I knew the sort, too, and knew also that my former suspicion was now a certainty. Anne had been to Cassavetti's rooms that night; though nothing would ever induce me to believe she was his murderess.
"Well, I fail to see how that clue could have led him to me," I said, forcing a laugh. I didn't mean to let Southbourne, or any one else, guess that I knew who that hairpin had belonged to.
"It didn't; it led him nowhere; though I believe he spent several days going round the West End hairdressers' shops. There's only one of them, a shop in the Haymarket, keeps that particular kind of hairpin, and they snubbed him; they weren't going to give away their clients' names. And there was nothing in the rooms to give him a clue. All Cassavetti's private papers had been carried off, as you know. Then there was the old Russian you told about at the inquest. He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth; for nothing has been seen or heard of him. So, as I said, Freeman was on a cold scent, and thought of you again. He came to me, ostensibly on other business. I'd just got the wire from Petersburg--Nolan of _The Thunderer_ sent it--saying you'd walked out of your hotel three nights before, and hadn't been seen or heard of since. It struck me that the quickest way to trace you, if you were still above ground, was to set Freeman on your track straight away. So I told him at once of your disappearance; and he started cross-questioning me, with the result,--well--he went off eventually with the fixed idea that you were more implicated in the murder than had appeared possible at the time, and that your disappearance was in some way connected with it. Wait a bit,--let me finish! The next I heard was that he was off to St. Petersburg with an extradition warrant; and, from what he told me just now, he was just in time. Yes, it was the quickest way; they'd never have released you on any other consideration!"
"No, I guess they wouldn't," I responded. "You've certainly done me a good turn, Lord Southbourne,--saved my life, in fact. But what about this murder charge? Is it a farce, or what? You don't believe I murdered the man, do you?"
"I? Good heavens, no! If I had I shouldn't have troubled to set Freeman on you," he answered languidly. I've met some baffling individuals, but never one more baffling than Southbourne.