Hawke rose to his feet. “The trouble with you, Baxter, is you don’t give yourself time to think. However, have it your own way”

The girl continued: “Yesterday afternoon, just about three o’clock, Mr Dawkins called Robert – that’s Mr Braid – into the inner office. They had some sort of a row. I thought perhaps it was because Robert was so late back from lunch. He was half an hour over time. “He’s been doing that a lot lately. He doesn’t seem to care about his work in the office. He’s crazy on football pools.”

She paused for a moment, then went on. “I heard them arguing, though I couldn’t hear what was said. After 10 minutes or so Robert came out again and slammed the door behind him.

“He was flushed and excited. He just grabbed his hat and coat and made for the outer door. ‘I’m through with the old fool,’ he said. ‘You won’t see me again.’ Then he went out.”

“So this Braid fellow left the office about 3.15?” queried Baxter. “And didn’t come back again?” “That’s – that’s right,” said the girl.

“Then that lets him out,” declared Baxter. “We’ll confirm it, of course. Anything else unusual happen after that?”

Private papers

“N-no !” replied Miss Rayner, after a moment’s thought. “Mr Dawkins didn’t call me at all yesterday afternoon. I just carried on with my work. Then I took the letters in just after five o’clock. He was working at some private papers, and told me not to bother – he’d do the post next morning.”

“You took all the letters in, I suppose?” Dixon Hawke asked quietly.

“Of course,” the girl replied. “I – I was a bit flustered, I expect, after Robert’s hurried departure. I left as quickly as I could, at about half-past five.”

“And your boss was alive then?” Baxter wanted to know. “Of course he was,” said the girl.

“Did Mr Dawkins often stay late, do you know?” Dixon Hawke inquired.

“Oh, yes, quite often,” nodded Miss Rayner. “Sometimes he’d keep me, too. But only now and then. I fancy he did his really confidential work after we had gone.”

“This gun which he used,” said Baxter, pointing to the weapon. “Do you know whose it is?”

The girl looked at the weapon and shuddered. “It – it looks like the one Mr Dawkins kept in the top drawer of his desk,” she admitted.

“So he kept a gun, did he?” asked the inspector. The girl nodded. “Twelve months or so ago there was a burglary down below in the tailor’s shop,” she explained. “Mr Dawkins was actually here, working at his papers, when it happened.

“He didn’t hear a thing. Since then he’s always kept the gun – just as a precaution, you know. We all knew he’d got it, of course.”

“Well, there you are, Baxter,” said Hawke. “I fancy we needn’t keep Miss Rayner any longer. She’s had a nasty shock, and will be glad to get away.”

“Leave your address,” murmured the inspector, “and leave Braid’s as well, if you know it. We’ll want you later, I expect, but you needn’t hang about now.” The girl needed no second bidding.

“I think,” said the inspector, after she had gone, “we’ll go and interview Mr Robert Braid. I don’t suppose he’ll have anything much to tell us, but we may as well get it over.”

He looked over at Dixon Hawke, who was now seated on a chair and looking very thoughtful.

“Not overcome, are you?” he grinned. “You’ve only yourself to blame. It’ll teach you not to wander around deserted city courts so early in the morning.”

Examined

Hawke rose to his feet. “The trouble with you, Baxter, is you don’t give yourself time to think. However, have it your own way. I’d like just another look around this office, though, before we set out on our travels.”

Hawke examined the ash in the grate, he poked in the wastepaper basket, he stood looking down at the corpse, and he gingerly turned over the papers on the desk. “Oh, come on, man!” snapped Baxter. “There’s nothing here of much interest.”

“Quite,” agreed Dixon Hawke.

“You know, Baxter, I’ve an idea that it’s what isn’t here that’s going to prove interesting in this case.”

The inspector looked at him suspiciously. “That’s quite enough of that,” he declared. “You curb your imagination and get a move on, for a change.”

“Lead – and I follow,” smiled Hawke. “Who am I to delay the progress of the law? But don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

They left Sergeant Perkins in charge, and, in Hawke’s car, threaded their way through the streets of a now busy and humming city going about its work.

Presently they stopped outside a four-storey house in a street not far from Euston Square. When they knocked on the door, it was opened by a red-faced, grey-haired woman.

Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and, having been disturbed at her work, she was not pleased to see them.

“Now, look here,” she began, “If it’s – ”

“It isn’t,” snapped the inspector. “I’m a police officer, and I want –”

“Police !” gasped the woman. “Oh, I hope there ain’t nothin’ wrong. I’ve been – ”

“We’re coming inside,” broke in Baxter. “I want to ask you some questions.” He pushed past her into the hall and strode into a front ground-floor room, raggedly furnished as a lounge.

Trembling

Hawke and Tommy followed. The woman closed the door and came trembling after them. “What’s your name?” asked the inspector. “Regan, Martha Regan”

“You let rooms in this place? went on Baxter.

“I do,” the woman agreed. “And if –

“You let one to a fellow named Braid?” went on the inquisition. “I do,” she gulped. “Top floor front, he’s got. Four years and more he’s been here and – except for once in a while – steady and regular paying.”

“At what time did he get back from work yesterday afternoon?” asked Baxter.

“There now!” the woman exclaimed. “I wondered what it was all about. You see, he don’t usually come in until half-past six. But yesterday he comes in—large as life—well before four o’clock.

“Lawks, Mr Braid!’ I says. ‘What on earth’s wrong with you?’

“‘Nothing,’ he answers back. ‘I’ve chucked my job, that’s all.’

“‘And what about my rent?’ I says. ‘You don’t have to worry any,’ he tells me, a bit uppish. ‘There’s plenty of better ways of living than slaving for that crook!’ Then off he goes upstairs.”

More tomorrow