“If Mrs. Eales is telling the truth——”

“Agreed. And so far as we know, he never was in the flat at the same time as Ballantine, and Ballantine was never separated from the case. The first proposition doesn’t depend only on Mrs. Eales. It’s plain common sense. The second does, though, and she may be wrong there.” He wrote a few words and then read: “Query, access to Ballantine’s papers?”

“He may have had access to Du Pine’s papers, too,” put in Frant.

“Yes,” Mallett admitted. “We know he was on close terms with Du Pine. But there are some difficulties there. First—why should he have typed the letter at his wife’s flat and not at Du Pine’s house? Second—isn’t that theory equally consistent with Du Pine being his accomplice?”

“That is a possibility—yes,” Frant agreed, reluctantly.

“It doesn’t look quite so simple, when you come to look into it, does it?” the inspector went on. “Now what else have we to put down under ‘Evidence’?”

“His trip abroad on the night of the murder.”

Mallett noted the point. “Has it occurred to you”, he added when he had finished writing, “that this all turns on our theory that Ballantine was killed by Colin James?”

“Of course.”

“Then you think that Eales was James—on the evidence of this letter?”

“Not on that only,” Frant objected. “Here’s a man who for a long time has had no fixed abode. That would give him plenty of opportunity to live in Daylesford Gardens as Colin James for a few weeks without attracting suspicion. Then you have the mysterious journey abroad on the night of the 13th. I agree that he may be able to explain it away. But until he does—and I’ve a feeling that he won’t be able to—I maintain that we’ve a strong case against him. All the facts fit him in a way they fit nobody else.”

While his subordinate was speaking, Mallett jotted down the salient points. Then he said: “There’s one fact that doesn’t fit him very well, you know.”

“What fact?”

“The beard. Eales has a moustache, as I think you know—a reddish toothbrush affair. I know what you’re going to say, Frant. He could have covered it up with a false one which would go with the beard. But James—the real James, I mean—had his upper lip clean-shaven. Why go to the trouble of stealing a passport and making yourself up as the man it belongs to, if you won’t even take the trouble to shave?”

“Murderers aren’t necessarily logical,” protested Frant. “It’s absurd to be prepared to murder and to boggle at shaving off your moustache, but people do absurd things. I don’t find anything impossible in the idea.”