Part 20 (1/2)
”I don't find it so,” said the Duke, smiling.
”I was looking at it from the professional point of view,” said M.
Formery. He turned to the inspector and added, ”You can't have searched thoroughly. This housekeeper must be somewhere about--if she's really trustworthy. Have you looked in every room in the house?”
”In every room--under every bed--in every corner and every cupboard,”
said the inspector.
”Bother!” said M. Formery. ”Are there no sc.r.a.ps of torn clothes, no blood-stains, no traces of murder, nothing of interest?”
”Nothing!” said the inspector.
”But this is very regrettable,” said M. Formery. ”Where did she sleep?
Was her bed unmade?”
”Her room is at the top of the house,” said the inspector. ”The bed had been slept in, but she does not appear to have taken away any of her clothes.”
”Extraordinary! This is beginning to look a very complicated business,”
said M. Formery gravely.
”Perhaps Guerchard will be able to throw a little more light on it,”
said the Duke.
M. Formery frowned and said, ”Yes, yes. Guerchard is a good a.s.sistant in a business like this. A little visionary, a little fanciful--wrong-headed, in fact; but, after all, he IS Guerchard. Only, since Lupin is his bugbear, he's bound to find some means of muddling us up with that wretched animal. You're going to see Lupin mixed up with all this to a dead certainty, your Grace.”
The Duke looked at the signatures on the wall. ”It seems to me that he is pretty well mixed up with it already,” he said quietly.
”Believe me, your Grace, in a criminal affair it is, above all things, necessary to distrust appearances. I am growing more and more confident that some ordinary burglars have committed this crime and are trying to put us off the scent by diverting our attention to Lupin.”
The Duke stooped down carelessly and picked up a book which had fallen from a table.
”Excuse me, but please--please--do not touch anything,” said M. Formery quickly.
”Why, this is odd,” said the Duke, staring at the floor.
”What is odd?” said M. Formery.
”Well, this book looks as if it had been knocked off the table by one of the burglars. And look here; here's a footprint under it--a footprint on the carpet,” said the Duke.
M. Formery and the inspector came quickly to the spot. There, where the book had fallen, plainly imprinted on the carpet, was a white footprint. M. Formery and the inspector stared at it.
”It looks like plaster. How did plaster get here?” said M. Formery, frowning at it.
”Well, suppose the robbers came from the garden,” said the Duke.
”Of course they came from the garden, your Grace. Where else should they come from?” said M. Formery, with a touch of impatience in his tone.
”Well, at the end of the garden they're building a house,” said the Duke.
”Of course, of course,” said M. Formery, taking him up quickly. ”The burglars came here with their boots covered with plaster. They've swept away all the other marks of their feet from the carpet; but whoever did the sweeping was too slack to lift up that book and sweep under it.