Читать книгу Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding - Страница 11

Table of Contents

MISS WEST looked at the man sitting at his ease on the other side of the fireplace with a very determined tilt of her chin.

"Now, Mr. Pointer—you mustn't mind if I call you that, but I'm not talking to the Inspector of Scotland Yard just now—"

"A Chief Inspector from the Yard—" he corrected modestly, disclaiming the elevated rank she thrust upon him.

"I don't want to see him. I want a talk with just Mr. Pointer—a man,—a human being—who can be sorry for folk in trouble, and not look on them just as cases."

"But you see..." Pointer's face was very kind..."any information given to me is sure to be overheard by the Chief Inspector, and he may feel it his duty to make use of it. There's no use pretending he won't, miss."

She sat a moment studying him again.

"Very well. Let him overhear what he likes, but all the same I want to talk to you, and not to a police-officer. I want you, and not the Inspector, to talk the case over with me, or we shall never get anywhere. And that's just where the police are in this case."

"Eh? Where?"

"Nowhere!" Miss West's eyes snapped; "nowhere at all with John Carter in prison! Now, Mr. Pointer"—her smile was infectious—"you see my position, don't you? A police-officer doesn't have any personal opinions—how can he have? But you have, you know."

"Well?" Pointer was smiling.

Miss West jumped up and paced up and down the room. She walked with a fine, free swing.

"I'll start at the very beginning. John Carter's father"—Pointer noticed that Carter was to be more to the fore than Robert Erskine—"was a prospector. He and Uncle Ian became great friends out on a shooting expedition uncle took once, and after that Mr. Carter used to regularly stop at Four Winds on his way out and back from his trips. I don't remember him well. I was such a little tot at the time. He was a widower, and once, after Jack had been ill, Uncle Ian insisted on his sending him to stay at Four Winds for six months. After that Jack used to spend his holidays from school regularly with us, and when Uncle Henry—I call him that, though, of course, he wasn't any relation to me, any more than Uncle Ian was—well, when Uncle Henry and Rob came out from England we had great times together, we three. Jack was the eldest, he was fifteen; then came Rob, who was twelve, and then I, a year younger than Rob." She paused a moment, evidently back in the happy days of which she was speaking, then with a sigh she went on: "Jack's father died when he was about eighteen. He went to the Calgary College to study engineering, but of course he lived at Four Winds. Mr. Carter had died, leaving awfully little behind him. Uncle Ian would have paid Jack's college expenses, but he would have none of that.

"He used to work just like any one of the hands on the Ranch in his holidays, and took his pay just like them. Then before he was through college Uncle Ian died. Dear, kind, generous Uncle Ian! We found out that he was fearfully badly hit by some wheat speculations he had got into, which did well at first and then let him in for thousands. He had mortgaged the ranch up to the last fence rail, and though it all went to Rob, there was fearfully little money for him to carry on with. Well, of course, after uncle's death everything was different. I didn't see much of the boys at this time. Rob decided to sell the ranch. Mother moved to a sister of hers in Toronto, where I was studying, and after college I got a post in the High School there. Finally Rob put the money from the ranch into the Silk Mills at Toronto and came on there as their manager. He did well, too, and was quite one of Toronto's smart young men. Then came the war." She paused for a minute or two. "Jack enlisted in the Princess Pats, and went out with the first draft; he was frightfully injured at Vimy trying to get his officer back from between the lines. He was in hospital in France for months and then was invalided out, but he stayed on in France till the armistice, giving engineering courses in the Y.M.C.A., I believe."

"And Mr. Robert Erskine?"

"Rob didn't go out. The factory was turned into surgical supplies, and he thought he could do as good work there as in Europe. Besides, he had lost his heart to a girl who was practically German, a Miss Heilbronner. That was how he originally got his chance as manager of the Silk Mills. Old man Heilbronner was the head of the American syndicate which owned the Toronto factory and mills."

