Four Strange Women by E.R. Punshon Page A

it, looked at it carefully.
    â€œOh, yes,” he said in the same indifferent, almost uninterested tones. “The last eight at the Southpool tennis tournament this spring were given them. Becky had one. I wonder how this one got here.” He gave it back to Bobby and spoke to Oxley:— “Nothing else we can do to-night. Carry on, Oxley. You had better leave two men here for the rest of the night, I think. You can spare them somehow. In the morning we’ll have another look. Nothing to show it’s not been an accident, I think?”
    â€œOh, no, sir,” agreed Oxley. “Accident almost certainly. Not that a blaze like that would have left much to go on in any case. We’ll get the doctors on the job, of course, though there’s little but burnt bones for them to work on.”
    The colonel nodded and turned back towards his waiting car. His shoulders drooped. He had the air of a very old man. He said to Bobby:—
    â€œI’ll drop you in Midwych. I want you to get in touch with Eyton.”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Bobby, who had the same idea but who had preferred to wait for instructions, for it was beginning to seem to him that these were slippery paths on which now their feet were set.
    â€œFind out what he is putting in his articles; if there is anything more he has not told us,” the colonel continued. “Try to make out whether he has any real reason for talking about murder or if he only wants to work up a sensation. I expect there’ll be someone still at the office of the Midwych News , and very likely they’ll be able to give you his address. Oxley and Morris are taking it as an accident, but you think it’s murder, don’t you?”
    â€œThere is no proof of that as yet, sir,” Bobby answered cautiously.
    â€œNo, I know, but it’s what you think,” Glynne answered. After a pause, he added: “So do I.”

CHAPTER VI
JOURNALIST
    The Midwych News does not go to press at so early an hour as do those ‘national’ papers, whose endeavour is to appear on the universal breakfast table from one end of the country to the other. Their offices were still in full activity when Bobby, duly deposited in the town by his new chief, arrived to ask for Mr. Eyton. He had gone home, but Bobby got his address. Fortunately it was not far, and the constable of the city police, with whom he had been provided as guide, took him there by a short cut through side streets.
    The hour was late by now, but a light in the window, the rattle of a typewriter, suggested that Mr. Eyton was still busy, making the most of his ‘scoop’. Bobby’s knock brought him to the door in person, the other inmates of the house having probably retired for the night. He was a small, plump, middle-aged man, rather prim in dress and manner, with small, inquisitive eyes behind large, rimless spectacles. He seemed a little surprised when he saw Bobby’s tall form.
    â€œOh, I thought it was someone from the office,” he said, blinking up at him. “Are you police? I’ve told everything I know, I think, but come along in.”
    He led the way into a small room, fitted up much like an office, with two large card index cabinets, an enormous stationery cabinet, shelves filled with row upon row of box files, all neatly labelled, and a few, but not many, reference books. On the gas fire a kettle was boiling, and on the oak writing table stood a tin of cocoa, a cup, milk and other requirements, as also a typewriter, a pile of newly-completed scrip and another pile of fresh paper.
    â€œYou look busy,” Bobby observed.
    â€œI am busy,” said Mr. Eyton seriously. “When a thing like this comes your way, you’ve got to make the best of it. I suppose it’s what you’ve come about?”
    Bobby nodded.
    â€œColonel Glynne,” he explained, “thought perhaps there might be some further details you could give us—