"I'll go myself.

I have an idea that Miss Stevens may be the missing witness in the case and may throw greater light upon the happenings of the night before last than any other witness we have yet interviewed." He found he had to wait an hour before he could get a train for Ashford, and he passed that hour impatiently walking up and down the broad platform.

Here was a new complication in the case.

Who was Miss Stevens, and why should she be journeying to Dover on the night of the murder?
He reached Ashford, and with difficulty found a cab, for it was raining heavily, and he had come provided with neither mackintosh nor umbrella.
The matron of the Cottage Hospital reassured him on one point.
"Oh, yes, Miss Stevens is still in the hospital," she said, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

There was just a chance that she might have been discharged, and again the possibility that she would be difficult to trace.
The matron showed him the way through a long corridor, terminating in a big ward.