in a jiffy.” He held half a dozen plates to the light—then put them down again on the window-sill. “They’ll be just about ready for him.”

“Good-afternoon, Mr. Roper.”

He turned quickly. “Hallo, Griffiths,” he said as a constable entered. “Got back all right then?”

Constable Griffiths grinned. “You’ve said it. Ran ’em into Lewes Jail about half-past eleven this morning—wasn’t half a mob as the van drew up. News spreads, don’t it, Mr. Roper? Nice job for a Bank Holiday!”

Roper nodded. “Guess they won’t call it a honeymoon, that pair,” he reflected. “Still, things aren’t at all clear....”

“Which one did the job, do you think?” interrogated Griffiths.
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“Which job?”

“Why, the murder, of course. What’s the Inspector think?” He went on. “I know he ain’t holding ’em yet for that job—I was here when they were charged, but he’s a dark horse, he is,” he chuckled as at some particularly satisfying reminiscence ... “I’ve known him years.”

“Well, Griffiths, he hasn’t confided in me ... yet,” rejoined Roper, “but if you want my opinion, for what it’s worth, we aren’t by any means at the end of the case ... not by a long way.”

Griffiths showed signs of agreement, sagely. “I gave Dr. Elliott a hand when they brought the body down to the mortuary,” he announced with an obvious sense of importance, “unusual thing you know, Mr. Roper, a bloke strangled and stabbed like this one was—like the pictures,” he concluded with evident relish.

“Yes,” said Roper. “I can tell you it’s given the Inspector plenty to think about.”

“More in it than meets the eye, eh?” Griffiths delivered this profound opinion with a prodigious amount of head shaking and brow knitting.

“Shouldn’t be surprised—but clear out now—here comes the Governor.”

Griffiths adjusted his chin-strap. “Right-O—I’ll come and see you later.”
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“Did I hear you talking, Roper?” said Baddeley, as he entered. “Who was it?” As I am entirely indebted to Baddeley himself for the substance of this chapter, I can say with assurance that he mistook the constable’s voice for that of Fitch, Sir Charles Considine’s butler, hence this rather peremptory opening question—but he was a man who took very few chances—and his mind at this particular time was casting, as it were, backwards and forwards, to grasp any point that seemed of the slightest significance.

“Constable Griffiths, sir,” replied Roper. “He’s been to Lewes, as you know, sir, with the two prisoners and just got back. They’re pretty quiet, he says,” volunteered Roper in addition. “Dazed-like.”

“Humph!” grunted Baddeley. “Those photographs ready yet?”

“Just about, sir, I think.” Roper went to the window and brought them back. Then extracted them, one by one, from their frames.

Baddeley glanced quickly at the first two or three—those of Prescott’s dead body lying as we had found it.

“I want the finger-prints and the photo of those on the Venetian dagger,” he said impatiently. “I’m puzzled, Roper, the whole case puzzles me—I want to see if any of the prints we got on those interesting letters of yours correspond with those we originally spotted on the dagger.”

“Very good, sir,” murmured Roper. “There’s a beauty there of the dagger prints”—he handed it over to his superior—“the others won’t be very long.”
150

“Thanks! A remarkable case, Roper, don’t you think?” He went on without giving his assistant time to reply. “A man murdered in a country house, with two weapons employed—although according to the medical testimony the shoe-lace did the job effectively and the dagger wasn’t needed. The body is found in the billiard room on the billiard-table—in evening dress and brown shoes. Where’s the motive?”

“Ah, that’s it, sir,” interposed Roper. “Find that and you’ll see daylight.”

“Well,” went on Baddeley, “there are three people against whom we can lodge a motive or a partial motive.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “(One) Webb—Prescott interrupted him or was in some way connected with him ... he had been out that night on some pretext. (Two) Lieutenant Barker—he had financial reasons for wishing Prescott out of the way—and his I.O.U. cannot be traced. (Three) Major Hornby—he was Barker’s friend and brother officer. And had lost money to Prescott similarly. Also he was the reverse of candid when I spoke to him.” He paused and considered. “They’re the three I’ve got something against, Roper, and one of those three had the shoe-lace in his pocket. Pretty conclusive, some people would say, and yet ... and yet. I’m not satisfied. Can you see the unusual features of this affair, Roper?”

