“Quite right. Not our case at all. Still, you should certainly go to this cottage you speak of and see what you can pick up. Does he keep any servants there?”
“No, sir. There's a woman by the name of Beaton who keeps the place tidy, by what I understand, but she lives out. I'll see her of course, but I don't expect to find anyone at the Cottage. It isn't likely. But I might get a line on it.”
The Inspector was wrong. Half an hour later, when he and Constable Dickenson got out of the police car at Riverside Cottage, there were unmistakable signs that the cottage was occupied.
It was a small house of stuccoed brick and jade green shutters, standing in wooded grounds that ran down to the river. The position was what house-agents would describe as picturesque and secluded, no other house being visible in summer from any of its windows.
As the car drew up a dog started barking inside the house, and the Constable said at once: “That's funny. Mr Vereker never had a dog down here to my knowledge.”
The Inspector set his finger on the electric bell, remarking as he did so: “Might be the charwoman's. Who looks after the garden, and the electric light plant?”
“Young Beaton, sir. He comes in a couple of days a week. But he wouldn't bring his dog with him, not into the house. There's someone here all right. I can hear him moving about.”
The Inspector pressed the bell again, and was about to press it a third time when the door was opened to them by a girl with a head of burnished copper curls, and very large and brilliant dark eyes. She was wearing a man's dressing-gown of expensive-looking brocade, which was several sizes too large for her, and was chiefly occupied in keeping back a powerful bull-terrier who did not seem to view the visitors with much favour.