Читать книгу Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding - Страница 23

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A FEW minutes later that same morning, Mr. Gilchrist, the Coroner for West Hertford, and incidentally the Stillwater family solicitor, rang up Colonel Scarlett. He explained that a letter had come for him from Doctor Metcalfe last night, but that he had not noticed it till now. In it he learnt, to his own boundless surprise, that the doctor refused to issue a certificate of Miss Charteris's death without a post-mortem, which painful preliminary would take place this morning, Saturday, before the inquest.

Colonel Scarlett turned away from the instrument with a gray line around his mouth. He was already pale enough under his tan. He stood for a moment in deep thought. Then he walked into the breakfast room, where Paul hastened to bring him the morning papers.

"Look here, Paul—" The colonel paused. "Shut the door. There's an infernal draught this morning. I want to speak to you. It seems the doctor isn't satisfied about the cause of Miss Rose's death. God only knows what he means by that. Now the inquest may spread into other fields, and I do not want the professor's private affairs needlessly broadcasted. You know how he would dislike that."

"Yes, sir. He would indeed."

"In his own way the professor is one of the cleverest of men, but not in all ways. Dear me, no! Not in all ways. He particularly desired that no word should get about of his having to go to Genoa. I'll tell you why. Frankness is always best. My brother-in-law is on the eve of concluding some very important and very delicate negotiations there. One breath about them, and they are off. I may mention that I, too, am financially interested in the matter, and have a very personal concern in silence on the point. Now the professor has unfortunately mentioned Genoa in a letter of his. The point is, I do not want that town referred to at the inquest, or at all. You understand? Italy, of course. He's in Italy. But not Genoa. I know he would very much resent this. You understand?"

"Yes, sir. I quite understand. Italy if need be, but Genoa not in any case," Paul summed up. The colonel drew a deep breath as he made for the library. Now for Sibella.

He had not seen his daughter this morning, or at all since the dreadful news of yesterday. He sent up word that he would like to speak to her downstairs.

He stared at her when she entered the room, and Sibella stared back at him.

Each face showed marks that had not been there before. Each eyed the other distrustfully.

"Things have taken a very unpleasant turn," the colonel spoke without looking at his daughter, "very unpleasant. There's to be an autopsy."

She stared at him without comprehending.

"You mean—on Rose?"

"For God's sake, don't act the idiot!" snapped her parent. "On who else, pray?"

"But—but—-" she passed her tongue over her lips, "that means—?"

It was his turn to stare at her.

"It means that they want to know how she died. You know what an autopsy is. They want to know what killed her."

Sibella sat speechless. She would have given a close observer the impression of buckling on some armour.

"I see," she said finally. "I wish you would tell me what you have heard about it."

"I don't know anything more than I have told you." The colonel gave her the message that had reached him over the telephone. "But the point is this, Sibella. Your uncle is in Italy; that's nothing to do with Rose's terrible accident, but all sorts of questions may be asked. The point is, I don't want Genoa mentioned."

"Genoa?"

Colonel Scarlett came close up to her.

"Understand me, Sibella," he said fiercely, almost in her ear, "not a word about that town. Not a word! Italy, yes, and any place you like, but not Genoa!"

"How can—"

Something in her father's face stopped her. He looked ghastly..

"I shan't mention it, dad," she said gently, looking very steadily at him in her turn. She left him with that to his own thoughts, and his thoughts, after rather a dark-seeming interlude, led him upstairs to Rose's sitting-room, and to Rose's desk, which he went through quickly, but carefully.

He did not stay to read the letters, which, however, he took out one by one and looked at. He was apparently searching for something that he would recognise at a glance. He stood for a second looking around him after he had closed the desk, but, unlike Sibella, very unlike Sibella, his face wore an expression of satisfaction, of so far, so good, before he turned and walked slowly down and out into the grounds.

Medchester is not likely to forget the inquest on Rose Charteris in a hurry. The proceedings opened quietly, with no hint of the thrills to come.

Thornton, very much on the alert, with the face of one who has not slept well, watched with considerable interest the man who sat beside the local police superintendent. Mr. Brown had told him that this would be Chief Inspector Pointer. The Scotland Yard man's look of energy and poise impressed the critic. Thornton decided that to start him would be one thing, to stop him quite another.

The first of the surprises came when Rose's maid deposed that she had only that morning noticed that her young mistress was wearing another dress under the knitted silk frock. What had been taken for a loose lining was the peach-coloured evening dress that she had worn on Thursday night for dinner. A few amethyst beads had tumbled out as she shook the dress to rights. The frock was very thin, low-necked, and sleeveless, and could easily pass for a petticoat slip. But the shoes were the kind that Miss Charteris always wore with the knitted dress, of stout gray buckskin with low heels. Her stockings, too, were of a gray ribbed silk that only suited the outer frock.