"Was Mr. Erskine engaged to Miss Heilbronner?"

"For a time, just before and at the beginning of the war, I think he was—sort of on probation, if he could keep on making good. I saw her once or twice out motoring with Rob, and she didn't look the kind to do life on the cheap. Then something happened—I don't know what—which seemed to come between Rob and the Heilbronners. You see," she turned to the other, "mother and aunt and I didn't belong in the least to Rob's real people. I mean—well, of course, I called Uncle Ian 'uncle,' but we were just plain farmer folk same as Jack Carter. The Erskines were quite different, and though Rob never changed an iota himself, his circle and mine didn't mix. Well, Mattie Heilbronner got engaged to another man, and old man Heilbronner was out to get Rob's scalp, so I heard people say; and certainly the factory, which had done so splendidly up till then, didn't seem to do so well after the trouble, whatever it was. But Rob kept his end up till after the armistice, when it was turned back into silk weaving again. Then Jack came back from Europe, and he insisted on coming in to help Rob. Wouldn't take a cent except out of profits, and they thought they were going to pull through in spite of Heilbronner's millions against them. But things went from bad to worse. They were just being squeezed out, so folks that knew said, and—" She came to a dead stop.

"Mr. Pointer, I've read the dreadful things they say of Jack Carter in the papers here. Are they true? I mean, did you really find all those jewels in his trunk? You yourself? And does he still refuse to explain?"

Pointer was quite honest with her. He told her exactly what the papers knew, but he did not add that the American police claimed to know Carter as Green.

She said nothing for a minute or two, but sat down in her chair again, propping her chin on her hand, looking out of the window. She took up her story as though she had not asked any question.

"And then on June nineteenth the Toronto papers were out in head-lines that both Rob and Jack had disappeared, and that a warrant was out for their arrest for embezzlement. And that's all I know."

"All?" asked Pointer very quietly.

She flushed.

"I had a letter from Jack and one from Rob sent me on June fifth from Toronto. Just a line—literally—to say good-bye and that I should hear from them again."

"Have you the letters?"

"No, they were each marked 'Burn,' and I did so at once."

"And—did you hear from either of them again?"

"Not a word. I saw Rob's death in the paper. I didn't recognize him in that picture as Eames, and then I—I read of Jack's dreadful trouble."

There was a long silence between the two.

"And Mr. Beale? Where does he come in?"

"Beale?" She repeated the name questioningly. "Who is he? Never heard the name that I know of."

"Eumph! And Miss Heilbronner, what of her?"

"She married still another man, so someone told me, shortly after the armistice. But Mr. Pointer, you're thinking of Rob Erskine. I'm not. Not for the moment. It's John Carter we must save. Poor Rob is killed, but Jack—" There were tears in her eyes which she winked resolutely away. "Mr. Pointer, you're a fair-minded man, one only has to look at you to see you wouldn't have a hand in faking up a case against an innocent man, and the case against Jack is faked."

"Then why doesn't he speak out, Miss West?"

"I can't imagine. I can't imagine!" She spoke as one who had tried hard enough, "but he's no murderer, far less a thief."

Pointer was sorry for her, and stirred uneasily in his chair.

"You see, I knew him as a boy, and knew him as a young man. You can't make a mistake as to the very foundations of a character you've known so long and so intimately. Uncle Ian, too, loved him. He loved him better even than Rob, and Uncle Ian couldn't have cared for anyone who wasn't straight." Again there was a silence between the two. Then she leant forward and laid a hand on Pointer's sleeve for a second.

"Do you think he's in danger, too, Mr. Pointer?" she whispered.

"Unless he speaks out, and can clear himself with a good alibi, I do, indeed. I'm speaking only of the murder charge—the other doesn't concern us over here. Now, Miss West, you think the charge against Carter is faked. That means he must have a bitter enemy. Robert Erskine was murdered, not by Carter, you say. He, too, had a bitter enemy. Could the same enmity link the two? Can they have a common enemy? Do you know of any event in their lives, common to both, which could have roused any such feeling on the part of anyone?"

