Lieutenant Valcour opened the drawer. Its contents were in a state of considerable confusion. It was not the sort of confusion which is the result of a cumulative addition of separate notes, letters, and sheets of paper, but a kind that exists when a normally orderly collection of papers has been milled around in suddenly.
“There’s quite a mass of stuff here,” he said. “It might be simpler to eliminate other possible places before tackling it. I must repeat again that I’ll be exceeding any legal rights by doing so, but if you earnestly believe your husband is in danger I’d like to go through the pockets of his clothing.”
“Pockets?”
“It’s a much more usual place to find important things than you would imagine.”
“His clothes are in that cupboard.”
Mrs. Endicott indicated a door. Lieutenant Valcour went over and opened it. An electric light was automatically turned on in the ceiling. The large hulk of a man crumpled into one corner of the cupboard gave him a severe shock. The man was dead. He closed the door and faced Mrs. Endicott. He nodded toward the desk, on which a telephone was standing.
“I’m going to use that telephone for a few minutes,” he said. “There’s a message I want to put through. Also, please ring for your maid.”
Mrs. Endicott’s eyes widened a little. “There’s something in the cupboard,” she said.
“Ring for your maid, please.”
She went past him and toward the cupboard door. He shrugged. The value of her reaction would offset the brutality of not stopping her. She