The maid did not know when her young mistress had left the house, but she had last seen her about ten on Thursday night. Miss Rose had then been dressed as she was when found. She had not been wearing her beads. Miss Rose had been examining some letters in her writing-desk.

"Examining? What do you mean by that?" asked the coroner.

"She had her writing-desk open, sir, and was turning them over and over, as though there were one there she couldn't find. I heard her murmur, 'Where can I have put it? What can I have done with it?' But I don't think she rightly knew what she was doing at the moment."

"What do you mean?"

"Miss Rose looked that anxious and upset, sir. She wasn't really looking at the papers at all. I've never seen her like that before."

"Like what?" asked the coroner impatiently.

"Like she was then," replied the witness helpfully. "She looked to me, Miss Rose did, as though she had had a warning." The maid dropped her voice.

"A warning?" snapped the coroner. "A warning of what?"

"Of her coming death," breathed the woman. "Oh, she looked beautiful, sir. I've never seen even her such a pitcher. But when I asked her if there was anything more as I could do, she stared at me as though she didn't understand, and said she wished she were dead."

"Eh? You asked Miss Charteris if you could do anything more for her, and she replied—what?"

"Just what I said, sir. She said to me, she said, 'I wish I were dead!'"

The legal mind gave it up.

"And you?"

"I said to her, 'Whatever is the matter, miss?' And she said to me, impatient, 'Oh, nothing—just everything!' And then I said to her, I said, 'Has anything gone wrong, miss?' And she looked at me, as she sometimes would, half-laughing, with her head thrown back, and a little to one side—oh, she looked a lovely pitcher!—'Everything, Maud, and nothing! What's the time?' I told her, 'Just gone ten,' and she says to me, 'Ten already!' Then she gave me a look as though she wanted to be alone, so I said good-night to her, and closed the door. And I never saw her alive again." The woman wiped the tears away.

"Now, going back to that phrase of Miss Charteris's about wishing that she were dead. Did she say it lightly, petulantly? You understand what I mean? Or did she say it as though she were in some great trouble?"

The maid hesitated. "Sort of impatient. Sort of frightened, too, though."

And the coroner could not shake her conviction that it had been fear which she had felt, or divined, in her young mistress, any more than he could her certainty that Rose had not been wearing her string of amethysts when she last saw her.

Mr. Gilchrist shot his lips out and pulled the papers towards him again. He glanced at Colonel Scarlett, who sat listening avidly, the air of composure gone with which he had entered the room.

"Well, well! Just the young lady's way of talking, I take it."

"Oh, no, sir! Miss Rose had had a warning. She had been frightened, underneath all her way of carrying it off. She had been frightened!"

Sensation.

"Now to pass on to other things—had the bed been slept in when you went into the room next morning?"

The question caused a stir, but the answer was explicit. It had.

Sibella and Mrs. Lane were next called. Sibella first. Their evidence was practically identical.

Sibella had not seen Rose after dinner. Rose was frequently out in the evenings, with friends, or in town at play, or concert, or meeting. As to her strange words to her maid, Sibella professed to have no key, except that apparently some little trifle had gone amiss. There was nothing really worrying her cousin. On the contrary. Rose seemed to her particularly happy and contented that last day, Thursday. Just for a second her eye met Thornton's. Just for a second they fell. As to any letter for which the maid thought that her cousin might have been looking last night, Sibella could not hazard a guess. Rose had a great many letters. She generally tore them up at once, unless they were business matters. She had her own friends, as well as her father's friends, many of whom were quite apart from the Scarlett circle. She could not explain how Rose came to be wearing Thursday's evening frock on Friday's early morning sketching expedition, even though it was under an outdoor dress.

Count di Monti was next called. Those present who expected an outbreak of Italian passion were disappointed. The Count looked as impassive as a meditating Bonze.

"You were, I think, engaged to Miss Charteris?"

"Yes. It was to be announced on the return of her father."

"I may take it that there was no, eh, hitch—of any kind?"

A rustle ran through the hall.

"In our engagement? Oh, none whatever."

As to when he had last seen Rose, di Monti replied that he had said good-bye to her at Stillwater about six. He had an important engagement in town that evening, or he would have stayed and gone on with her to a concert which was being given in Medchester. She had said that as he was not going, she did not care to go either.

There was a movement of sympathy at this announcement. But di Monti's arrogant gaze roamed the hall without softening. If it lingered for a second on one face, only a very keen observer noticed it. If Sibella felt it on her, she gave no sign.

