Free Crow's Inn Tragedy by Annie Haynes

inspector?”
    The inspector permitted himself a slight smile. “I haven’t forgotten how you helped me to catch John Basil.”
    â€œUm! Well, my cousin—Mrs. Bechcombe is my cousin, you know—has insisted on my coming to you this morning,” Mr. Steadman went on, taking the chair the inspector placed by the table. “This is a terrible business, inspector. It looks fairly plain sailing at first sight, but I don’t know.”
    The inspector glanced at him. “You think it looks like plain sailing, sir? Well, it may be, but I confess I don’t see it quite in that way myself.”
    Mr. Steadman met the detective’s eyes with a curious look in his own. “What of Thompson’s disappearance?”
    The inspector blotted the page in his ledger at which he had been writing and left the blotting-paper on.
    â€œAy, as usual you have put your finger on the spot, Mr. Steadman. What has become of Thompson? He walked out of the office and apparently disappeared into space. For from that moment we have not been able to find anyone who has seen him.”
    â€œThe inference being—?” Mr. Steadman raised his eyebrows.
    The inspector laid his hand on a parcel of papers lying on the table at his elbow.
    â€œThere wasn’t much about the case in the papers this morning,” he said, replying indirectly to the barrister’s question, “but the one that comes out at ten o’clock—Racing Special they call it: selections on the back page, don’t you know—in almost every case gives a large space on its front page to ‘The Murder of a Solicitor in his Office,’ and every one of them mentions the disappearance of his managing clerk. The inference, though the paragraphs are naturally guarded in the extreme, is unmistakable.”
    Mr. Steadman reached over for one of the papers.
    â€œDon’t take any notice of these things myself; they have to write up the sensation. Um! Yes! No doubt what they’re hinting at, but they’re generally wrong. What should Thompson want to kill his employer for, unless—”
    â€œAy, exactly; unless—” the inspector said dryly. “That was one of my first thoughts, sir. John Walls is going through the books with an auditor this morning. And Mr. Turner, who was in the firm until last year, is going over the contents of the safe. When we get their reports we shall know more.”
    The barrister nodded. “Thompson had been with the firm for many years.”
    â€œEighteen, I believe,” assented the inspector. “He seems to have been a great favourite with Mr. Bechcombe, but it is astonishing how little his fellow-clerks know of him. Only two of them have ever seen him out of the office, and none of them appear to have the least idea where he lives.”
    Mr. Steadman did not speak for a moment, then he said slowly:
    â€œThe fact that so little is known seems in itself curious. Is there no way of ascertaining his address?”
    â€œOne would imagine that there must be a note of it somewhere at the office,” the inspector remarked, “but so far we have not been able to find it.”
    â€œHow about the woman visitor?” the barrister inquired, changing the subject suddenly.
    â€œWe haven’t been able to identify her at present.” The inspector opened the top drawer at his right hand, and took the white glove that had been found by the murdered man’s desk from its wrapping of tissue paper. The most cursory glance showed that it was an expensive glove, even if the maker’s name had not been known as one of the most famous in London and Paris. About it there still clung the vague elusive scent that always seems to linger about the belongings of a woman who is attracted by and attractive to the other sex.
    Mr. Steadman handled it carefully and inspected it thoroughly through his eyeglasses. “Yes. We ought to be able to find the mysterious