III

Mr. Prestcott had supplied his additional dancer with board and lodging.

Whatever the board, the lodging was the poorest the hotel possessed.

Josephine Turner and Ruby Keene had occupied rooms at the extremeend of a mean and dingy little corridor. The rooms were small, facednorth on to a portion of the cliff that backed the hotel, and were furnishedwith the odds and ends of suites that had once, some thirty years ago, rep-resented luxury and magnificence in the best suites. Now, when the hotelhad been modernized and the bedrooms supplied with built-in receptaclesfor clothes, these large Victorian oak and mahogany wardrobes were re-legated to those rooms occupied by the hotel’s resident staff, or given toguests in the height of the season when all the rest of the hotel was full.

As Melchett saw at once, the position of Ruby Keene’s room was idealfor the purpose of leaving the hotel without being observed, and was par-ticularly unfortunate from the point of view of throwing light on the cir-cumstances of that departure.

At the end of the corridor was a small staircase which led down to anequally obscure corridor on the ground floor. Here there was a glass doorwhich led out on to the side terrace of the hotel, an unfrequented terracewith no view. You could go from it to the main terrace in front, or youcould go down a winding path and come out in a lane that eventually re-joined the cliff road farther along. Its surface being bad, it was seldomused.

Inspector Slack had been busy harrying chambermaids and examiningRuby’s room for clues. He had been lucky enough to find the room exactlyas it had been left the night before.

Ruby Keene had not been in the habit of rising early. Her usual proced-ure, Slack discovered, was to sleep until about ten or half-past and thenring for breakfast. Consequently, since Conway Jefferson had begun hisrepresentations to the manager very early, the police had taken charge ofthings before the chambermaids had touched the room. They had actuallynot been down that corridor at all. The other rooms there, at this season ofthe year, were only opened and dusted once a week.

“That’s all to the good as far as it goes,” Slack explained gloomily. “Itmeans that if there were anything to find we’d find it, but there isn’t any-thing.”

The Glenshire police had already been over the room for fingerprints,but there were none unaccounted for. Ruby’s own, Josie’s, and the twochambermaids—one on the morning and one on the evening shift. Therewere also a couple of prints made by Raymond Starr, but these were ac-counted for by his story that he had come up with Josie to look for Rubywhen she did not appear for the midnight exhibition dance.

There had been a heap of letters and general rubbish in the pigeonholesof the massive mahogany desk in the corner. Slack had just been carefullysorting through them. But he had found nothing of a suggestive nature.

Bills, receipts, theatre programmes, cinema stubs, newspaper cuttings,beauty hints torn from magazines. Of the letters there were some from“Lil,” apparently a friend from the Palais de Danse, recounting various af-fairs and gossip, saying they “missed Rube a lot. Mr. Findeison asked afteryou ever so often! Quite put out, he is! Young Reg has taken up with Maynow you’ve gone. Barny asks after you now and then. Things going muchas usual. Old Grouser still as mean as ever with us girls. He ticked off Adafor going about with a fellow.”

Slack had carefully noted all the names mentioned. Inquiries would bemade—and it was possible some useful information might come to light.

To this Colonel Melchett agreed; so did Superintendent Harper, who hadjoined them. Otherwise the room had little to yield in the way of informa-tion.

Across a chair in the middle of the room was the foamy pink dancefrock Ruby had worn early in the evening with a pair of pink satin high-heeled shoes kicked off carelessly on the floor. Two sheer silk stockingswere rolled into a ball and flung down. One had a ladder in it. Melchett re-called that the dead girl had had bare feet and legs. This, Slack learned,was her custom. She used makeup on her legs instead of stockings andonly sometimes wore stockings for dancing, by this means saving expense.

The wardrobe door was open and showed a variety of rather flashy even-ing dresses and a row of shoes below. There was some soiled underwearin the clothes-basket, some nail parings, soiled face-cleaning tissue andbits of cotton wool stained with rouge and nail-polish in the wastepaperbasket—in fact, nothing out of the ordinary! The facts seemed plain toread. Ruby Keene had hurried upstairs, changed her clothes and hurriedoff again—where?

