CHAPTER III
THE SHOE BUCKLE
Once outside the death-chamber, Allerdyke asked the manager to give him a bedroom with a sitting-room attached to it, and to put Gaffney in another room close by—he should be obliged, he said, to stay at the hotel until the inquest was over and arrangements had been made for his cousin's funeral. The manager at once took him to a suite of three rooms at the end of the corridor which they were then in. Allerdyke took it at once, sent Gaffney down to bring up certain things from the car, and detained the manager for a moment's conversation.
"I suppose you'd a fair lot of people come in last night from that Christiania boat?" he asked.
"Some fifteen or twenty," answered the manager.
"Did you happen to see my cousin in conversation with any of them?" inquired Allerdyke.
The manager shrugged his shoulders. He was not definitely sure about that; he had a notion that he had seen Mr. James Allerdyke talking with some of the Perisco passengers, but the notion was vague.
"You know how it is," he went on. "People come in—they stand about talking in the hall—groups, you know—they go from one to another. I think I saw him talking to that doctor who's in there now with Dr. Orwin—the man with the big beard—and to a lady who came at the same time. There were several ladies in the party—the passengers were all about in the hall, and in
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