She sank into deep thought and then slowly shook her head.

"Of course, one's first thought is that they were partners together, disappeared together, and were accused together of embezzlement. Could Mr. Heilbronner be in it for anything?" probed the police-officer.

"Mr. Heilbronner has been touring Europe for his health since July. I heard by chance on the steamer I crossed on that he was staying in Geneva, but I can't think of him as caring for anything but his moneybags—at least judging by his looks."

"Humph, not always a safe guide. Now about his daughter. Was Mr. Carter a friend of hers, too?"

"No he never met her. That I know."

"And you can think of nothing, absolutely nothing, which will give us any clue as to an enmity for one or both of these two men?"

"The Amalgamated Silk Society—but that sounds too silly to suggest," she said hesitatingly.

"I don't know about silly, but as they wanted both men for embezzlement I can't see the point in killing one. And Miss West, you can't separate one man in this case from the other, since Carter won't speak out. It is the charge of killing Erskine that's Carter's danger. Now suppose you tell me more about Carter. We have been told by the authorities in Toronto that even though he was Erskine's assistant he would absent himself from the town and the works for months at a time. Can you guess why?"

"Rob said he was prospecting."

"And what did he himself say?"

"He refused to talk of where he had been."

"Miss West, why don't you believe that he really had been prospecting?"

For an appreciable second she hesitated, then with a lift of her head she looked up at him.

"I'll be quite frank. I know the truth can only help Jack in the end. He never came back looking in the least as a prospector does after a trip. Face and hands burnt and cracked. Hair all rough, and a gait that doesn't lose its stiffness for weeks. There's an unmistakable look about a man who's been away in the wilds that you can't mistake out there. But Jack always came back paler than he went, and with his hands not sunburnt in the least. Nor has he ever been able to walk much since the war. It was his leg that was so mangled."

Pointer thought of "Green's" New York record.

"Now once more about the breaking off of the engagement between Robert Erskine and Miss Heilbronner. I wish you'd tell me all you know about it."

"I never got to the bottom of it because Rob was too cut up to talk of it. Perhaps it was only that old man Heilbronner didn't think the mills were turning out enough money for his daughter. He tried his best to get the place away from Rob, but Rob wouldn't let it go. There was some sort of a clause by which he could purchase it, so much down at once and the rest yearly. He had paid the sum down out of the ranch sale, and I guess the old man was always hoping he'd trip up on his payments, but Rob held on for seven years in spite of all, and then they—he—failed on the last installment. Oh, Mr. Pointer, it was cruel I He first, and then Jack with him, had worked so hard. They had done without everything, pleasures, or enough sleep, or even"—she choked—"enough food those last months, and they just slipped up on it. He needed five thousand pounds, and so, though it cut him to do it, he wrote to his mother for the loan of the money. She sent one thousand pounds and he couldn't scrape the rest of the money together, try as he could. No one in Toronto would give him any help. That was the doing of the Silk Amalgamated. So he lost the mills and they even tried to turn him and Jack out of their positions, but Rob and he refused to leave. And that"—she sprang to her feet again. "I'm sure that is the real reason for the charge of embezzlement—just to break Rob and Jack because they dared to stand out against the Amalgamated. Mr. Heilbronner swore that they had been cheating the company out of its percentages for three years. Said that the Amalgamated had proofs of big orders carried out at the Toronto Mills which weren't entered on the books and on which nothing had been paid."

Pointer tried here and there to come upon something approaching a clue, but finally he saw Miss West into a taxi, and promised to call upon her next morning. Then he sat up till far into the night trying to clear up the new tangles which she had introduced.

