There were other problems, too, not directly connected with the murder, of which he could not at present make head or tail. For instance, where was he to find the documents which he knew it was Lord Ashiel's wish he should take charge of. He had promised that he would do so, and the recollection of his failure to guard the first thing the dead peer had entrusted him with made him the more determined that he would carry out the remainder of his promise. But how was he to begin his search? He had so little to go on, and he dared not hint to anyone what he wished to find. Yet, if he delayed, it was possible that young Ashiel would come across the papers in his hunt for his uncle's will, and Gimblet felt there was danger in their falling into the hands of anyone but himself.
He took out his notebook and studied the dying words of his unfortunate client.
"Gimblet--the clock--eleven--steps." Or was it steppes?
Considering that he had lived in dread of a blow which should descend on him out of Russia, the last seemed the more likely.
There was the strange circumstance of the body's being found by the police in a position differing from that described by those who first saw it. Young Ashiel, Juliet and the butler all agreed that it had fallen forward on to the blotting-book in the middle of the table; but Mark had told him that on his return with the police the attitude had been changed. Had he been mistaken? Macross's photographs would show. But if not, and the murdered man had really shifted his position, what did it prove? That they had been wrong in thinking him dead? The doctor's evidence was that the wound he had received must have been instantly fatal, or almost instantly. Then some one must have moved the body, and who but David knew where the key of the room had been put away? But why should David have moved him?
Then there was the letter which had come two days after the murder; the letter written in French and posted in Paris, but probably not written by a Frenchman, and so timed as to reach its destination too late. Was it intentionally delayed, or would Lord Ashiel's death come as an entire surprise to the writer? It certainly would, if the police were right, and Sir David Southern guilty of his uncle's death.
But was he guilty? Gimblet thought not.
These and other questions occupied the detective's mind so completely that half an hour passed like a flash, and it was only when the noise of the dinner-bell broke in upon his meditations that he roused himself and pulled out his watch. Then he sat upright, and listened.