“No one has said anything about murder so far,” interrupted the chief quietly.  “But since you suggest it, perhaps we’d better ask who you’d got in the house last night.”  He opened the register at the page in which he had kept his finger, and looked at the last entries.  “I see that three—­no, four—­people came in after this young man who called himself Frank Herman.  You booked them, I suppose?” he went on, turning to the landlady.  “Were they known to you?”

“Only one—­that one, Mr. Peter Donaldson, Dundee,” answered the landlady.  “He’s the representative of a jute firm—­he often comes here.  He’s in the house now, or he was, an hour ago—­he’ll be here for two or three days.  Those two, Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen—­they appeared to be foreigners.  They were here for the night, had breakfast early, and went away by some boat—­our porter carried their things to it.  Quiet, elderly folks, they were.”

“And the fourth—­John Barcombe, Manchester—­you didn’t know him?” asked the chief, pointing to the last entry.  “I see you gave him Number 29—­two doors from Herman.”

“Yes,” said the landlady.  “No—­I didn’t know him.  He came in about nine o’clock and had some supper before he went up.  He’d his breakfast at eight o’clock this morning, and went away at once.  Lots of our customers do that—­they’re just in for bed and breakfast, and we scarcely notice them.”

“Did you notice this man—­Barcombe?” asked the chief.

“Well, not particularly.  But I’ve a fair recollection of him.  A rather pale, stiffish-built man, lightish brown hair and moustache, dressed in a dark suit.  He’d no luggage, and he paid me for supper, bed, and breakfast when he booked his room,” replied the landlady.  “Quite a quiet, respectable man—­he said something about being unexpectedly obliged to stop for the night, but I didn’t pay any great attention.”

The chief looked attentively at the open page of the register.  Then he drew the attention of those around him to the signature of John Barcombe.  It was a big, sprawling signature, all the letters sloping downward from left to right, and being of an unusual size for a man.

“That looks to me like a feigned handwriting,” he said.  “However, note this.  You see that entry of Frank Herman?  Observe his handwriting.  Now compare it with the writing on the card which was fixed on the door of 27—­Herman’s room.  Look!”

He drew the card out of its envelope as he spoke and laid it beside the entry in the register.  And Marshall Allerdyke, bending over his shoulder to look, almost cried out with astonishment, for the writing on the card was certainly the same as that which Chettle had shown him on the post-card found on Lydenberg, and on the back of the photograph of James Allerdyke discovered in Lydenberg’s watch.  It was only by a big effort that he checked the exclamation which was springing to his lips, and stopped himself from snatching up the card from the table.