Why—among many other ways—had Erskine given no idea of the nature of his work to his mother? He had only written infrequently, but even so he never referred to it. He only asked for funds and wrote as an idle young man about town. Why had he told Miss West that he had asked for five thousand pounds, when Pointer had read his own letter asking for one thousand pounds exactly. Where had the rest of the money gone which the young man had asked for and received, at the rate of about two thousand a year? As yet Pointer had been able to find no proof that Erskine speculated, though had he done so under another name it would be difficult to trace it. However, the Chief Inspector went to bed with a clear plan as to how Miss West would work into his schemes.

When he saw her next morning the wily man began by regretting that there seemed no way in which she could make herself of actual service such as she wanted to be engaged on, and only when Miss West was in a sufficiently subdued frame of mind at the idea of not being able to help after all did he advance his suggestion.

"I hope you won't mind my asking," he began, "but is there any—eh—tie between you and Mr. Carter?"

"He won't let me consider myself engaged to him, but if ever he gets enough money to marry on, he and I are going to be married. I have a little income of my own, but he won't let that count." She gave a proud little smile.

"I see." Pointer looked reflectively at his gloves. "I see. I was wondering if there isn't some way we could use your offer of help, but there is only one and you might not care for that." He seemed to dismiss the idea. She leant forward eagerly.

"Oh, but I'll do anything. Anything. I would for Rob's sake, let alone in the terrible position Jack is in. What is it, Mr. Pointer?"

"Well, it's this. I wonder if you could go to France and look up Mrs. Erskine's circle? As a sort of relation, well then a friend of the family, her solicitor, Mr. Russell, would give you a letter of introduction, I know. If possible I should like you to stay in the house and try to find some clue which might clear up all this game of cross-purposes, for that's what's going on, Miss West. There's no one case so tangled as this. What's happened, I feel sure, is that half-a-dozen ends have all got knotted up together. Now the real one may lie in the far past—back of Robert Erskine, or even of his father.' I can see no other way of possibly stumbling on it than by trying to piece it out of his mother's recollections. Mrs. Erskine thinks there's nothing to tell, Mr. Russell says the same, but it's the only chance for a fresh cast as far as I can see. Will you go?"

As he had foreseen, the idea did not appeal to Miss West in the least.

"You mean," she hesitated, "you mean to go and stay with Mrs. Erskine, if she will let me, and be a sort of spy in the house?"

"Just so. No, I was afraid it wouldn't do. As a matter of fact, I wish I could have had someone in her villa weeks ago. Only the Yard won't run to needless expenses, you know, and—well, there it is." He smiled cheerily.

"You think it so important as all that?"

He was quite honest.

"I think it may lead to nothing, but I certainly think it worth trying. If you cared to go, you would be the very person. Mrs. Erskine used to have a companion long ago, I'm told. She might like to have a bright and, if you'll permit me to say so, Miss, a pretty face about her."

Christine made her decision.

"I'm not going to pretend that it's what I wanted. And I don't think you'd be in the least deceived if I tried to hoodwink you. But I'll go, and if Mrs. Erskine asks me to stop with her I'll do it. I suppose I can always write to you?"

"I should want you to write a report every day and post it to my home address. I may not answer, but I shall get your letters all right, and if there is anything special I want, or that you can do, I shall let you know. You must arrange with some shop in Nice to keep your letters for you. Remember, Miss West, you mustn't forget that there may be enemies in the very household of Mrs. Erskine herself. I have no reason whatever to think so, but you must act as though there were."

"Do you know anything about her household?"

Pointer read her a letter he had received weeks ago in answer to one he had dispatched to the Nice Préfecture. Mrs. Erskine lived a quiet but not secluded life in her charming villa, entertaining a little, and altogether enjoying the respectful esteem of the authorities. Her household was very simple. One man servant who was gardener and chauffeur, and one woman, his wife, who did the work, together with a first class cook. Mrs. Erskine only lived on one floor of her villa, the other two floors being let.