"Can you suggest any meaning, any point to those words Miss Rose used to her maid last Thursday, night?"

Di Monti could not. But he had often heard Rose use just such expressions many times before, about the merest trifles.

As to the beads which Rose had been wearing, or was supposed to have been wearing when she met with her death, di Monti absolutely scouted the idea that they could have tempted any tramp to murder her for their sake.

He seemed, indeed, so anxious to minimise their value that Pointer looked at him curiously. Even to the pendant, he refused to allow any interest, intrinsic or sentimental, to be attached, though he acknowledged that it was a present to her from his father.

Then came the great sensation.

Doctor Metcalfe was called. He was very honest. He said at once that he had been mistaken in his first impression as to the cause of Miss Charteris's death. He had assumed, too quickly, as he now knew, that that cause was a fall into the sand-pit on to some stones. Fortunately another medical man from his aid hospital who had chanced to drop in for a casual chat had heard of the death, and had been struck by one or two of the details.

A swab taken by them both from the cut in the head showed earth, but no sand. The superficial sand first noted was only on the surface of the hair.

It was for this reason that he had withheld the death certificate, and had decided that it was his painful duty to hold an autopsy, which had taken place that morning.

He passed around a swab to the coroner which had been taken from the cut.

A low murmur of amazement swept through the hall. Pointer's eyes were on the little knot of faces seated almost in front of him. Colonel Scarlett was staring at the doctor with a look which even the Scotland Yard expert could not decipher. He showed no emotion, yet there was a something about his mouth that spoke of tension, great but controlled. Mrs. Lane might have been an ivory statue, as she leant far back in her chair. Sibella's eyes shone like green lamps. She looked, not at the doctor, but just once at di Monti, and then resolutely down at her clasped hands Pointer could almost feel the effort she was making to keep them fastened there—in safety.

The doctor realised the sensation which he had created "I deeply regret to make such a statement. Had I been able to reach you, sir, yesterday, on the 'phone, or Colonel Scarlett as the nearest relative, I would have let you know."

Superintendent Harris, very red in the face, hastily scribbled a line and passed it to the coroner.

"The police would be obliged if you would adjourn the inquest."

The coroner nodded. But he found that to stem the doctor just then would have meant carrying him bodily out of the building. He submitted, he insisted on submitting that Miss Charteris had been killed by a single blow from such a weapon as, for instance, a sharp-edged cudgel. There had been no struggle. Death had been instantaneous. There was a tear in the back of her dress where it must have caught on a branch as she fell among the trees in the copse. The force of the blow had broken her neck. Then her body had been thrown into the sandpit close at hand.

On this second examination, made in company with his learned colleague, he had found, lying beside the body on the bed at Stillwater House, some twigs and leaves from her relaxed fingers. These, too, he passed to the coroner, who was sitting without a jury.

The presence of these leaves proved, the doctor pointed out, that it was in the copse that the actual murder had taken place, for in the pit there were no trees or shrubs. And there was one thing more which the doctor could not be prevented from saying, and that was, that he was by no means sure of the time of her death. It was possible, or rather probable, that it had taken place earlier by far than he had at first assumed. Certain indications, indeed suggested considerably before, rather than after, midnight.

But this was going too far, and the coroner adjourned the inquest in the middle of the doctor's next sentence. Doctor Metcalfe's "learned colleague" tapped Pointer on the shoulder after the inquest.

"My car's outside," he said in a low tone; "come along."

Pointer came along. The doctor whizzed into a quiet street.

"Did it go to your liking?" he asked gleefully.

Pointer gave him a reproachful look.

"Letting all the cats out of the bag at one bound," he complained. "I can still hear them yodelling."

"That was Doctor Metcalfe's doing. Look here, Pointer"—Doctor Scott was one of the divisional surgeons of New Scotland Yard—"I deserve a treat for hopping down here like a bird when you whistled for me yesterday. What's the real story. What do you see behind all this, eh?"

"I see a case that you and I know to be none too uncommon," Pointer replied, looking at his boot tips. "I see a case that may—likely as not—end in a 'No thoroughfare.' Where the Yard is sure of their man, but can't get evidence enough to send him—or her—for trial. You know how often that happens, and the public begin heaving rotten eggs. But you can't manufacture evidence—at least, the Yard doesn't, and you can't invent a motive—again, we don't in the force. And yet, if one has to sail out into the unknown—unguessed—" He was talking to himself.

"Even so, you'll make port with a fine cargo," the doctor said confidently. "But I see that you don't intend to spill any beforehand. You asked me to drop you at the police station. Here we are. So long, till the next time you want me to swindle a brother medico into thinking me a Doctor Thorndyke!"

