CHAPTER III GATHERING THE THREADS THE fact that he had been out all the previous night was not, in Inspector French’s eyes, any reason why he should be late at his work next day. At his usual time, therefore, he reached New Scotland Yard, and promptly engaged himself in the compilation of a preliminary report on the Hatton Garden crime. This completed, he resumed direct work on the case. There were still several obvious inquiries to be made, inquiries which might almost be called routine, in that they followed necessarily from the nature of the crime. The first of these was an interview with the other members of the Duke & Peabody staff. An Oxford Street bus brought him to the end of Hatton Garden, and soon he was once more mounting the staircase to the scene of his last night’s investigation. He found Mr. Duke standing in the outer office with Orchard and the typist and office boy. “I was just telling these young people they might go home,” the principal explained. “I am closing the office until after the funeral.” “That will be appreciated by poor Mr. Gething’s family, sir. I think it is very kind of you and very proper too. But before this young lady and gentleman go I should like to ask them a question or two.” “Of course. Will you take them into my office? Go in, Miss Prescott, and tell Inspector French anything he wants to know.” “I’m afraid you won’t be able to do quite so much as that, Miss Prescott,” French smiled, continuing to chat pleasantly in the hope of allaying the nervousness the girl evidently felt. But he learned nothing from her except that Mr. Duke was a very nice gentleman of whom she was somewhat in awe, and that Mr. Gething had always been very kind to her and could be depended on to let her do whatever she wanted. Neither about the clerk, Orchard, nor the pupil, Harrington, was she communicative, and the office boy, Billy Newton, she dismissed as one might a noxious insect, a negligible, if necessary, evil. Mr. Gething had been, as far as she could form a conclusion, in his usual health and spirits on the previous day, but she thought he had seemed worried and anxious for the past two or three weeks. As to herself, she liked the office, and got on well with her work, and was very sorry about poor Mr. Gething. On the previous day she had gone straight from the office, and had remained at home with her mother during the entire evening. French, satisfied she had told him all that she knew, took her finger prints and let her go. From Billy Newton, the precocious office boy, he learned but one new fact. Newton, it seemed, had been the last to leave the office on the previous evening, and before Mr. Gething had gone he had instructed him to make up the fire in the chief’s office, as he, Gething, was coming back later to do some special work. The boy had built up a good fire and had then left.