Читать книгу Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding - Страница 14

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EIGHT o'clock next morning found the Chief Inspector wrapped in slumber. The Boots interrupted them to tell him that there was an insistent telephone call for Mr. Deane—a lady speaking from Cannes. Grateful for the fact that science did not yet enable Miss West to see him as well as hear him, Mr. Deane descended the stairs sleepily after the briefest of toilets.

"Gladys speaking. I was at Monte Carlo last night with some Americans, and in the Rooms I saw a lady I had last seen in London at the hotel which we so often talk about. She had room number twelve there. You remember her, too, don't you?"

"Perfectly. What was she doing when you caught sight of her?"

A little gurgle came through. "Talking to Jack."

"Indeed!" Pointer's voice sounded as amused as hers, but his eyes were hard and keen. "Oh, indeed! Had she got rid of her cold?"

"You'll have to ask him. I was miles away from them, stuck in a block of people around one of the tables. But it seems that Jack was only telling her the way out."

"You saw him later on?"

"No. He too had vanished by the time I got clear. You see, he didn't expect me there. I had tried to 'phone him, but he was out all day. But I got through to him the first thing this morning."

Pointer's free hand gave an impatient tap to the table.

"Bless all amateurs!" he would have liked to reply, but he changed it instead to "I see. But first about yourself. You didn't notice where Miss—umph—"

"Twelve went to?"

"No, I only saw her for the one second, but I thought you'd be interested."

"Quite right. How was she dressed?"

"Beautifully, I guess. I can't get used to people leaving all their clothes behind them, but she had as much on as the wife of one of your ambassadors who was there, too, and Miss Les—Twelve had the finer jewels."

"Did Mr. Crane have anything interesting to tell you about her?"

"Oh, no, he was merely watching a table when she asked him the way out. She was standing beside him you see, and as she really was a lady, and alone, and had got separated from her husband, why, of course, he showed her the way out himself. In the vestibule sure enough was the husband, and they went off together. John had had enough of the rooms—and isn't the air hot inside—so he roamed along the terasse—you know what a wonderful night it was, and then after supper at the Paris motored back to Nice. But say now, Mr. Deane, don't you want to come and have a nice long talk with me, or have me come and see you? I'm so dull here."

There was nothing she could do yet, Pointer assured her, by which he meant that there was nothing he wanted her to do, and remained adamant in spite of all her appeals. His next 'phone was to Watts to come immediately to the hotel. Then he rang up Carter, who having a 'phone beside his bed answered at once, but apparently he could add nothing to Miss West's account. Until Christine had 'phoned him half an hour before he had had no idea as to who the lady was who had spoken to him last night at the Monte Carlo Rooms. Her husband was a smart, youngish-looking man with something military about his get-up. Where the couple went to Carter did not try to see.

Toule, the French detective "attached" to Carter, when questioned next on the 'phone, only knew that "Mr. Crane" had taken a car from the hotel and driven along the Corniche road to Monte Carlo, returning late at night—about twelve the hotel-porter said.

"Humph!" was the only comment of Mr. Deane as he returned to his room, where Watts was already waiting.

"Watts, get off to Monte Carlo at once. Miss West saw Miss Leslie and Carter talking together in the Rooms there last night. His explanation is"—the Chief Inspector repeated the conversations. "You have a snapshot of her—" The ladies occupying both No. 12 and No. 11 of the Enterprise had been snapshotted going down the hotel steps on the Monday following the discovery of "Eames' suicide."

"Rake the coast from Ventimiglia to Marseilles if you have to, but get on her track. What will you go as?"

"Colonel Hunter," Watts said gloomily. He disliked that gentleman exceedingly, from his walrus moustache to his political opinions, and his miserable gold handicap, but it was his best impersonation, and the only one for which he had a passport.

"Right."

The future Colonel bustled off after making a note or two. He did not report for a couple of days, and then he called up Pointer to say that Captain and Mrs. Anstruther were also stopping at the Negresco, where, oddly enough, they had gone from the Hermitage, the afternoon after the lady was seen talking to Carter. In the hotel a slight, casual-looking acquaintance seemed to have been struck up between them and Carter, ostensibly connected with his civility to Mrs. Anstruther at Monte Carlo. The closest watching had as yet shown nothing suspicious beyond the facts themselves.

Within the hour a tall, dark-haired, black-mustached man sent in his name to Mrs. Anstruther as one of the Daily Post's reporters.

It was Captain Anstruther who came down into the lounge instead.