Pointer was shown into Superintendent Harris's room. The two were old friends. Pointer had served under him when he was first sent to London as a young police man.

"So there's murder to pay!" Harris said very soberly. "Thank God, you're here, Alf! Makes it seem like old times, my lad. Though I ought to call you 'sir,' of course!"

"You try it, if you think it safe!" Pointer said fiercely. For a second Harris gave his genial laugh, then his face clouded swiftly.

"Murder! Terrible word to use about our Miss Charteris. The town's been proud of her. Proud of having a great London beauty living here, and proud of her father, the professor, too. Murder!" He shook his grizzled head, and crossing to a cupboard, took out couple of glasses, a siphon, and a bottle. "Say when!"

Pointer said it before the cork was drawn.

"I don't mind telling you," Harris went on, "that when I got my breath after the doctor's evidence, and knew you were there on hand in case the Yard was asked to take over, I said to myself, 'Saved!' Yes, that's what I said. The flesh may be willing, but the spirit's a bit weak—like this in the bottle."

Pointer looked uncomfortable.

"You're pulling my leg, Harris!"

"Fact, Alf," the superintendent said solemnly. "I got along quite nicely with a tramp now and then, an gippies, and drunks of a Saturday night. And once we had a missing gal, but this isn't that sort of, thing. This'd be my ruin. I'm due to retire in a month, and I want to go out at peace with my neighbours as far as may be. I'd do my duty, of course, but it's making a hash of that same duty I can't stand, and turning my old friend upside down, only to find that the criminal was perhaps miles away all the time. Why, Alf, that cottage the Wife and I are moving into belongs to Colonel Scarlett. And then this here foreign nobleman—no, no! We'll finish this, and another like it, or at least I will, and then we'll up and along to the chief. He's down with the flu, but I slipped out and telephoned him the news during that surprise inquest. He'd be having a heart to heart talk with the Yard at this moment, and sending you S.O.S.'s by the hatful if you weren't here. I call it sheer Providence."

So Major Vaughan seemed to think, and Pointer and the superintendent were making their way out to the former's car, after a pleasant interview with the sick man, when Colonel Scarlett almost bumped into them on the top step. Superintendent Harris introduced Pointer.

"So New Scotland Yard's taking over. I'm thankful to know the case will be in such thorough hands. Though I fancy there's nothing very deep about the terrible affair. Those beads and a passing tramp, I think. Some garnet on the pendant and the snap looked just like uncut rubies to any eye but an expert's, and the setting, though silver might have been taken for platinum. However, you'll find out all about that. I only came to hear how my old friend the chief constable is getting on. I suppose you'd want to ask us all some questions up at my house, Chief Inspector? I'll telephone them to have the library ready for you, and I'll be there myself in a few minutes."

He passed into the house, and the two men drove off.

"What's the colonel's reputation hereabouts?" Pointer asked, after a short silence. Harris eyed him askance.

"Not going to start in by having trouble, with my future landlord, are you?" he asked in half real, half assume trepidation.

"He's not an easy man to read," Pointer said slowly. "We gave him a nasty jolt just now. He's anything but thankful that the Yard's taking a hand. I wonder why not?"

"He's plenty of friends," Harris ruminated. "The Scarletts have lived at Stillwater since they dispossessed the abbot up at the ruins, and took the monastery land. He's none so well off. Had to leave the Tenth Hussars because he found it too expensive. Some say he's a bit grasping. I think myself, that rent for the cottage's a bit steep, but take him all in all, he's very popular. Betting man. Good eye for a horse, and yet never lands a winner. Odd, ain't it!"

Pointer digested this, then he said briskly, "By the way, I'm in possession of a set of casts of Miss Rose shoe-prints on that short cut, and a drawing of them to scale. I'll leave them here, at the police station. If you'll take them on as your own, it'll save bother." He began to unpack his bag in the inner room.

Superintendent Harris eyed the casts ruminatingly.

"Found on the doorstep? Or blew in by chance through an open window?"

Pointer told him of Thornton's message, and his arrival, as Brown. Harris was amused.

"And the chief telling you kind as father who everybody was. You're deep, Alf! But this sets Mr. Thornton, at least, in a good light, doesn't it?" Harris had a most undetective-like eagerness to see his neighbours in a good, or at least a satisfactory light.

"Humph, seems so. But possibly he was rushed by those friends of his, 'Bond and Co.,' as he calls them."

"Ah, there's that, of course They did rather take the lead. And what's that other parcel you're getting out for me?"

"This is Lady Maxwell's evening dress that she wore on Thursday at dinner at Stillwater House."