"I'm afraid I shan't be of any use," Christine said warningly; "it sounds quite out of my line."

The Chief Inspector would have preferred, as he had told her, to send a trained detective, but Christine was the only woman who would be able to enter under the aegis of a letter from Russell, and willing to work for the truth, so he encouraged her with the prospect of coming on some unconsidered piece of news which might set machinery in motion which would ultimately liberate Carter.

Finally she decided to go up to Perth personally and see the solicitor. Pointer looked up her train, and 'phoned about her to the Scotsman. Then, taking a hearty farewell of her, for the two liked each other, he went to the nearest 'phone and rang up for the second time that morning an American reporter friend of his on the London staff of the New York Herald.

"Pointer speaking. Have you looked her up? Good. Well, who did she marry? Beale, did you say? Mr. Beale? Oh, Mr. Edward Beale, only son of Mr. Augustus P. Beale, an editor of the Universe. I see. Eh? I only said I see. Thanks very much indeed;" and Pointer hung up the receiver and walked away, frowning deeply. So Miss Heilbronner, Robert Erskine's one time fiancée, had married Mr. Beale's only son. Did this stand for anything in the puzzle? If so, what?

Christine meanwhile was speeding towards the rooms of Mr. Mortimer Meukes, the young solicitor to whom she had brought a letter of introduction from Canada yesterday afternoon.

"Did you see him?" she asked almost before she had shut the door behind her.

"I did, Miss West. He has agreed to retain me as his counsel, but I am bound to say that he refused to give me any information whatever." The young man gave a vexed laugh.

"Frankly, if I hadn't promised you to take the case, I should hand you back your retaining fee."

"I don't think you would." Christine spoke entreatingly. "You would be much too conscious of the fact that Mr. Carter is in a terrible position. He doesn't speak, obviously because there is some good reason why he can't, not because he won't."

"He doesn't even give that much explanation;" but Mr. Meukes' tone was less indignant.

"If you think Mr. Carter is a man to tamely or lightly submit to being broadcasted as a murderer and a thief, you can't have had a square look at him. Does he look a rabbit?"

Mr. Meukes hastily agreed that he certainly did not, for Christine had spoken with warmth.

"Did he give you no message for me?"

"Yes, he told me to tell you, in strictest secrecy, that he was thankful you had come, and that if you could remain on this side of the Atlantic, as you told me to tell him you would, he might be very glad of your help later on. He was really most awfully touched by your coming and by your having sent me."

Christine told him that she was going abroad for some time possibly, unless Carter would prefer to have her stay closer at hand. She gave Mr. Russell's address to the solicitor and asked him to wire her Carter's reply.

Mr. Russell, like Pointer, took a liking to the Canadian girl. He sent off a letter at once to Mrs. Erskine recommending Miss West to her, and gave Christine a letter of introduction to hand her personally. "I'm sure she will welcome you. After all, the poor leddy has little enough that she knows about her only son." Christine looked down her nose.

"I shouldn't build on that. Mrs. Erskine must be an iceberg."

Mr. Russell opened his eyes.

"My dear young leddy, anything but! Let me assure you she spends far too much on charity. Far too much."

"She let her 'only son' have a fearful struggle for years and years when she could have helped him, and never missed the money. She let the Mills for which he had worked so hard slip through his fingers at the last moment."

Mr. Russell was amazed.

"She sent him large sums of money regularly. I've seen his letters thanking her for the sums sent and asking for more and always getting it. Aye, always getting it. As for the last thousand pounds, he only asked for one thousand. I know what I am speaking of. The Chief Inspector could have told you the same."

Christine was bewildered. So bewildered that she held her tongue.

"Did you ever see the letters Robert Erskine wrote. I mean see them yourself?"

No, Christine had to acknowledge that she never had. "Or any of Mrs. Erskine's letters to him?"

Christine had again to acknowledge that she never had seen one.

