Then, knowing what he should find, he
raised the green baize curtain hanging from the lower shelf, which
concealed a sort of cupboard containing miscellaneous stores and not
a little rubbish, including a number of empty cardboard boxes.
A rectangular strip had been roughly cut from the lid of the topmost
box!
The mysterious envelope and its contents, the wax and the seal--all
had come from his own dispensary!
CHAPTER X
"CLOSE YOUR SHUTTERS AT NIGHT"
Inspector Dunbar stood in the little dispensary tapping his teeth with
the end of a fountain-pen.
"The last time he visited you, doctor--the time when he gave you the
envelope--did the cabman wait here in the waiting-room?"
"He did--yes. He came after my ordinary consulting hours and I was at
supper, I remember, as I am compelled to dine early."
"He would be in here alone?"
"Yes. No one else was in the room."
"Would he have had time to find the box, cut out the piece of
cardboard from the lid, put it in the envelope and seal it?"
"Ample time. But what could be his object? And why mark the envelope
30?"
"It was in your consulting-room that he asked you to take charge of
the envelope?"
"Yes."
"Might I take a peep at the consulting room?"
"Certainly, Inspector."
From the waiting-room they went up a short flight of stairs into the
small apartment in which Stuart saw his patients. Dunbar looked slowly
about him, standing in the middle of the room, then crossed and stared
out of the window into the narrow lane below.
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