Inspector Stoddart's Most Famous Cases. Annie Haynes
who had very good reason for wishing his name kept out of the papers."
The inspector coughed.
"If the connexion was with a married man, the most ordinary wife would supply an excellent reason for keeping the matter secret. But I don't fancy we shall find the solution quite so easy. So far Basil Wilton is the only man of whom we have been able to find a trace in his wife's life. And you may imagine I had her pretty well looked after at the time of Dr. Bastow's murder."
Harbord nodded. "A good deal of suspicion attached to her then. I fancy people were pretty well divided between her and Dr Sanford Morris."
"Yes, but the British public is not always right in its conclusions," the inspector remarked.
Harbord looked at him.
"I always wish I had been with you in that case, sir. For I have fancied sometimes that your suspicion strayed to—"
"It is facts not suspicion that are wanted, as I have said before," the inspector struck in. "As for you, I would have asked for no better colleague, but you were in the north, on the Bratson-Harmer case. Now before we go any further we must pay a visit to the Bank and see whether we can learn anything there."
They went out, carefully locking the doors.
The branch of the Bank which Iris Wilton had used was some little distance away. The inspector beckoned a taxi.
"Time is money in these cases," he observed to his subordinate.
Arrived, the inspector asked at once for the Bank manager and they were shown to his private room.
The manager came to them at once—a fussy, pompous-looking man. He held the inspector's card in his hand.
"You wished to see me?" he said, glancing at his visitors inquiringly.
"Yes. My card will have told you that I come from Scotland Yard," the inspector said, taking the bull by the horns at once. "I want some information respecting the account of the late Mrs. Basil Wilton, formerly Miss Iris Houlton."
The manager fidgeted beneath the detective's gaze. "It is not our custom to give information about our customers' private accounts."
"Quite so," the inspector assented. "In an ordinary case, I understand. But in this particular one, when your client was foully murdered, you must realize that you have no choice but to speak."
"'No choice but to speak,'" the manager echoed, knitting his brows. "Well, Inspector Stoddart"—glancing at the card—"the responsibility rests with you. What is it you want to know?"
The inspector took the pass-book from his breast pocket.
"I see there have been two large cash payments to Miss Iris Houlton's account. Can you give me any information as to who paid them in?"
"Certainly!" The manager's answer came with a readiness that surprised the detective. "Both sums were paid in by Miss Iris Houlton herself—in notes."
"In notes!" The inspector took out his pocket-book. "You have the numbers, of course?"
"Of course," the manager assented. "I can get them for you now."
He turned to the speaking-tube and gave his directions in a perfectly audible voice.
There followed an awkward silence between the three men. At last the manager cleared his throat.
"I don't fancy that anything we can tell you will help you to discover poor Mrs. Wilton's murderer."
"Perhaps not," the inspector agreed blandly. "But I am sure—"
He was interrupted by the entrance of a boy with the numbers of the notes paid into the Bank. Stoddart frowned as he looked over the slips of paper the manager handed to him. The notes were for varying sums, from fifty pounds in one case to twenty pounds, ten pounds, even one pound—of this latter denomination there were one hundred and eighty. But no two of the numbers ran together as the inspector had half expected to find. He looked up.
"You knew Miss Iris Houlton personally, I presume?"
"Oh, yes," the manager said at once. "She came here several times, as she invested a hundred or two in the new Argentine Loan. And she brought in these large packets of notes herself. I own I was surprised, though it is not my business to be surprised at our customers' doings. If there is nothing else I can do for you this morning, inspector—?"
The inspector took the hint at once.
"Nothing just now, I think, thank you." Outside the two men walked along in silence for a few minutes, both apparently deep in thought. Stoddart was the first to speak.
"What do you make of it, Harbord?"
"I don't know, sir. Except that, wherever Iris Houlton got those notes, she took precious good care they should not be traced. There must be some strong reason behind it all."
"She took care, or some one else took care, that they should not be traced," the inspector corrected. "Do you see what that means, Harbord—blackmail?"
Harbord nodded. "I had thought of that, sir."
"And now our first task must be to discover how far she or they have been successful in concealing their tracks," Stoddart went on. "Though, as a matter of fact, I expect that we shall be up against a practical impossibility."
He stopped as he spoke, and going into a public call office rang up Scotland Yard.
"I have told them to put Fowler on the job at once," he said, as he emerged. "If we could only trace one of them back to the source it might be all we want."
Harbord cast a curious glance at his superior. That Stoddart had something in his mind was quite apparent. But at present, without the data upon which the inspector was working, the younger man was at a loss. Harbord, however, knew that the inspector always declared that nothing cleared his brain like a walk, and was not surprised when he found him setting off in the direction of Hawksview Mansions at top speed.
The inspector's brow was knit as if he were cogitating some knotty problem, and he took no heed of his companion, who had some ado to keep up with him. They scarcely spoke until they reached the Mansions, but as they went into the flat the inspector said:
"There must be something in this flat that will give us the clue we want; it must be here and we must find it. It is impossible that a woman could live a couple of months in a flat, be murdered there, and leave absolutely nothing to tell us what manner of woman she was, what sort of life she led, or how she came by her death."
Harbord drew in his lips. "Has Wilton's room been searched?"
"Only in a superficial fashion. We will go into that directly; but first I want to turn out the other rooms thoroughly. Suppose we have a go at the drawing-room now."
The drawing-room was at the right as they entered the lounge; the dining-room was farther along on the same side. The bedrooms were opposite and a door at the end gave access to the kitchen and bathroom.
At first sight the drawing-room was rather more hopeful from the detective's point of view than the bedrooms. The easy chairs looked as if they had been used, the cushions were crumpled in the chairs, there were flowers, withered now, in the vases. A novel from a circulating library lay face downwards on the hearthrug, and a pile of medical journals with a newspaper on the top were on a stand near the window. But the waste-paper-basket was empty, there were no letters in the rack and on the orderly looking writing-table that held an inkstand and a pen-tray and a blotting-pad upon which the inspector seized swiftly, only to relinquish it a moment later with a disappointed sigh.
"Never been used even to dry an envelope."
Meanwhile Harbord had been conducting a voyage of discovery of his own. An almost invisible drawer at the end of one of the tables attracted his attention. There was no handle and no keyhole; but putting his hand underneath he forced the drawer out.
At first sight he thought it was empty, but his slim, capable fingers feeling round discovered a scrap of paper at the far end. On it there