He looked more closely. On either side of the mirror over the mantelpiece a faint patch of wallpaper showed darker than the rest. Above, two picture-hangers still depended from the rail. Mallett’s mind went back to the insolent porter, to the maid under notice. All pointed in the same direction—Mrs. Eales was hard up, sufficiently so to be selling things.

Had anything else gone? he wondered. It hardly seemed possible that a room so crowded could ever have held anything more, but a very short search proved that such was the case. The disinterested maid had evidently neglected her duties for some days and the array of miscellaneous curios and misnamed objets d’art that encumbered the mantelpiece and occasional tables was thinly coated with dust. And here and there a little ring of comparatively clean surface gave evidence that not long since the ranks had been thinned. Mallett counted half a dozen of them without difficulty—silent evidence that here a statuette of jade or ivory, there a china figurine had been sacrificed to necessity.

“I do apologize for keeping you waiting like this,” said a voice behind him. He turned round as Mrs. Eales, a tremulous smile playing on her lips, came towards him with outstretched hand.

“You’ve come about poor dear Pompey, of course?” she began.

“Pompey?” The inspector was nonplussed for a moment.

“How stupid of me—Mr. Ballantine, I mean. Pompey was just a little pet name I had for him. Silly, of course, these pet names always are, don’t you think, Mr.—er——”

“Mallett.”

“Mallett—thanks so much—but he used to get so pompous sometimes that it seemed to suit him. And now he’s——” she pressed a handkerchief to her lips—“Oh, dear! I can’t trust myself to talk about that.”

“All the same, madam, I’m afraid I must ask you to talk about it,” said Mallett. “I am enquiring into Mr. Ballantine’s death, and I am here to find out what light you can throw on it.”

“Of course, yes. I must be very brave. Though I don’t know what light you will get from poor little me. Do ask me anything you like. Let’s sit down here, shall we, and make ourselves comfortable?”

She sat down on the divan, and patted the place by her side in invitation. Mallett had no objection to taking his place beside her. He was not the type of man who would allow his judgment to be affected by propinquity to an attractive woman, even when her charms were reinforced by an exotic scent and a carefully indiscreet display of a silk stocking. What was more important from his point of view, Mrs. Eales had so placed herself that the light of the shaded lamp by the divan shone on her. Sitting himself in semi-obscurity, Mallett studied her with interest.