Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/238

Rh slayer or the elusive Rand—one of 'em used cocaine."

Superintendent Bell shrugged his shoulders. "It don't take us very far, sir, does it? It don't amount to so much. What I should call a baffling case. I mean to say, we don't seem to get near anybody."

Reggie grunted, got off the bath, and taking with him his bit of wood, went back to the sitting-room, the two detectives in silent attendance. There he tumbled Mr. Rand's cigarettes out of their box, and put his bit of wood in it.

"I suppose there's nothing more here," he murmured, his eyes wandering round the room. "Try it with the lights on. Switch on, inspector No. Ah, what's that?" He went to the gas fire and picked out of its lumps of sham coal a scrap of gleaming metal. The next moment he was down on his knees, pulling the fire to pieces. "Give me an envelope, will you?" he said over his shoulder, and they saw he was collecting scraps of broken glass.

"What is it, sir?"

"That's the bridge of a pair of rimless eyeglasses. And if we're lucky we can reconstruct the lenses. When Rand was hit, his glasses jumped off and smashed themselves. That's the fourth thing the slayer didn't think of."

"You don't miss much, Mr. Fortune. Still, it is baffling, very baffling. Even now, we don't know