Mr. Russell nodded his head. "Just so. Just as I thought. Mrs. Erskine is a quiet, still woman. You might think her hard if you didn't know what lies behind her manner. My father could tell you of case after case of charity and goodness which he found out, after she had left Perth, of which she never spoke. She's not one to wear her heart on her sleeve, like all her family now dead and gone, but it's a heart of gold." Christine bade Mr. Russell good-bye, and picked up a telegram from London in which Carter sent her word that any distance within a week's journey of London would serve him perfectly. She travelled up to town and on to Dover resolved to meet Robert's mother with a more unprejudiced mind.

It happened to be a singularly cold September, so that Mrs. Erskine had already returned from her Eze summer cottage to Nice, which presented a more animated appearance than usual, considering the month.

Villa des Fleurs was a beautiful house standing in a handsome palm garden where roses bloomed all the year, and Christine rang the bell of the first floor wondering what sort of experience lay before her.

She was not often nervous, but she hardly noticed who was in the balcony to which the smiling French maid led her, until a white-haired woman, quietly but richly dressed, held out her hand.

Mrs. Erskine told her how pleased she was to see anyone who had known her husband and son in Canada, and asked Christine to stay at the villa for a fortnight. "Though Nice is still quite deserted," she added. Christine suggested that her wardrobe might not be quite up to Nice's standards, but Mrs. Erskine smiled faintly at the idea. She insisted on sending to the station where the luggage had been left, and Marie the maid showed the Canadian, after a delicious tea, into her room.

"We dine at eight o'clock," her hostess had told her. "The other people in the villa are friends of mine, and we have all our meals together. There is a Mr. and Mrs. Clark, who have the ground floor, and are splendid tennis players—you may like to practice with them of a morning—and then there is Major Vaughan, who has the floor above this. He is rather an original, but as an old bachelor, as well as an old friend of my husband's, I humor him."

The room assigned to Christine was very barely furnished. After a bath in a luxurious bathroom, she opened the door next to her own by mistake, and stepped into a really beautiful bedroom, all silver and petunia shades. Closing the door hastily, she raised her eyebrows a little as she stepped on into her own very comfortless nook. Mrs. Erskine might be delighted to see her, but, though she had had ample warning of her coming, she had certainly not been over concerned with her guest's comfort. At dinner, which was of a quality and served with a luxury Christine found a revelation, she met the other inmates of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Clark were a cheery, rather noisy couple, who seemed to consider all life a great joke. Christine decided that the lady had once been on the stage, from her partiality to paint and powder and richly tinted locks, but there was a breezy good nature about her which offset Mrs. Erskine's chilly manner. To Major Vaughan she took an instant aversion. His light eyes stared at her insolently, from the simple hair-dressing to the hem of her equally plain little frock.

"An almost-relation"—he repeated Mrs. Erskine's introduction; "you must adopt us, too, Miss West. We are all one happy family here, you see. Having everything in common." Christine thought she had never seen a more odious smile. She refused to talk to him, but all through the Clarks' chaff she could hear his biting speeches and neighing laugh. Mrs. Erskine's answers were chiefly monosyllabic, and before she joined the others at bridge under the palms and roses on the terrace she turned a rather weary face to the young woman.

"The Major is so brilliantly clever, when he cares to exert himself, that one has to overlook his little moods. After all, we shouldn't live like this if we didn't fit in very well together."

Which was more than Christine did. She sometimes thought it was her guilty conscience, the secret purpose which had brought her to Nice, that the villa seemed an uncomfortable place to her. Wherein lay the discomfort she could not analyze, even for Pointer's benefit. Mrs. Erskine took no interest in the open air life beloved by the Clarks, but lay for the most part on a chaise-lounge. The Canadian girl had heard of Scotch taciturnity, but her hostess was the most reserved person she had ever met. Only point-blank questions would bring out any of the remembrances on which Pointer had built his hopes.