"My wife does not care to be interviewed," he said shortly, handing back his card to "Mr. Wiley."

"We are at a loss to understand why she should be singled out for the favor."

"It's about her contract at the Columbine," the journalist said chattily, "but you might do as well. The D.P. wants to know what has become of Miss Leslie and—"

"Come upstairs." Captain Anstruther spoke with more haste than hospitality. "I don't know how you got on to the fact that my wife was Miss Leslie..."

"Recognized her."

"Well, you tell your paper that she's retired into private life. Look here, it's worth our while to make it worth your while to mention no names. See?"

"I do. But our paper thinks she married a Mr. Black, of Richmond,—or no, another place on the river—"

Captain Anstruther looked still more vexed.

"Of all the damned spying!—I'm a nephew of those Blacks as a matter of fact. Look here, keep all names out of the papers"—he squeezed a note into the journalist's hand, who returned it promptly.

"I should get the sack if I tried that game. I can keep all names out—possibly—without palm-oil. It's her broken contract anyway that our paper's keen on. Why wasn't she sued? And why no announcement of the wedding?"

Captain Anstruther bit his lip.

"Look here, Wiley, you seem a decent chap. I'll, well—I'll take you into our confidence. I'm divorced from my first wife, and Miss Leslie's people are Romans and fearfully pie. They'd have a fit. So, as they're buried alive in Cumberland, they'll never know—at least till the honeymoon is over—unless some paper spreads it broadcast. As to the contract—I squared the management under a pledge of the strictest secrecy. Now then, have a drink, and see how little you can tel! about us, there's a good chap. You might let me see your article if you would?"

The journalist sipped his tumbler of lemonade.

"Look here," he said impulsively, "I'll scratch the whole item. I've always admired Miss Leslie immensely. I wouldn't for the world do anything to annoy her. But I wonder if she wouldn't do us instead an article on 'How it feels to be on the Stage,' or some 'Reminiscences.' She could sign her old name to them all right."

"I'll bring her in and you can ask her yourself."

Miss Leslie was quite taken with the idea of a fortnightly article.

The first one on "Hardships of the dressing-room" would let her fire off quite a few burning truths she had often wished to singe the manager with in the days of her comparative poverty. And it would keep her people quiet.

Mr. Wiley only stipulated that the articles should be sent through him, and that he must, of course, be kept in touch with the authoress until the series of six articles for which he contracted in the name of his paper was finished. The Anstruthers, who knew nothing of the newspaper world, were quite impressed by Mr. Wiley's ability and helpful suggestions, and he left the apartment with their permanent address in his pocket.

He walked back to the Chief Inspector's hotel, whence a 'phone to Watts relieved that detective of some of his anxiety, for to watch a person with a known address is a very different job than keeping an eye on a homeless wanderer who may vanish utterly within a quarter of an hour. A telegram to the Yard brought the confirmation of the marriage, the bride's Roman Catholic parents in Cumberland, and of the husband's large estates in Devon. Of the lady herself Pointer had a mixed impression. On the whole he pigeon-holed her as belonging to those women who, outwardly well bred, can be swung completely off their balance by but one force—the power of money. She struck him as a woman determined to have her share—and as much more perhaps as she could compass—of the good things of life. He took her husband to be of different calibre, and in his case the incentive of a possible need of money would be absent. So she had married a relation of the young fellow she had braved the rain storm on that August Saturday to see. He had not turned up, and whatever the reason the Chief Inspector wondered idly whether Black ever knew that it was his absence which had cost him the lady's affections.

On the evening of the next day arrived the key from Barcelona—the key which he hoped would successfully unlock the Aglae safe in the villa.

At Nice there is some society function every night during the season. This night it was a big ball in honour of a Spanish prince at Baron Boron's castle on its beautiful hill. All the Riviera world would be there. He and Watts, taken off duty temporarily, watched the departure of the motor containing Mrs. Erskine, the Clarks, and Major Vaughan. Leaving the other man near the gate to give an alarm, if need should arise, Pointer, after allowing the servants time to be gathered comfortably around the supper table, mounted a ladder as once before; but this time it was a silk one, which he lifted over the sill once he had entered by Mrs. Erskine's window, which stood open, for the night was warm. The door safely bolted, the Chief Inspector approached the safe and disconnected the alarums. Even his heart beat faster as he inserted the Foch key. It turned easily, the door swung open, and with a deep breath the police-officer took off his hat mentally to Foch as he looked inside.