Josephine Turner, who might be supposed to know most of Ruby’s lifeand friends, had proved unable to help. But this, as Inspector Slack poin-ted out, might be natural.

“If what you tell me is true, sir—about this adoption business, I mean—well, Josie would be all for Ruby breaking with any old friends she mighthave and who might queer the pitch, so to speak. As I see it, this invalidgentleman gets all worked up about Ruby Keene being such a sweet, inno-cent, childish little piece of goods. Now, supposing Ruby’s got a tough boyfriend—that won’t go down so well with the old boy. So it’s Ruby’s busi-ness to keep that dark. Josie doesn’t know much about the girl anyway—not about her friends and all that. But one thing she wouldn’t stand for—Ruby’s messing up things by carrying on with some undesirable fellow. Soit stands to reason that Ruby (who, as I see it, was a sly little piece!) wouldkeep very dark about seeing any old friend. She wouldn’t let on to Josieanything about it—otherwise Josie would say: ‘No, you don’t, my girl.’ Butyou know what girls are—especially young ones—always ready to make afool of themselves over a tough guy. Ruby wants to see him. He comesdown here, cuts up rough about the whole business, and wrings the girl’sneck.”

“I expect you’re right, Slack,” said Colonel Melchett, disguising his usualrepugnance for the unpleasant way Slack had of putting things. “If so, weought to be able to discover this tough friend’s identity fairly easily.”

“You leave it to me, sir,” said Slack with his usual confidence. “I’ll gethold of this ‘Lil’ girl at that Palais de Danse place and turn her right insideout. We’ll soon get at the truth.”

Colonel Melchett wondered if they would. Slack’s energy and activity al-ways made him feel tired.

“There’s one other person you might be able to get a tip from, sir,” wenton Slack, “and that’s the dance and tennis pro fellow. He must have seen alot of her and he’d know more than Josie would. Likely enough she’dloosen her tongue a bit to him.”

“I have already discussed that point with Superintendent Harper.”

“Good, sir. I’ve done the chambermaids pretty thoroughly! They don’tknow a thing. Looked down on these two, as far as I can make out.

Scamped the service as much as they dared. Chambermaid was in herelast at seven o’clock last night, when she turned down the bed and drewthe curtains and cleared up a bit. There’s a bathroom next door, if you’dlike to see it?”

The bathroom was situated between Ruby’s room and the slightly largerroom occupied by Josie. It was illuminating. Colonel Melchett silently mar-velled at the amount of aids to beauty that women could use. Rows of jarsof face cream, cleansing cream, vanishing cream, skin- feeding cream!

Boxes of different shades of powder. An untidy heap of every variety oflipstick. Hair lotions and “brightening” applications. Eyelash black, mas-cara, blue stain for under the eyes, at least twelve different shades of nailvarnish, face tissues, bits of cotton wool, dirty powder-puffs. Bottles of lo-tions—astringent, tonic, soothing, etc.

“Do you mean to say,” he murmured feebly, “that women use all thesethings?”

Inspector Slack, who always knew everything, kindly enlightened him.

“In private life, sir, so to speak, a lady keeps to one or two distinctshades, one for evening, one for day. They know what suits them and theykeep to it. But these professional girls, they have to ring a change, so tospeak. They do exhibition dances, and one night it’s a tango and the next acrinoline Victorian dance and then a kind of Apache dance and then justordinary ballroom, and, of course, the makeup varies a good bit.”

“Good lord!” said the Colonel. “No wonder the people who turn out thesecreams and messes make a fortune.”

“Easy money, that’s what it is,” said Slack. “Easy money. Got to spend abit in advertisement, of course.”

Colonel Melchett jerked his mind away from the fascinating and age-long problem of woman’s adornments. He said to Harper, who had justjoined them:

“There’s still this dancing fellow. Your pigeon, Superintendent?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

As they went downstairs Harper asked:

“What did you think of Mr. Bartlett’s story, sir?”

“About his car? I think, Harper, that that young man wants watching.

It’s a fishy story. Supposing that he did take Ruby Keene out in that car lastnight, after all?”