"Anything wrong with it? It looks all right to me."

Pointer gave a demonstration by artificial light.

Harris drew a deep breath as the splotches showed. "Isn't this pretty conclusive?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," Pointer said frankly, "and the rest of what I don't know about this affair I'll tell you and Inspector Rodman this evening. It'd take too long now. This Lady Maxwell is being watched, of course. But I want to speak to the inspector a moment. Ah, here he is."

Pointer had liked the keen, smart look of that police officer at the inquest He gave him his instructions in a few sentences. The frock was to be returned to its owner, and at the same time as much information as possible was to be obtained.

Pointer and Harris drove off separately.

Pointer did not hope for much from the questions at Stillwater House. That part of the work seemed to him what asking a patient to put out his tongue was to the old-fashioned doctor, something expected on both sides; a sort of preliminary canter. Not by sitting asking questions would the real bones of Rose Charteris's murder be laid bare, of that he felt quite sure. Yet a few useful items might be collected. He left that part, for the moment, to Superintendent Harris, for he had to go to town to see the head of Scotland Yard, and be formally invested with the case. But first he stopped at Mr. Gilchrist's and had a short interview with him. Then after an equally brief interview with the assistant commissioner of New Scotland Yard, he made for 17 Upper Brook Street, Professor Charteris's town address, outside of which Watts was already waiting.

They came, as two solicitor's clerks, armed with letter from Gilchrist to take away some papers of the professor's which were wanted for the adjourned inquest.

The manservant showed them up to the first floor and opened a door.

The detectives examined the professor's three room with care. Pointer came to rest before a semicircle of tobacco-shreds behind a tobacco jar.

"That wasn't done by filling a pipe. Looks as if some one had stirred that Shiraz like a Christmas pudding within the last twenty-four hours. For they're fresh." He passed on. "Letter-book of the Professor's missing unless his secretary took it with her."

Pointer turned to the book-shelves and pointed.

"Five books upside down in one batch." Watts stepped over to them. "Been lifted out in lots apparently."

Pointer clapped the boards together of a couple taken out at random. They seemed to be unusually dust free. Much more so than the furniture, or the carpet, would have suggested. He rang the bell.

"Look here. Has the professor's secretary been in these rooms lately? A book is missing that we were sent to fetch."

The man shook his head.

"She left before the professor. Some ten days ago, that was."

"But some one was in here lately. Yesterday or the day before?"

The man raised a mildly surprised eyebrow.

"Sharp that! You're right A young person did come to do some repairing on one of the professor's rugs They're his own, and quite valuable, I understand."

"Who sent her?"

"She came from Liberty's, I think she said. Anyway she brought me a visiting card of the professor's, with instructions to let her mend the carpet in front of the sitting-room hearth, which I did. I didn't stay in the room, of course, but I was in the hall when she went out. She had nothing in her hand but the little sewing-bag she brought."

"What was she like?"

"Seemed the usual sort of sewing woman to me. Middle-aged, stout party. Not the kind to notice much. Dark-skinned, very."

"And the hour? Mr. Gilchrist'll want to know all about this."

"She came shortly after eight. Most unusual time, but being a foreigner—"

"And she left—about when?"

"Close on nine. I was just carrying in breakfast to a very punctual gentleman."

"Got the card she brought?"

The man said that she had kept that.

"Well, we'll have another look. It doesn't sound as though she could have taken anything," Pointer finally. He looked at Watts as the door closed. "That settles the tobacco, I fancy."

"Was the point of any importance, sir?" Watts asked.

"I think so. That spilt tobacco looks as though the woman had been hunting for something which she thought might have been deliberately hidden in these rooms. Not merely for something which might have been in professor's possession. And now let's go through correspondence. I want, first of all, anything that will have arrived within the last few weeks that looks important or interesting. Next, I want anything that may give a clue to his whereabouts. Italy is a bit large, and a post-mark isn't much to go by."

They found nothing definite. Pointer made up a packet of "possibly wanteds," and dropping Watts at the Yard, returned to Medchester.

He drove back deep in thought. He had already a very fair idea of how and when the murder was committed. He had something more than a suspicion as to one man in Rose's circle. But the accomplices? For there seemed to be accomplices. This search of the professor's rooms had taken place at an hour when the man to whom Pointer thought that the clues led most directly was not in town. It might, of course, be unconnected with it. Professor Charteris's correspondence had shown world-wide interests. He believed himself to be in possession of at least one fortune-making discovery.

Pointer slowed down a while as he reflected.

