Читать книгу Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding - Страница 29

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AT Paris, Pointer and O'Connor were met by the former's brother, Cook's chief interpreter in the French capital. He had a group of Cook's men, who ringed the Scotland Yard officer and his companion around as he carried them off to an inner room at the station.

Here Pointer received a long cable that seemed to interest him vastly from the Yard. It wound up by stating that Mr. Thornton had gone to Paris, and was being looked after by the French police. Otherwise the "case" had marked time since the departure of its leader.

From the French police, he learnt that Thornton was still at his hotel, and had been spending blameless days in old curiosity shops and unimpeachable nights tucked up in his bed.

Pointer thought a moment. He considered that the time had come to have a look at Thornton's cards. The trouble was, that gentleman had such an aversion to laying down his hand. Pointer determined to call it without more ado. A telephone message to the hotel told him that Thornton was still up, and in the hotel lounge. Pointer entered it a few minutes later and shook hands. O'Connor, with his friends, all of them seemingly strangers to the man who had just preceded them, seated themselves some distance off. Pointer had hardly begun an, it is to be feared, inaccurate account of his wanderings when a page-boy brought him a telegram. Crushing the envelope carelessly into his pocket, Pointer read the message in a low voice, after a careful glance around to show that they were alone.

"Mrs. Lane confessed. Harris."

Thornton turned a dull lead colour.

"Feeling ill, sir?" asked, the Chief Inspector.

"This—this message—" Thornton's voice started across lips none too firm. They stiffened as it went on. "How—I thought Mrs. Lane—what does it mean?" Thornton stared at the cablegram—which Pointer and his brother had just concocted at the railway station—as though far away, in some unpleasant, uncertain place.

"It doesn't say, I see," Pointer mused aloud, "that she's confessed to the actual murder."

Thornton spun around on him with something like snarl. One would not have believed him capable of such a sound.

"Mrs. Lane—my wife—what the devil do you mean?" He looked white-hot now.

Pointer sat down again

"I see. Mrs. Lane is really Mrs. Thornton. Humph! Divorced, I presume?"

Thornton looked as though he would like to strike the bland face before him. He clenched his fist.

"Come, come, sir." Pointer changed to a pleasanter tone. "This won't help her, and she's in a tight spot, you know. But between us we ought to be able to get her out. Look here, why not explain the whole affair?"

Pointer spoke as though that bright idea had just occurred to him.

"Your marriage, for instance."

"There's nothing to explain about that," Thornton spoke wearily. "Only too usual a story, I'm afraid. An unhappy marriage—a parting—and a chance meeting again when she took the place of Colonel Scarlett's lady housekeeper. In justice to myself, I thought she was amply provided for. Her father settled a large sum on her when she married, and he died soon after, presumably a wealthy man. It was Russia's debt-repudiation that made all the difference, it seems. I never dreamt of that."

"Chance meeting?" Pointer repeated questioningly. "No, it wasn't that, Mr. Thornton. Not on her part. She knew you were at Red Gates. She came down because she knew that."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that, sir. I've seen—to be frank, we hold a letter of hers to the colonel. In it she refers to you, and says that she'll gladly come, provided that he will keep his promise, and never let you know that she knew beforehand that you were living at Red Gates."

Thornton got up, and walked quickly to a window. He stood with his back to the room.

"How can I get her out of what I've got her into?" he asked, without turning round.

"You got her into?"

"I put the matter in the hands of Scotland Yard, didn't I? I knew that she was shielding some one. I know it now. She'd shield a mad dog if it ran to her. But if so, that blow that killed Rose Charteris was struck by some terrible accident, or in some mistake—I can't explain it, but Beatrice, I mean my wife, would never shield a guilty person. There never was a woman with a clearer, cooler judgment, and a greater sense of right. To think that she ever had a part or knowledge—the mere suggestion is monstrous."

Pointer could have smiled. Beatrice Thornton had been shielding some one.

Thornton still looked out of the darkened window, and Pointer thought he heard a whispered "Beatrice" before the newly-revealed husband turned.

"Perhaps you can help her better than I can. I only seem to've drawn her deeper into things. You see, I thought that if she found herself in a tight place, she would perforce turn to me. I was at hand. She must have known that I—that—" He faced the window again, his face working. "I was a fool once. I was a poor ambitious chap once. And I won't say that her fortune counted for nothing with me, as it should have done." Thornton fought against the flood of emotion within him, but it had got past the gates, and rushed him with it "After she left me—there was no divorce. Neither of us are the kind to give the other reasons of that sort for parting I—well, I learnt as many another fool has that I cared a great deal more than I thought I did, or rather than she thought I did. I came into some money, took to art collecting, to divert my mind. But to go back to that awful Friday morning. You're the last man to believe in spiritualism, I suppose, Chief Inspector?"

"I shouldn't be the first," Pointer agreed whimsically.

"Then you do believe in—in that sort of thing?"

"I think there's a deal more to us than our bodies, than what we can feel and touch. I'm a religious man, sir. But why the question?"