Three hours later he touched Watts on the shoulder, and leaving him to taxi back to the Negreso, where Mr. Crane was among the "not-invited," Pointer sent off a pile of telegrams to all the air-stations near London.

The replies drifted in next day. Among them was an answer to an earlier request for information concerning Major Vaughan. That officer had distinguished himself on several occasions during the Great War, and it was a matter of comment that he had not received either the Military or the Victoria Cross which had been as good as promised him. His means were believed to be small. He had not returned to London for many years now, and was reported to suffer from weak lungs, which needed Riviera sunshine.

M. Guillaume of the Prefecture knew nothing against the major, any more than he did against the Clarks. All three seemed to the French police to be model Riviera guests, wealthy, well-born, and entertaining a good deal. Only the major's health was not up to the rest of his report. It sometimes necessitated seclusions for a week at a time in his charming bachelor fiat, but Pointer agreed that this could hardly be considered a moral blemish. He walked along the Promenade des Anglais to think it all out. But in vain did the azure arms of land bend around one of the loveliest bays in the world, a sea of cobalt and violet and silver. In vain did sunshine, African in its splendor, beat on him. The Chief Inspector's thoughts were brooding on too black a crime to take their hue from Nature. Though he strolled under the palm trees beside beds of nodding cyclamen, in reality he walked only along a twisted, tortuous murder trail, which still baffled him. Now and again he faced the casino, rising from the sea with gilded cupolas and airy pinnacles like a fairy palace, but he saw ever instead a young man's dead face—and a wardrobe—and a poison draught—and motives obscure and dark.

He decided to start that night for Biarritz. Since he could not pick up the ends of the threads here, he might chance on them further back in the surroundings of the widow years before she moved to this side of France. Colonel Hunter he left to hover around Carter, in spite of Watts' hints that the villa might yield a better harvest to an unobtrusive investigator.

"I've arranged that with Guillaume at the Prefecture. A hint that Mrs. Erskine may possibly be in some danger, which I hope to locate shortly, will keep her safe. Not that I anticipate any trouble. As for you, shadow Carter closely, and trail him if he leaves Nice." A few directions followed as to where, and when, to communicate with himself; and Watts, willy-nilly, had to readjust Colonel Hunter's buttonhole and, stroking that warrior's moustache firmer into place, descend the stairs, meditating on the charms of a farm in Canada, or a free life in Australia, careers for which he had as much talent or real liking as a mole might have for catching birds.

Pointer found Mrs. Erskine's circle in Biarritz almost impossible to reconstruct after fifteen years. However, he at last unrolled the main outlines to where she had left to spend the summer on a farm further in the Pyrenees. Here the path seemed to end, till an idea came to him. A library! Especially a circulating library with English books! He found the only one in Biarritz. The manager told him he had kept it over thirty years. Did he have all books entered? Naturally, the owner in Paris was most particular. Could he trace any library books which might have been sent out to No. 42, Avenue de Paris, fifteen years ago? He could, but he did not look enchanted at the prospect, until Pointer begged him to use the trifle he pressed into his hand to buy himself some cigars. Next morning the police-officer got his money's worth. The manager had found three entries fifteen years ago to a Mrs. Erskine, but the books had not been sent to the address the Chief Inspector had given, but to a farm near St. Jean de Luz. Pointer taxied at once to the place. It was still in the same hands, and Monsieur Jaureguibarry recognized the portrait of Mrs. Erskine, but knew none of her friends, except her companion, though he could not remember that lady's name. His visitor's book gave Paris as the objective of the two ladies on leaving the Basque farm.

"Paris," mused Pointer. He hoped that she had made some stop on the way, and, allowing for the length of the journey from the farm, he decided to try Bayonne as the first likely place. He had guessed rightly, and found Mrs. Erskine's name on an old register of the Grand Hotel. She seemed to have made a stay of over three weeks there, and he sallied out on his round of questions once more. First of all was a telegram to Russell asking for all details in full of any "companions" Mrs. Erskine had ever had, and what had become of them. The reply arrived after a little delay.

We know only of two women who acted as companions to Mrs. Erskine. First a Scotswoman, Janet Fraser by name, whom she mentions once in a letter about a year after her husband's death. She is dead. Then in a mortgage executed by Mrs. Erskine some four years later as a witness to her signature we have an entry of "Mabel Baker. Companion to Mrs. Erskine." Am posting document to you.