If the motive behind the murder of the beautiful young creature, whom he had seen, lying ready to have the coffin lid closed, was connected with jealousy or with money, then the investigations would easily enough be able to prove as much, and would be able to prove nothing else. Where motives were concerned, Pointer always left the obvious on one side at first. You did not have to be afraid that motives would bolt for some earth before it could be stopped. And if the motive were not obvious in this case, to fit the man whom Pointer believed guilty, it would be a difficult one to find.

Pointer thought of that room that he had just left. Supposing the search there, and the murder at Stillwater to be connected, what was the object that had been hunted for in the Professor's rooms? It was something that could be hidden in a book as well as in a jar. A piece of paper probably. Possibly a letter. But why should it have been thought to be hidden?

Those words which Rose had been murmuring as she turned over her letters last night, were they connected with this hunt? "Where can I have put it? What have I done with it?"

The daughter killed. The father's rooms searched as soon as possible after it.

Pointer had noticed the Airedale kept at the house in town. A night attack of the position would have had to reckon with him. And he looked a ready reckoner.

None of Professor Charteris's letters were to be found in Rose's rooms or in Colonel Scarlett's study. Had they been taken? Stolen? And their loss not yet noticed? Did some one think that among them might be found what was sought for?

If that hunt of the Professor's rooms were not chance timed, it suggested urgency. That suggested—

Pointer thought of the empty, long, envelope which had found beneath the tea-table that had been in use yesterday. It came from her father. "Brown" had had a chat with the postman. It was the last letter that Rose had received from the Professor. Father and daughter seemed linked by this search in town.

When Pointer arrived at Stillwater House he found the police inquiries in full swing. Superintendent Harris had finished with the servants, and the colonel, and was just about to ask Mrs. Lane to come to the library.

Harris had learnt no new facts, but he told Pointer that the colonel took full responsibility for Mrs. Lane. He had assured Harris that he had had a personal recommendation of the very highest with her, from the lady whom she had been a companion for some years, as well as a life-long friend. The lady was the late Mrs. Seymour, widow of a former Bishop of Zanzibar.

Pointer had watched both Mrs. Lane and Sibella Scarlett very closely at the inquest. One of them must have played a part in the strange drama of Thursday night. One, or both. He had been struck by the fact that each told a story so like the other's. That the younger, like the elder woman, had taken up an attitude of absolute stillness and taciturnity, volunteering nothing, and striding all answers to the barely essential; that the elder woman, like the younger, would not dot an i or cross a t until she had made quite sure to what words they belong. Yet the two were essentially different characters. One would have expected them to react differently.

Pointer pigeon-holed both under the heading, "Capable of Anything." But the "Anything" of Mrs. Lane would he thought, only be what she herself had decided on, after careful weighing of all the consequences. Once she had made up her mind, he would expect her to go on unflinchingly to the end. A dangerous type, in connection with a crime.

Sibella's "Anything" would be of a different calibre.

Literally anything to which she was moved. Anything to which her strange personality might incline. If Mrs. Lane could be dangerous because of her energy, coolness, and courage, Sibella might be still more so by virtue of her incalculability, and the smouldering fires which he felt sure were deep within her.

Mrs. Lane looked very composed as she sat facing him. She answered all questions with more readiness than she had shown at the inquest. But Pointer purposely kept to the same round.

Rose had not lingered after the dinner, which, on account of the concert, had been at half-past seven. Mrs. Lane had not seen her since she passed the drawing-room and declined coffee.

As to where she had spent the evening, the lady suggested that doubtless Rose had spent it in her own room, as she often did. The maid had seen her in the gray frock, Pointer threw in lightly. Upon which Mrs. Lane suggested that Rose might have changed for an evening stroll in the grounds or down to the village.

Sibella was next asked to come into the big, comfortable room. She had nothing fresh to add apparently, to what she had said at the inquest.

Pointer asked her finally whether Rose Charteris had heard from her father lately.

Sibella said that her cousin had received a registered letter from him, from Italy, only on Thursday. It had come while they were at the tea-table.

Could she describe it at all?

Long and narrow. Red sealing-wax. Inside was a note for Rose, and another enclosed letter.

Could she say what became of it?

Rose read the note, put it back in its envelope, an laid it on top of some weeklies under the tea-table.

And the enclosure. Could she describe that?

It was another longish envelope, sealed with black sealing wax, and with a name written on it. This Rose doubled in half, and stuffed into the silver chain bag on her lap. Sibella thought that both the writing and the name on this enclosed letter were those of Professor Charteris himself, though she could not be sure.

She went on to explain that while away on his travel her uncle would occasionally send any very private note or memoranda back to himself in sealed, addressed envelopes. He generally enclosed these to his secretary in town, but sometimes to Rose at Stillwater. As a rule the accompanying note would merely ask that the envelop be laid in a certain drawer in his desk, at either place where they would accumulate till his return. But some times later directions would request that the enclosure be sent on to some given address.

