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Page 17
"Never saw him in my life before last night!" replied the tall
man. "We just chanced to meet in the train coming down from
London, got talking, and discovered we were both coming to the
same place--Wrychester. So--we came to this house together.
No--no friend of mine--not even an acquaintance--previous, of
course, to last night. Is--is it anything serious?"
"He's dead, sir," replied Mitchington. "And now we want to
know who he is."
"God bless my soul! Dead? You don't say so!" exclaimed Mr.
Dellingham. "Dear, dear! Well, I can't help you--don't know
him from Adam. Pleasant, well-informed man--seemed to have
travelled a great deal in foreign countries. I can tell you
this much, though," he went on, as if a sudden recollection
had come to him; "I gathered that he'd only just arrived in
England--in fact, now I come to think of it, he said as much.
Made some remark in the train about the pleasantness of the
English landscape, don't you know?--I got an idea that he'd
recently come from some country where trees and hedges and
green fields aren't much in evidence. But--if you want to
know who he is, officer, why don't you search him? He's sure
to have papers, cards, and so on about him."
"We have searched him," answered Mitchington. "There isn't a
paper, a letter, or even a visiting card on him."
Mr. Dellingham looked at the landlady.
"Bless me!" he said. "Remarkable! But he'd a suit-case, or
something of the sort--something light--which he carried up
from the railway station himself. Perhaps in that--"
"I should like to see whatever he had," said Mitchington.
"We'd better examine his room, Mrs. Partingley."
Bryce presently followed the landlady and the inspector
upstairs--Mr. Dellingham followed him. All four went into a
bedroom which looked out on Monday Market. And there, on a
side-table, lay a small leather suit-case, one which could
easily be carried, with its upper half thrown open and back
against the wall behind.
The landlady, Mr. Dellingham and Bryce stood silently by while
the inspector examined the contents of this the only piece of
luggage in the room. There was very little to see--what
toilet articles the visitor brought were spread out on the
dressing-table--brushes, combs, a case of razors, and the
like. And Mitchington nodded side-wise at them as he began to
take the articles out of the suit-case.
"There's one thing strikes me at once," he said. "I dare say
you gentlemen notice it. All these things are new! This
suit-case hasn't been in use very long--see, the leather's
almost unworn--and those things on the dressing-table are new.
And what there is here looks new, too. There's not much, you
see--he evidently had no intention of a long stop. An extra
pair of trousers--some shirts--socks--collars--neckties
--slippers--handkerchiefs--that's about all. And the first
thing to do is to see if the linen's marked with name or
initials."
He deftly examined the various articles as he took them out,
and in the end shook his head.
"No name--no initials," he said. "But look here--do you see,
gentlemen, where these collars were bought? Half a dozen of
them, in a box. Paris! There you are--the seller's name,
inside the collar, just as in England. Aristide Pujol, 82,
Rue des Capucines. And--judging by the look of 'em--I should
say these shirts were bought there, too--and the handkerchiefs
--and the neckwear--they all have a foreign look. There may
be a clue in that--we might trace him in France if we can't in
England. Perhaps he is a Frenchman."
"I'll take my oath he isn't!" exclaimed Mr. Dellingham.
"However long he'd been out of England he hadn't lost a
North-Country accent! He was some sort of a North-Countryman
--Yorkshire or Lancashire, I'll go bail. No Frenchman,
officer--not he!"
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