The custodian was not difficult to find, being, in fact, engaged at that moment in a survey of the premises through the slit of the letter-box.

“Do you know what persons visited these rooms last night?” Thorndyke asked him, when he entered looking somewhat sheepish.

“A good many were in and out of the building,” was the answer, “but I can’t say if any of them came to this flat.  I saw Miss Curtis pass in about nine.”

“My daughter!” exclaimed Mr. Curtis, with a start.  “I didn’t know that.”

“She left about nine-thirty,” the porter added.

“Do you know what she came about?” asked the inspector.

“I can guess,” replied Mr. Curtis.

“Then don’t say,” interrupted Mr. Marchmont.  “Answer no questions.”

“You’re very close, Mr. Marchmont,” said the inspector; “we are not suspecting the young lady.  We don’t ask, for instance, if she is left-handed.”

He glanced craftily at Mr. Curtis as he made this remark, and I noticed that our client suddenly turned deathly pale, whereupon the inspector looked away again quickly, as though he had not observed the change.

“Tell us about those Italians again,” he said, addressing the porter.  “When did the first of them come here?”

“About a week ago,” was the reply.  “He was a common-looking man—­looked like an organ-grinder—­and he brought a note to my lodge.  It was in a dirty envelope, and was addressed ’Mr. Hartridge, Esq., Brackenhurst Mansions,’ in a very bad handwriting.  The man gave me the note and asked me to give it to Mr. Hartridge; then he went away, and I took the note up and dropped it into the letter-box.”

“What happened next?”

“Why, the very next day an old hag of an Italian woman—­one of them fortune-telling swines with a cage of birds on a stand—­came and set up just by the main doorway.  I soon sent her packing, but, bless you! she was back again in ten minutes, birds and all.  I sent her off again—­I kept on sending her off, and she kept on coming back, until I was reg’lar wore to a thread.”

“You seem to have picked up a bit since then,” remarked the inspector with a grin and a glance at the sufferer’s very pronounced bow-window.

“Perhaps I have,” the custodian replied haughtily.  “Well, the next day there was a ice-cream man—­a reg’lar waster, he was.  Stuck outside as if he was froze to the pavement.  Kept giving the errand-boys tasters, and when I tried to move him on, he told me not to obstruct his business.  Business, indeed!  Well, there them boys stuck, one after the other, wiping their tongues round the bottoms of them glasses, until I was fit to bust with aggravation.  And he kept me going all day.

“Then, the day after that there was a barrel-organ, with a mangy-looking monkey on it.  He was the worst of all.  Profane, too, he was.  Kept mixing up sacred tunes and comic songs:  ‘Rock of Ages,’ ‘Bill Bailey,’ ‘Cujus Animal,’ and ‘Over the Garden Wall.’  And when I tried to move him on, that little blighter of a monkey made a run at my leg; and then the man grinned and started playing, ‘Wait till the Clouds roll by.’  I tell you, it was fair sickening.”