Rose was very careful of her father's correspondence. If neither the enclosed letter, nor the note to herself had been seen since her death, she had probably destroyed the one—Rose rarely kept letters—and had dealt with the enclosure as suggested. Sibella described the first as being a half sheet of white paper with some hotel heading a the top.

Pointer had gone piece by piece on Friday morning through the paper baskets and dust bins of Stillwater House, on the plea of having torn up some valuable instructions. He had the envelope, but he had found no trace of any such letter to Rose, any more than of its enclosure. He thought that Sibella, however, was absolutely frank about the whole occurrence, whereas Mrs. Lane, when recalled and questioned, though she confirmed the other's account, showed a meticulous care to answer only what she was asked that suggested caution.

Paul, too, had very much the same to say. But the colonel professed absolute ignorance of the whole matter.

Sibella had hardly left the three police officials when di Monti was announced.

Superintendent Harris glanced at his watch.

"He's to the minute. He tapped me on the shoulder coming out of the courthouse, and asked for a word. So I gave him an appointment for here and now."

Di Monti looked very striking as he strode into the English room with its soft colouring, and stood in its cool spring light, he, a creature of a fiercer sun and of far darker shadows.

His hair, with the waved, floating top locks of a Fascist shone like black satin, springing up from his rather sloping forehead in an impetuous push. His eyes, with the heavy lids, clear-cut like those of a Holbein drawing, were as impenetrably black as ever. Of that shade that never, lightens, never changes The harsh lips were a trifle tense, the heavy jaw well to the fore. He carried himself, as always, with a steel-spring erectness. When he sat, he sat as though on wires.

"Complementi, Signori! I have come to speak to you about something which, unimportant before, is now of great importance. I think the maid was right. I know she was. I feel sure my engaged had something on her mind, especially the day before yesterday. Her last day." He closed on a tone of deep sorrow.

"Indeed, sir!" Pointer was all attention. So were the others.

"She asked me if it were not possible for me to be with her on that evening. That last evening! I asked her if it was to go to the concert with her. She made me an odd reply. She said—the words are, as nearly as I can remember them, but the meaning is absolutely accurate—No. There is another place I am going to to-night where I should have liked you to be with me.' I took it lightly, 'A dance, eh?' She was fond of dancing, so am I. But she only said, 'As you are not coming it does not matter where it is.' I thought she was—piqued—I think you say—and I talked of something else. But now I see there was another explanation." He bit his lip and sighed "I tried to get her to say more, but my intended—" Di Monti, as always, had been talking with his hands as much as with his tongue. They now finished the sentence for him with a gesture that said, "You know how hard it was to make Rose speak when she did not want to." And they said it quite easily.

"Who do you think she was afraid of?"

"I have no faintest idea."

"There was some talk," Pointer went on, "you must excuse me if I pain you, there was some talk of a previous admirer—of a Mr. Bellairs."

Di Monti shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot say what I do not know. But the maid was right. I am sure that Miss Charteris was going to some definite place, possibly to meet some definite person, of whom she was in fear." He seemed unable to add more.

When he was gone, Pointer went up with Harris to Rose's studio, an empty room above her bedroom.

"Wonder where her sketches are? According to all the evidence, she was often out with her painting outfit. I want to see the result of so much industry. It looks as though that one drawing we have at the station is the only thing there is to show for the many sunset hours that Miss Charteris was supposed to've been working on the ruins. Ah, here's a sketch book! But only portraits. This one of the count is distinctly good, eh?"

Pointer was turning over the leaves as he spoke. "Suppose we take it with us and have a look at the ruins. I went yesterday as Brown, and learnt that Miss Charteris was often there mornings and evenings, including late on Thursday. At least, so a shepherd said. Know anything of the old fellow?"

"He's worked for Farmer Mason for forty years. Excellent character."

The scene by the abbey ruins that closed one end of the common was charming. Over the bright green turf gray and white sheep moved slowly along, browsing as they came. Above them, as though the earth were but changed reflection from on high, gray and white cloud swept steadily onward over another bright field, but deep blue this time, and vast and airy.

The shepherd, brown and wizened as a prune, touched his hat to Harris and looked keenly, at Pointer.

The superintendent opened briskly.

"Heard of the inquest?"

"Ay, master, I heard there wur to be one."

"Are you quite sure that you saw Miss Charteris Thursday evening, here?"

"I be. About an hour after sundown. Coming after nine, it wur."

"What was she doing?"