"Because as I sat by Rose Charteris's body in that sand-pit early on Friday morning, I had the most extraordinary sense of urgency, of being spurred on to take some decision quickly. I felt as though it were a call for help from the girl whose body lay beside me, and for immediate help. When Bond and Co. were so keen on the police taking up the matter, the feeling had passed. I could almost think it had passed from me into them. I thought—better, not. I thought—" He paused again.

"I wonder what you did think?" Pointer still spoke pleasantly.

"Then, as now, I never doubted—my wife. Naturally! I knew, knew that she had no hand in any crime, except to help—the victim. I thought if I could talk things over with her first—but walking away from the police-station I got that message of haste again. And this time it conquered. It quite obsessed me. I felt as though Rose herself were begging me to lose no time. I can't put the sensation into words, any more than one could light or dark." There was a long pause.

"And did you lend Mrs. Lane your car, or did she get it out herself?"

Thornton drew in his breath sharply.

"You're right. Frankness is the only thing now, I see. I lent her the car. She woke me up about one on Thursday night or rather Friday morning, tapping on my bedroom window. It opens on to my balcony, too, you know. She asked me to let her have my big car at once. She asked me—" He hesitated in deep distress.

"Yes? We know the facts about the car," Pointer said very gently.

"To let her have it for a couple of hours, and to lend it without asking her any questions about it. I came down and got it out. She wouldn't let me drive it even into the lane for her, and she begged me—there were tears in her eyes, and she looked, good God!" Thornton seemed to fall into a brooding pity, "she begged me never to refer to the matter again. I promised. I got the car out and left her, and it. She even made me promise that I wouldn't watch which way the car went."

There followed a long silence.

"That's all," Thornton said under his breath. "I only hope I've done right in speaking of it."

"You've done no harm, sir, because we knew it more or less already. And that's really all, sir?"

"All. My word on that. And now you see the mingled feelings that made me ask you to look into the case. There was the sensation of being impelled to it by Miss Rose herself. There was the presence of Bond and Co. They never let things drop. And there was—it sounds caddish, but there was also the hope that by crowding my wife into a corner, she might turn to me—in her fright."

"She didn't get frightened, more's the pity," Pointer said rather sourly. "It would have shortened things a lot if she had. You recognised her, I suppose, when she looked out at Miss Scarlett's room, when you and Doctor Metcalfe drove up on Friday morning?"

"Yes."

"She went in to speak to Miss Scarlett. She had lent her some toothache medicine and wanted it back. As Miss Scarlett was asleep, she was going out again, when she heard the car. That, at least, is what she told Maud, and I think it is the truth."

"But why—what—" In Thornton's voice was an anguish that had been racking his heart for many days now.

Pointer did not reply to it.

"What was Mrs. Thornton's maiden name, by the way?"

"Lane. She was the daughter of our minister to the Netherlands. We were married at the Hague by the Embassy Chaplain in—" He gave the date.

There was another pause, then Thornton said shyly, "That letter you found? You really mean that. Be—Mrs. Thornton—knew that I was at Red Gates?"

Pointer nodded. "That's why she took the place. It's the first time in my life that I ever betrayed to one man what I had found in the course of my investigations in another man's private papers. It's not a breach of discipline I shall care to remember. But for this once—well, in this case, I've done it." He finished with a smile, then his face grew grave again.

"What dress was Mrs. Lane, to call her by the name I've known her under for so long, what dress was she wearing?" Pointer next asked.

"I seem to remember something very dark. Blue or black."

"And what took you out so early that Friday morning?"

Thornton hesitated again. He took out his cigarette and looked at it, as though not quite certain what it was that he had been smoking. Finally he looked at the detective-officer almost as Toni had done, in mingled appeal and trouble.

"If you could have seen her face! She was all in."

He bit his own lip. "And besides, Bond and Co. had gone out, I knew. As I couldn't get asleep, I decided to take a walk."

"But where has she gone? The colonel, he tells me not to worry, but—"

"You'll meet her again very shortly. We have her address. She was a bit indiscreet over the telephone, and we traced her to some old friends. And now, patience a little longer, sir."

Pointer got up.

"I want you to be at my rooms at New Scotland Yard the day after to-morrow, that will be Tuesday, at three, without fail. Something went wrong with those casts last time. The mixture wasn't right, and we must take them all over again. But I shan't have to trouble you a third time." Pointer was quite sure about that last.

Thornton nodded. He seemed in some strangely happy mood. Pointer felt that a shock awaited him, when, on landing in Dover next day, he would be met by a telegram from the man to whom he was now talking, telling him that a mistake had been made, and that the "confession" was one of the many spurious ones that dot all murder cases. But Pointer—to atone—had ended with "Mrs. Lane's" present address.

Thornton duly departed for England by the 8.25 next day, and Pointer followed by the ten train.

He and O'Connor had an uneventful trip in the packed boat-train. They stood with a couple of "Tom's friends" on either side of them in the corridor.

At Calais they were escorted by them on to the boat, and only left when the gangway threatened to be hoisted.

Pointer and O'Connor were hailed by a cheery voice. They had caught sight of their acquaintance of the previous day, on the boat-train, but the three had mutually contented themselves with nods.