“Seem to me a large number, sir,” answered Roper. “Do you mean any particular one?”
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“I mean this. Everybody in the house has got the same alibi—of course an unsupported and unsatisfactory one, I admit—but there it is. ‘I was asleep, Inspector.’”

“I suppose if the murdered man were here and could speak, he’d say he was asleep too!” Roper grinned at the sally.

“Young Mr. Considine and Captain Arkwright admitted to a certain amount of wakefulness, sir,” he reminded the Inspector.

“Yes—I know. Arkwright heard the ‘Spider’—I’ve no doubt on that point—Jack Considine may have heard anything—Marshall—Mrs. Webb, if you prefer it—possibly leaving the billiard room—it’s an idea certainly.”

Roper pursed his lips together. “It’s the motives some people may have had, sir, the motives that have to be probed for. What’s that bit the French say about looking for a woman always?”

“Cherchez la femme,” said Baddeley. “I wonder.”

“Any one of the people up at the Manor may be guilty, sir, it seems to me,” continued the indefatigable Roper, “and then again it may come back quite simply and directly to ‘Spider’ Webb. The job is to pick out the main trail and not go dashing off into side tracks that eventually become blind alleys.”

“Very true, Roper, very true,” smiled Baddeley. “But it isn’t quite so easy as you imagine; one of your side tracks may turn out to be that main trail and what you think is the main trail, may prove to be only a side track.”
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“That Mr. Bathurst’s a smart young fellow, sir. He’d have done well in our line, don’t you think so?”

“Perhaps! You can’t always tell. What about those prints?”

Roper took them out. “They’re all numbered, sir. And I’ve got the corresponding numbers in my note-book. And I fancy we’ve got pretty well everybody here. Everybody that’s likely, that is!” He paused. Then continued: “We haven’t got the ‘Spider’s,’ sir. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?... And I’m thinking his are the most likely.”

“No, I know, Roper. Easily get those from ‘the Yard’ if necessary.”

Roper arranged the photographs. “I’ll put them in numerical order, sir, that will simplify matters a bit.”

Baddeley picked up his magnifying glass and proceeded on his course of comparison. But one by one he laid the photos down again. Then suddenly he shot up from his seat.

“You’ve clicked, Roper!” he shouted. He looked at the back. “Number 9,” he exclaimed, “number nine for a certainty, look—the identical loops and whorls—who in the name of thunder is Nine—where’s your note-book—quick, man, quick!” The prints had come out clearly and distinctly. And when compared with the photograph of those on the Venetian dagger, there didn’t remain the shadow of a doubt that the same fingers had made them. Roper flicked the leaves of his note-book. “Number Nine, sir?” he queried. He ran his eye down the page. “Major Hornby!”
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Baddeley gasped. “This beats the band, Roper, but all the same, mark my words, one of the three with a motive that’s known. Well, I’m blessed.”

Roper looked wise and said nothing.

Baddeley’s mind went back. “He practically refused all information when I questioned him, and told me to mind my own business. If he’s the murderer of Prescott he reckons we’ve got no proof at all ... he’ll try to put up a big bluff. Now where do I stand? All I can put against him so far is a motive, finger-prints on a dagger that has played some part in the crime ... anything else? I can’t put a truculent manner and attitude in as compromising evidence.” He paced the room—backwards and forwards. “Gets a darned sight more complicated every step,” he grumbled.

“This dagger was kept in the drawing-room, wasn’t it, sir?” said Roper.

“So I’m told. On what they called the curio table. What are you driving at?”

“Well, I don’t somehow think the ‘Spider’ ever got into the drawing-room.”

“Marshall may have taken it from the table.”

“Why don’t her finger-prints show then, sir?”

“True ... Major Hornby seems to have been the last person to have used it.”

“He could easily have taken it to his bedroom, sir,” continued Roper.
154

“Yes, he slept alone. It’s feasible. But why the deuce was Prescott outside that night?” Baddeley blazed. “Tell me that and I’ll tell you a lot more ... nothing I light on seems to have any bearing on that point. And till I know, I’m messing round in the dark.”

“Where does this Major Ho............