Read "The Piccadilly Puzzle" by Fergus Hume online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Dowker walked along Piccadilly thinking deeply about the curious aspect the case was now assuming. As far as he could make out, Myles Desmond was the last person who saw Miss Sarschine alive, and he having gone out a few minutes after the interview, it seemed as though he had followed her. The only thing to be done was to see Ellersby, and as he was stopping at the Guelph Hotel Dowker went along in that direction. He followed the same path as he surmised the dead woman must have taken, but what puzzled him was the reason she had for going into Jermyn Street.
"After she found out Calliston had gone off with Lady Balscombe," he muttered, "the most obvious course would be for her to go home, but she evidently did not intend to do so. I wonder if she walked or took a cab? Walked, I suppose. Let me see, it was a foggy night and she got lost, that is the explanation. But then this man or woman she met; it must have been a friend as she would hardly have stopped talking to a stranger, unless indeed she asked the way. Lord," ejaculated Mr. Dowker, suddenly stopping short, "fancy if this murder turns out to be the work of some tramp, but no, that's bosh, tramps wouldn't use a poisoned dagger -- unless they took the one she carried. Hang it! it's the most perplexing case I was ever in."