Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/199

the fireplace. "Did you have a fire yesterday?"

"No, life was too hurried. But I had one the day before."

"Then your grate was cleaned yesterday morning, not this morning. This pipe-cleaner is very dirty, which shows that your visitor did not, like yourself, wrap up his tobacco in those irritating little circles of paper which destroy all the taste. Gordon, you use them too, don't you? This was a stranger, then, though not necessarily the same who took the book. I think he came here yesterday, not this morning."

"Why?"

"Because the first pipe of the day is seldom foul; it has dried in the night. This was thoroughly foul. Of course, if the person who used this pipe-cleaner was the person who took the book, it's obvious he did not come in with any felonious intentions, or he would hardly have made himself so much at home."

"But that might have been a sudden idea."

"Of course. But I should be careful how you accuse people of theft merely because their pipes are newly cleaned. Let us just see if he emptied out his pipe first; if it was a plain tobacco, it will have left a dottle. . . . Yes, here it is⁠—as I feared, the inevitable Worker's Army Cut; half the Club smokes that. No, I'm afraid we can't put the handcuffs on anybody just yet. But, of course, you might find an excuse for going round your friends' rooms and looking for the lost book."

"During evening church," suggested Gordon,—