"Walking about. Taking notes of the moon on stones, like."

"You know that it's now thought that she was murdered?" Pointer spoke for the first time. As he had guessed, the man had not yet heard the real news of the day.

"Murdered! That young lamb! Missie murdered. Master, you"—his voice shook—"you fair 'maze me."

"The police are going to know about everyone who had any connection with the young lady. What about yourself? You've been a bit free with your money lately, I hear. Bought some fruit trees for your cottage, treated friends at the inn, and so on."

Pointer had made good use of yesterday afternoon. The shepherd looked at him with his clear old eyes. "Police yourself, master? High up on the roll-call likely?"

He nodded as Harris mentioned Pointer's rank. Then his mind went off to the more important facts.

"Murdered!" he repeated to himself. "Missie! Ay, now I wonder," he stood marking circles on the grass with his stick, "I do that!"

There was a little pause.

"I spoke naught but the truth when I said missie wur here night afore last, Thursday night. She wur here ten and she wur here afore that, but not so often as I may have led people to think, and never of a mornin'. She told me that she didn't care for drawing herself, but that her father he wur main set on it. So she slips me a shilling, or a crown even, now and again, to say to any askers that she come night a'ter night, and mornin' a'ter mornin'."

"How long would she stay?" Harris asked

"Long enough to hand me a bit of baccy or a summat, not longer."

"And then?"

"She'd go on by the short cut as she came by, on into the town."

"You never saw her go back this way?"

The shepherd shook his head. "Never. But come dark I fastens the sheep up in their hurdles, leaves Bob in charge, and I goes down for a bite and a sup before coming back for the night and all around ten."

"And how often was she out here?"

"She started coming a fortnight ago last Tuesday, and she comed twice that week, once the week after, and ivery even this last week from Monday to Thursday."

No questioning could shake him as to his certainty on these numbers.

"And you never saw anybody with her?"

"Never. But night afore last—Thursday—a gentleman come up after she wore gone by, and glances this way and that, looking for some un like, but he says naught."

"Did he go on, too, by the short cut into Medchester?"

"He come from theer, and went on towards Green Tree Farm."

That was also the direction of Stillwater House

Pointer produced the sketch book taken from Rose's studio.

"Is there any face among these drawings that reminds you of that gentleman?"

The shepherd turned over the pages with a chuckle, Though he shook his head at the trees.

"The branches of a noak, wi' the trunk of a birch! Eh, but she wore in a hurry, wore missie. You can't do naught wi' trees in a hurry. Longer than men they live, and they don't understand it. Time means naught to them. They don't understand—" He stopped. "Here he be." He laid a wrinkled finger on di Monti's portrait. "At least, if this baint he, 'tis none of t' others." This wind-up was feeble, but the old man would not commit himself more definitely.

"I think it's he, master, but I seed un but the once. It mightn't be he at all."

"You may have a chance to see the man himself before long. How did he strike you? You've a good eye for a man, I dare say."

Pointer offered the other some tobacco. The shepherd filled his clay pipe thoughtfully.

"Carried his head like a bellwether, he did. Set his feet down wi' a 'I lead you'm follow' sound to un. Ay," the old shepherd said from a cloud of smoke and reverie, "he wore a finely clad gentleman, to be sure, but he had a look to his face that night that made me think horns, and hoofs, and a tail, would a been his proper wear. Ay, master, it wore a look to chill you worse nor a Jannivary norther. And hearing what you've told me on today—" He broke off, and smoked another interval of thought away. "He wor the only man Bob was ever afeared on."

"Bob?"

"My mate. My dog. Bob he barked and growled when the gentleman come striding in among the sheep, for it wore latish, but he turns and says summat to Bob in his foreign tongue that fair humbled him."

"Foreign tongue, you say. Was he a foreigner, then?"

The shepherd ran a slow, bright eye over his questioners.

"Masing how the pollus has to learn from others," I mused.

Pointer and Harris laughed.

"Well, was he?"

"Ay, misters. The build on un would a told that. Ye don't get bones, slender and strong, like that wi' us. Nor an eye cut that shape. 'Tis the eye's cut that tells foreign blood in man or sheep."

"What country did he belong to, do you think?"

"Frenchy, I shouldn't wonder, though more like Eye-talian."

"He didn't speak to you?"

"No, though he wore half-minded to do it. Ay, and more than speak to one. He gives me a look from those black eyes of his as though he would 'a liked to've flayed the skin off me bones to make me tell him summat I wanted to know. But he thought better o't. He can bide his time, can that young gentleman, and 'tis more than thick fleece would be necessary to keep him from getting his teeth into ye, if he wore so minded."