“After I had finished doing this one up for Mr. Beale. About eight o'clock.” “Had you been in there after you left it at six?” “No, sir.” The maid's eyes showed her wonder at the course of the questioning. “We're still hoping to find out Mr. Eames' friends, and it's possible that someone may have been in here on Saturday to see him. That's why I asked about Miss Leslie. She might have heard a knock.” He handed the maid half-a-crown. “If you remember anything else let me know. However insignificant.” “I will, thank you, sir,” and Maggie closed the door behind her. After lunch the results of the autopsy reached the Chief Inspector. Morphia had been drunk in a quantity which made the police-officer open his eyes. It would be difficult for anyone but a chemist to lay his hand on such a solution. “There is one thing,” the doctor's scribble finished, “that dose could never have had its taste disguised. Or at least it would have been uncommonly difficult.” All this was what Pointer had expected, but Maggie's account of what she had heard in No. 14 gave, for the first time, a clearer pattern to the kaleidoscope. Whoever had shut and locked Eames' door—about four-thirty—had entered from the corridor and not by the window which she had heard opened much later. So, in general terms, from four to six was the time an alibi would have to cover. Chapter IV Miller had nothing suspicious to report in the actions of those inmates of the balcony rooms who had already visited the hotel on the other occasions. He was told off to test Mrs. Willett's alibi as far as that was possible from the hall-porter, while Pointer took a bus to a smart little bungalow in Sheen, where he hoped to find a lady, whose postcard, signed Mint, had been duly copied by the police and replaced in Miss Leslie's little bureau. It had run: “Jack will call for you to-morrow in the car at two o'clock as you can't make it earlier, and we will be all ready for you in the launch. Hope the weather will be fine. Mint.” The “to-morrow” referred to had been the Saturday of Eames' death. A few inquiries told him that the bungalow belonged to a Major Thompson, whose record he promptly looked up in the local free library. The Major was now working at the War Office, after distinguished war services. Mrs. Thompson was in, and very grave the Chief Inspector looked as he bowed to that young matron. “Mr. Deane?” She glanced up inquiringly from the professional card sent in to her, which explained its owner as Mr. Deane, a solicitor of Grey's Inn Road. “Excuse my call, Madame, but a client of ours had a motor accident on Saturday last,—August fourth. A car ran into his, and passed on without stopping near Richmond Park. You may have heard of it?” He looked at her with a legal air of being sure to find her out should she attempt any prevarication. “I? No!”