Mabel Baker! Mabel—Pointer's eyes snapped. The passport of Mrs. Clark found in the safe at the villa did not give her maiden name, but he had written to the passport office for the particulars furnished by her when applying for it. On her application form she had entered her name as Mabel Baker, daughter of Arthur Baker, of Norwich. He had tried unsuccessfully to find out anything about Arthur Baker, the father, and all that he knew of herself and her husband was that their forms had been signed by their London bank-manager, who was unable after so many years to furnish any particulars Their address was a house in Kensington which had long ago been converted into flats, so that all efforts to trace the couple further back or further forward had failed, but here at last was a new fact that fitted a theory of Robert Erskine's murder, which since the night when Foch's key had opened the safe had been steadily accumulating weight in his mind.

Christine felt more and more disappointed as the weeks passed and no sign came from Pointer. Nothing seemed to be being done. He had spoken of spade work, but she feared that the police had dug themselves in, and that valuable time was being lost. She even began to doubt their keenness. After all it was they who had actually blundered so far as to imprison her John. Might they not be off on some other equally wild-goose chase? Carter preached patience at their weekly meetings, but he could not hide his surprise at the slowness of the official tempo. Pointer would have been grimly amused could he have heard them. The two young people talked in odd confiseries or took excursions together, meeting "by chance" in the tram, and having lunch "by chance" in the same inns, with a tea also by the same coincidence in the same cake-shop, or on the same hotel verandah. Luck, however, never favored them to such an extent that they were quite alone. Some man, now old, now young, now middle-aged, was sure to be already there, or come in with them, or enter before they were more than seated. It never occurred to Christine that the faithful Watts was on duty, and that a great deal more than she would have cared for was absorbed by his attentive ears.

One day, when the Chief Inspector had been close on a fortnight away, Carter watched Christine get down from the tram and pass in through the doors of the Galeries Lafayette. They had already said good-bye for another week before boarding the tram at the top of the hill, but he watched her, thinking that there was no gait in the world to touch hers. Christine had decided that new gloves were a necessity even though the question of clothes did not interest her at all in these dark days. While she was trying on a pair, a voice, low and faintly monotonous, spoke to her. It was Mrs. Erskine. She asked Christine to come back to the villa for tea. The girl accepted at once, for she hoped to hear that Pointer after all had been making some fresh discovery, of which the mother had been kept informed. But Mrs. Erskine had nothing to tell her, as she complained during the drive back, and both women lamented the proverbial, stupidity of Scotland Yard. The Scotswoman asked Christine to pass on at once into the loggia used for tea on warm days, while she took off her things. The loggia was a pretty spot, with well-placed mirrors duplicating the scenery, and gay with tubs of flowering plants. There were a couple of rows of books running around its three sides, and Christine idly picked up a Paris guide. It belonged, as she saw by the name in it, to Mrs. Clark. A loose sheet of letter-paper fell out as she turned it over. It was the first half-sheet of a letter. Christine's eyes grew larger. It was in Robert's handwriting,—a letter to his mother—a Christmas letter dated four years back. She stiffened. Over and over again she read the words, they were the ones which had disagreeably struck the Chief Inspector in Paris. Christine folded the half-sheet carefully away. Mrs. Erskine had tea alone with her. There was evidently a bridge party going on below. She tried to continue their conversation of the car about the impasse in her son's "case," but Christine let each question drop until her hostess had had some tea. She was anxious that the shock of what she had to say should not be too much for one whose health was so delicate. When the tea-things had been cleared away, she spoke slowly.

"I have got something I should like to say about Rob's case, but could I talk it over with you in your boudoir? This is such an open place."

Mrs. Erskine looked at her very keenly. In silence she led the way, and closed the door behind her visitor.

Christine held out the half-sheet of note-paper. "This dropped out of a book of Mrs. Clark's I happened to pick up while waiting for you just now."

Mrs. Erskine put on her glasses. Her hand went out In a sudden nervous little jerk. "One of my Robert's letters! Oh, let me have it! I thought I had lost them all!"

Christine gauged the mother's affection by the eagerness of the voice and eyes. She had never seen Mrs. Erskine show her heart so clearly, and her own went out warmly to the widowed, childless woman before her. "Mrs. Erskine," Christine moistened her lips, "there's been a strange mistake somewhere. That looks like a letter from Robert, but it isn't! He never wrote those lines. Never!"

"What?" Mrs. Erskine turned very pale—"what do you mean?" The half-sheet which she held in her hand shook till Christine wondered that it did not rattle.