Of her husband she spoke with a certain old-fashioned respect and affection that touched Christine. About Robert as a baby she spoke, too, and equally tenderly, but of his life after he left with his father for Canada, she either had nothing to say, or refused to say it.

"I would rather not discuss my son," she said once in her low, prim voice. "I am thankful that his murderer has been caught, but I dread what revelations the trial may bring to light."

Christine kept silence only by an effort. Rob had been no saint, but neither was his mother perfect. Shortly after her arrival her hostess had suggested that they should drive into Monte Carlo to make some purchases.

"There's a milliner I've heard of who's having a bankrupt sale of stock. I'm told there are really some good bargains to be got."

Christine and she drove down to where they were received by a very pale young woman, with dark shadows under her eyes, who looked as though a square meal would be a novelty. The hats were very moderately priced, indeed. Mrs. Erskine decided on a couple, and then began to dispute the price. Christine marveled as she listened. It was a shabby scene, heightened by the air of triumph with which the Scotswoman turned to Christine when they were again in the car.

"They were bargains anyway, but I felt quite sure that I could get them still cheaper."

"She looked very sad, and so young," Christine said soberly.

"It takes capital to succeed in Monte Carlo," was Mrs. Erskine's rejoinder. Something in her companion's face arrested her attention, "You mustn't think me hard"—Christine did—"but I consider it wrong to spend a larger sum than necessary upon myself. Three-quarters of my income is needed for my charities, and the remaining quarter I consider I should stretch as far as possible."

Christine said nothing for a few minutes.

"It must be very nice to be able to give away so much," she said musingly, "but for that, I don't see that wealth has much to offer. Which is as well"—she turned to Mrs. Erskine with a smile—"as I am never likely to have much of it."

Judging by Mrs. Erskine's face, she did not share Christine's philosophical point of view in the least.

"A gypsy woman read my hand when I was a tiny tot and said that I should die a wealthy woman, and years later I had the same thing told me—that I should die possessed of great wealth."

They drove home in silence. Christine turned over in her mind what she had just learnt as to her hostess's division of her money. At first she was a little skeptical as to its literal truth, but after a week in the villa she took this suspicion back. Mrs. Erskine did live apparently on the scale of one thousand a year. Apart from the villa and its furnishings, which she had evidently purchased years ago, and the motor-car and meals which all the household shared, she spent but little on herself.

Of anything that could help John Carter Christine learnt nothing. Mrs. Erskine, though she had never heard of him before his arrest, now proclaimed his guilt as firmly as though he had already been tried and convicted. There was only one startling fact, after close on a fortnight, which the villa had revealed to Christine, and that was that Mrs. Erskine was afraid of something.

She herself openly alluded to the fact, when discussing a case in the paper, that she slept with a loaded revolver under her pillow.

"Day or night I always have one close at hand, and I'm quite a fair shot."

"In the midst of life we are in death," cackled the Major, who had not shown himself for several days.

Mrs. Erskine looked at him with one of her frosty smiles, but said nothing. It suddenly struck Christine that here might be the reason why Mrs. Erskine kept the Clarks and the Major with her. They were even in the habit, she learnt, of sharing the summer cottage together, yet Christine did not think that Mrs. Erskine cared any more for them in her heart than she did for herself—Christine—whom yet she had asked to extend her visit for at least another fortnight.

Were they all not so much friends as a bodyguard? If so, from what danger were they intended to shield their hostess? She puzzled over the matter greatly. It seemed to her the one point of interest she had unearthed. As for Pointer, he wrote no comment, only that she was to watch every detail closely that came under her notice. True, she remembered Robert saying that his mother was timid, a timidity which he himself had inherited, just as he had her one uneven eyebrow, and also a little mannerism of the wrists which Christine never saw without remembering him with a pang.

Poor Rob, lying, after little but struggle and failure, in his family vault! If the living man and his danger meant more to her than the dead, not for that reason did she forget Robert Erskine's murder.