wedding day. These people aren't complete heathens, after all. They may give their sons and daughters away to the highest bidder, but I dare say they don't give them away to total strangers without allowing them a chance to get acquainted.
Do they?"
"I haven't a clue," Barbara replied. "Go on."
She went to the bedside table, a wobbly affair with a single drawer. She slid this open.
"Well, the point is that on this particular night, I saw him as he was leaving the hotel. We chatted a bit about the upcoming nuptials, and he told me he was going to the seafront for a run. Pre-wedding nerves and all. You know."
"Right."
"So when I heard he died on the Nez, of all places - which as you may or may not know, Sergeant, is in the opposite direction to the sea-front if you leave from this hotel intending to have a run - I realised he hadn't wanted me to be privy to what he was up to.
Which can only mean that he was up to something he hadn't ought to be up to. And, since he regularly left the hotel at the exact hour at which he left on Friday night, and since on Friday night he ended up dead, I think it's safe to deduce not only that he was meeting someone whom he met on the other nights but also that this someone was a person he ought not to have been meeting in the first place." Treves folded his hands at chest height once again and looked as if he expected Barbara to shout, "Holmes, you amaze me!"
But since Haytham Querashi had been murdered and since the conditions suggested the death was no random act, Barbara had already concluded that the man had gone to the Nez to meet someone. The only piece of information Treves had added was that Querashi may have made this a regular rendezvous. And, reluctant as she was to admit it, that was an extremely valuable titbit. She threw the hotelier a bone.
"Mr. Treves, you're in the wrong profession."
"Really?"
"Believe it." And those two words weren't even a lie.
Thus buoyed, Treves came to inspect the contents of the bedside table with her: a yellow-bound book with a matching satin marker that, opened, displayed several lines bracketed off and an entire text that was written in Arabic; a box of two dozen condoms, half of which were gone; and a five by seven manila envelope. Barbara placed the book into an evidence bag as Treves tut-tutted over the condoms and everything that possession of such sexual paraphernalia seemed to imply. As he clucked, Barbara upended the manila envelope into her palm. Two keys fell out, one not much larger than the length of her first knuckle to the tip of her thumb, the other quite tiny, fingernail size. This second had to be the key to the leather case on the chest of drawers.
She closed her fingers round both of the keys and contemplated her next move. She wanted a look inside the case, but she preferred the look to be a private one. So before she took action, she had to take care of her bearded Sherlock.
She thought about how best to do this while still keeping the man's good will. He wouldn't take kindly to the dawning knowledge that, as he knew the victim, he was one of the suspects in Querashi's murder until an alibi or other evidence eliminated him.
She said, "Mr. Treves, these keys may be crucial to our investigation. Would you step into the corridor and keep watch, please? The last thing we want at a moment like this is eavesdroppers or spies. Give me the word if the coast is clear."
He said, "Of course, of course, Sergeant. I'm only too happy ..." and hurried off to fulfill his commission.
Once he gave her the all clear, the heave ho, and the anchors aweigh, she took a closer look at the keys. They were both brass, the larger of them attached to a chain on which a metal tag also hung. This was stamped with the number 104.
Locker key? Barbara wondered. And what sort of locker? Railway locker? Bus station locker? Personal locker somewhere on the seafront, the sort of metal cupboard in which people stowed their clothes while they were swimming in the sea?
They were all possibilities.
The second key she slid into the lock on the small leather case. The key turned smoothly.