“He didn’t alter the face? No, I see. Went out quite peacefully, then. Still, the thing seems rather a stretched coincidence.”

“Coincidence with what?”

Nightingale raised his eyes to meet those of Beddoes, clear, pale blue, ambiguously innocent and knowledgable, with innocence predominant at the moment in the form of an inquiring stare.

“I’ve been told,” said Nightingale, trying not to smile, “that the Division diagnosed theft, Hampstead class. That’s all. You’ve spoken to them—perhaps you’d let me have a few crumbs of information.”

“Well, first,” said Beddoes meekly, “it was just the Divi’s sixth sense. Walked in the room, so I heard, stopped in his tracks, sniffed—figuratively—and spoke the oracular word. There was only the wardrobe door hanging open, as it is now, otherwise all serene—apart from the body. He had a scout round, and found that.” Beddoes pointed to a large wooden trunk which stood in the middle of the floor. “It was under the bed, the position’s chalked. You’ll see the dust is brushed off the top in two patches. Divi immediately said ‘Drooping blankets—lifted it to avoid marking the floor, and rubbed the top clean.’”

Nightingale bent to examine the trunk more closely. “Very fine, isn’t it?” he remarked. “Decidedly out of keeping with the room. All right to open?”

“Yes, but it’s empty, was when the Divi unlocked it.”

“Good Lord! Locked it after them, does he think?”

Nightingale went to the table at the head of the bed. A sheet of paper, clinically white in the surrounding murk, had caught his eye when he first came in. On the paper lay a key and a length of dirty string.

“Divi found it round her neck,” explained Beddoes. “Mrs. Minelli says she was never without it. The loop was large enough to be slipped off.”

“But it’s been untied recently,” observed Nightingale, “and only that once, I think. The kinks and clean patches of the old knot are quite distinct. Still, go on.”

“While underlings soothed Mrs. M. with tea, Divi nipped down and asked the people next door if they’d seen anyone or anything odd hanging around today. The old granddad at the end, he’s always at home, he saw a green van outside about ten-thirty this morning. Took it for a gas van, swears he saw a North Thames Gas Board poster stuck on the side—but they could pinch that from a showroom. He didn’t notice anyone enter or leave, inattentive old bat. According to Mrs. M. there was no call for gas men to come here. She didn’t ask them, and if they’d been expected upstairs she’d have heard about it.”