"Clues? Well, I've got one little souvenir here which I daresay a writer of detective stories would make a good bit of."He held in his hand a piece of paper folded flat. He unfolded it and disclosed a loop of dark hair.
"There!" he said mockingly, straightening out the hair and holding it up in the light. "That's calculated to set one's thoughts running all over the place, isn't it? That piece of hair was caught in the buckle of one of the straps with which Miss Mackwayte was bound to the bed. Miss Mackwayte, I would point out, has brown hair. Whose hair do you think that is?"Desmond looked closely at the strand of hair in the detective's fingers. It was long and fine and glossy and jetblack.
The Chief laughed and shook his head.
"Haven't an idea, Marigold," he answered, "Barney's, I should imagine, that is, if he goes about with black ringlets falling round his shoulders"Barney?" echoed the detective. "Barney's as bald as I am.
Besides, if you saw his sheet, you'd realize that he has got into the habit of wearing his hair short!"He carefully rolled the strand of hair up, replaced it in its paper and stowed it in his waistcoat pocket.
"It just shows how easily one is misled in a matter of this kind," he went on. "Supposing Barney hadn't got himself nabbed, supposing I hadn't been able to find out from Miss Mackwayte her movements on the night previous to the murder, that strand of hair might have led me on a fine wild goose chase!""But, damn it, Marigold," exclaimed the Chief, laughing, "you haven't told us whose hair it is?""Why, Nur-el-Din's, of course!"
The smile froze on the Chief's lips, the laughter died out of his eyes. Desmond was amazed at the change in the man. The languid interest he had taken in the different details of the crime vanished. Something seemed to tighten up suddenly in his face and manner.
"Why Nur-el-Din?" he asked curtly.
Mr. Marigold glanced quickly at him. Desmond remarked that the detective was sensible of the change too.
"Simply because Miss Mackwayte spent some time in the dancer's dressing-room last night, sir," he replied quietly, "she probably sat at her dressing-table and picked up this hair in hers or in her veil or something and it dropped on the bed where one of Master Barney's buckles caught it up."He spoke carelessly but Desmond noticed that he kept a watchful eye on the other.
The Chief did not answer. He seemed to have relapsed into the preoccupied mood in which Desmond had found him that morning.
"I was going to suggest, sir," said Mr. Marigold diffidently, "if you had the time, you might care to look in at the Yard, and see the prisoner. I don't mind telling you that he is swearing by all the tribes of Judah that he's innocent of the murder of old Mackwayte. He's got an amazing yarn... perhaps you'd like to hear it!"Mr. Marigold suddenly began to interest Desmond. His proposal was put forward so modestly that one would have thought the last thing he believed possible was that the Chief should acquiesce in his suggestion. Yet Desmond had the feeling that the detective was far from being so disinterested as he wished to seem. It struck Desmond that the case was more complicated than Mr.
Marigold admitted and that the detective knew it. Had Mr.
Marigold discovered that the Chief knew a great deal more about this mysterious affair than the detective knew himself? And was not his attitude of having already solved the problem of the murder, his treatment of the Chief as a dilettante criminologist simply an elaborate pose, to extract from the Chief information which had not been proffered?
The Chief glanced at his watch.
"Right," he said, "I think I'd like to go along.""I have a good deal to do here still," observed Mr. Marigold, "so, if you don't mind, I won't accompany you. But perhaps, sir, you would like to see me this afternoon?"The Chief swung round on his heel and fairly searched Mr.
Marigold with a glance from beneath his bushy eyebrows. The detective returned his gaze with an expression of supreme innocence.
"Why, Marigold," answered the Chief, "I believe I should. Six o'clock suit you?""Certainly, sir," said Mr. Marigold.
Desmond stood by the door, vastly amused by this duel of wits.
The Chief and Mr. Marigold made a move towards the door, Desmond turned to open it and came face to face with a large framed photograph of the Chief hanging on the wall of Miss Mackwayte's bedroom.
"Why, Chief," he cried, "you never told me you knew Miss Mackwayte!"The Chief professed to be very taken aback by this question.
"Dear me, didn't I, Okewood?" he answered with eyes laughing, "she's my secretary!"