Bony suppressed a yawn and rolled another cigarette.

“The finger-print man gained nothing from Mrs. Eltham’s house,” he said. “According to her domestic, no one of her friends paid her a visit for almost a week prior to her death, and the house was cleaned and dusted daily. Respectable woman… the domestic?”

“Yes. Whatd’you reckon about those nightgowns? That seems to be a common denominator in the two crimes,” put in Inspector Walters.

“It does,” Bony agreed. “Another is the tidiness of the victim’s bedrooms. They are not, however, common denominators of the two women, but of the one killer. The fact that both women were widows may or may not have significance. I cannot see any. One woman was rigidly moral, according to the official summary, and the other was not rigidly moral. One victim lived alone. The other was surrounded by her staff and her guests. The Perth homicide men certainly went deep into the background of these two women, and they could not dig up a motive for killing them. They state, however, that in view of Mrs. Eltham’s gentlemen friends all being ‘loaded with tin’ as the phrase goes, it is possible that she rebuffed an admirer who was not blessed with this world’s goods. If that should prove to be right in fact, then his name will not be among those listed. By the way, have you a list of her friends?”

“Yes, I have,” answered the sergeant. “I’d like to compare it with the C.I.B. list.”

“We’ll do so tomorrow. We will also compile a list of the attractive widows of Broome. It would be too bad if another widow were strangled.”

The paper-weight of rainbow stone being toyed with by Inspector Walters crashed to the desk.