"You see, I wrote Rob's Christmas letter for him four years ago. He had burnt his hand badly at the mills, and couldn't go anywhere, so that we had a quiet time together, like old times. He dictated a letter to you and I wrote it. Jack can tell you the same thing. Besides, you might have known that Rob couldn't—wouldn't have written like that."

Mrs. Erskine seemed dazed. "But—but—they were all alike. All his letters were the same...And who's Jack?"

"A friend of mine who used to know Rob well—in Canada. I'm so sorry to've sprung this on you, but you ought to know it, and at least you can comfort yourself with the thought that your son never wrote such horrible letters as you have been thinking all these years. Surely someone with you must have had a motive to intercept your son's letters, and forge others in their stead."

"It's his paper—the paper he always used." Mrs. Erskine seemed quite dazed. She gave Christine the impression of a woman speaking in a nightmare.

"It may be, but it's not his letter. You see, I happen to be in a position to swear to that one, and to prove it in time. Lots of other people knew of his accident. Now, Mrs. Erskine, who is there who could have done so wicked, so cruel a thing?"

Mrs. Erskine suddenly got up, as though she found the room stifling. She looked ghastly, and to Christine she looked frightened as well.

"I must be alone—this shock—this blow—I want time"—she held out a cold, shaking hand—"will you come back—it's now five. Will you come back at seven without fail? Without fail? I—promise me you won't speak of this to anyone in the meanwhile. I know a French detective, not so far from here, before whom I want to lay the case. He is the only man who can solve this riddle. But I'll go into that later when you come back. Promise that you won't speak of it to anyone in the meanwhile. I have a feeling that absolute secrecy is essential if this mystery is to be unraveled,—and unraveled it must be—and quickly!"

Christine would have taken the widow's hand, but Mrs. Erskine did not see her gesture. There was something fierce in her eyes. Action, not sentiment, was evidently rising rapidly in her heart to the exclusion of any softer feeling. Christine mentally apologized to her for ever having thought her dull and cold.

"But what about the Inspector?" she asked gently. "You mean yon English policeman? That dolt has done nothing but muddle and muddle along. And where is he now? Away on his holidays, I shouldna be surprised."

Christine made a little deprecatory moue.

"Still, the case is in his hands," she ventured, and remembering how he had come to the help of them all at Lille, she repeated more firmly, "I do think you owe it to him to let him know about this at once."

"And where is he to be found?" Mrs. Erskine asked fiercely; "tell me that?"

Christine had not the faintest idea, and said so. She could not add that the Chief Inspector had told her to consult Mr. Watts should any emergency arise while he was away.

Mrs. Erskine sank back into her chair. "He bade me 'phone to the Prefecture if anything unexpected should happen, and it's aye the unexpected to that man that happens in all his cases, I'm thinking. Well, instead of the Prefecture, I am going, as I told you, to employ a most clever French detective of whose skill I've had some very good proofs indeed in other days. Now, Christine, my dear"—she had never called the girl that before—"just send a wire, or a letter, to your pension in Cannes and bide the night here with me. I have much to do. I need you. Leave me to myself now, but come you back at seven without fail and we will see what my Frenchman can do to clear up this dreadful discovery of yours." Mrs. Erskine was deeply moved. She folded one trembling hand over the other, as though to keep them quiet by force.

"I canna believe it"—she turned her glowing eyes on the girl—"I canna yet believe what you've told me. To-night you must let me hear anything that you remember from my Rob's letters. The letters that I never received."

Mrs. Erskine covered her face with her hands, and only made a gesture of farewell as Christine passed her.

"Don't fail me!" she breathed, and the girl laid a tender hand for a second on the bowed shoulder.

She herself spent the interval as in a dream. What did it mean? What could it mean? Was there really someone in the house with Mrs. Erskine who had substituted those brutal begging letters; but how had they been able to profit by the money? Surely there could not have been an accomplice at the other end as well? Someone who could take Mrs. Erskine's letters with their money contents and change them again for the cold, formal epistles which alone had reached Rob? Yet he had been allowed to receive the thousand pounds! Christine felt her head in a whirl, and she tried to think of something else as she walked by the sea. There was something, too, in Mrs. Erskine's manner which suggested that she knew more than she would admit. She was afraid of something, or someone. What or who? Christine was thankful that the mother could turn to an expert who could throw daylight on what seemed so dark, and to whom the other would at last speak out.

It was not quite seven when she returned to the villa.