The clerk recognised the face at once. “Yes, about an hour or two before Cox's 'phone came. Seemed a nice, friendly sort of chap. Now I come to think of it, he, too, asked for a balcony room, and went up to have a look at two and seven. He didn't take either; I forget why.” “Did the 'phone message you got later sound at all like his voice?” But that the clerk couldn't remember. “Now I come to think of it, it didn't sound like Cox speaking. Cox talked like a Colonial,—the few words he spoke asking about his room, and saying that he had 'phoned for one on July 30th and sent a letter with a deposit——” “You didn't tell me that before, Gay: that's an important point. I want to get hold of Cox if I can. Want to ask him a few questions.” “Well, Mr. Chief Inspector, a chap can't think of everything at once,” responded the clerk goodhumouredly; with which view of the limitations of the human intellect Pointer agreed. He arranged that a call should be sent through at once if the young man returned to the hotel, and left feeling that he had found out quite sufficient to pay him for his early Sunday morning. Eames had been in to prospect for his friend—or his enemy, whichever Cox was—not long after he had taken a room at the Enterprise for himself. The letter signed “Cox” was very unlike that man's signature in the register, but very like the letter left in Eames' pocket for the manager; and whatever Pointer's doubts about it, he did not attempt to deny to himself that the writing in that letter exactly resembled Eames' entry on the hotel book, though perhaps, to his keen eyes, a trifle laboured-looking. It would be a nice little problem for the handwriting expert, but, to his thinking, there was an ease and a freedom about this last letter—the one sent in Cox's name—which suggested a genuine document. Had he been able to get a fair description of the man, he would have sent Cox's description to every station in England, for he did not share the hotel's belief in his return, but, bar his size and the limp, which were the easiest of disguises, he had no definite idea as to the man's appearance. He glanced at his watch. Nine o'clock. Time to see if the manager and Mr. Beale had remembered any fresh details. The manager was at his breakfast, and Pointer thought that his manner had changed in some subtle way from what it had been last night. Mr. Beale was apparently not up yet. As Pointer particularly wished to question him, he sent the hotel's one and only page to the room which had been assigned to the American for the rest of the night—it happened to be the manager's sitting-room—with a polite message as to the pleasure it would give the Chief Inspector to be allowed a few minutes' conversation in room No. 14. The boy came back with bulging eyes. “I believe the gentleman's killed hisself too, sir,” he hissed melodramatically in Pointer's ear. Evidently the news about No. 14 had leaked out among the staff.