General Thompson, as he gave his name, dragged his chair up alongside theirs. They sat idly chatting together when he commented on the crowd at a particular part of the ship.

"They're for their passport cards," O'Connor explained.

The general heard for the first time that it was still necessary to get a ticket showing the passport to be in order. He groaned, and with a faint "damn" at useless red tape, he left his kitbag to keep his chair, and joined the queue on the lower deck. O'Connor strolled that way, too, after a glance at Pointer.

Left by himself, the Chief Inspector eyed the bag. He mopped his forehead, and as though in answer to a signal, as indeed it was, a tall man stood beside him. It was the ship's detective.

"Just glance at that bag, but go carefully," Pointer said.

The man went below, and reappeared almost at once.

"Can you show me the man who placed it there, sir? It's not an ordinary bag. I don't know whether it's O.K. or not. We'll let him open it."

"A friend of mine is keeping with him—just in case. Did you hear anything tick? I thought I did. May, of course, be an alarm clock."

The Chief Inspector pointed out O'Connor and the owner of the bag among the thinning crowd.

The ship's detective touched the latter on the arm.

"Sorry to trouble you, sir, but there's been a thief on board. We've caught him red-handed. That gentleman here," he indicated Pointer, "says one of the bags is one which you left on your seat. Will you kindly identify it when you've done here?"

"I strolled off," Pointer explained, "and found your bag gone when I got back. Luckily, some one saw the man making off with it."

"It was trying to pinch a bride's Paris bonnet really did for him," said the detective, with a laugh. "He might have got away with it but for that."

The man beside O'Connor gave a cheery ha, ha! and turned away to see about his passport.

"That's my bag, all right," he said, as he saw a battered kit-bag, with a newer one beside it, standing on a table in a sort of private cabin. "My initials on it. R.M.T. Here's my passport."

As the passport showed him to be Major-General Thompson, C.B., the purser handed it back with a bow, and a cold look at the detective. "That's all right, sir," he began.

"If you'll just unlock it as a matter of formality," the detective suggested, "in case of other claimants—"

"Certainly." General Thompson pulled out his keys, ran them through his fingers, and then shook his head.

"Where's that key gone to? Why, of course!" He stopped jingling them. "I left it tied to the handle, because of the Customs, you know. The chap who stole it must have bagged it."

"No keys whatever on him, sir," said the detective.

"Then he lost it, or dropped it overboard."

"Ah, he might have done that," the man agreed.

"I'll tell you what; I've got another key at home. I'll leave the bag with you, and send the key down. I'm in no hurry for it, provided I get it eventually." The general turned to go.

There was a pulse beating in the temple of his bronzed face. As soon as the door had closed behind him, the detective beckoned to another in an inner room, and working like madmen, they locked a life-buoy on to the bag, fastened both to a chain, and flung the whole very lightly far out of the special port-hole into the sea, keeping it away from the side of the boat with a long flexible steel rod which opened out swiftly.

"Mine-sweepers' gear," the detective said with a grin. "Now we'll see. I thought the general was a bit on hot plates as the talk went on."

Five minutes passed, ten were nearly over, when there was a very pretty little fountain to be seen at sea which greatly delighted those on deck, who decided it must have been a couple of porpoises off their usual beat. Those in the cabin hauled in the chain, and found a few bits of life-buoy and leather hanging to the padlock.

"Very neat. Meant just for you and me," said O'Connor. "Just enough to help hitch our combined wagons to the stars, without damaging the boat. And where's the proud inventor?"

"He was shown into another cabin when he walked out of this, and by now he'll be safely secured."

But he was more. He was dead, with a tiny bottle clenched in one hand. They never knew his real name.

"Good," said the two friends, "then we can go on deck again," and they thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful approach to England. They waited till the crowd was almost off the boat. Then they shook hands with three men, one of whom was Pointer's chief, and with whom they travelled up in a special guarded car.

Safely in his own rooms at the Yard, Pointer handed over a pocket book sewn into oiled silk, and went off for a wash and brush up, feeling like a boy home from school, now that his part in safeguarding that paper was done. The paper which he believed to have cost the life of Professor Charteris, of his daughter, and of the man with the bag, as well as severe bodily injuries, so he trusted, to the two men with whom O'Connor and he had struggled in the compartment before they could get them out on to the line.

The "poem" on the thin paper was re-written within the hour by the Home Office expert. It explained the care taken to regain it. It was a paper that shook the world when it was broadcasted later. But the cipher would have been insoluble without the code-word. The Home Office had that code-word. It had cost a British life for every letter in it.

It was decided that news should be circulated at once through discreetly indiscreet channels that the Yard was in possession of a couple of Bulgarian letters and a poem which they believed contained secret intelligence bearing on Red activities in that country, but which they were unable to solve. Copies would be sent post-haste to a few thoroughly untrustworthy Russian interpreters marked on the books as in the Bolsheviks' pay. They would be asked to help. A reward would be offered.

It was about half-past two on the next day, Tuesday, when a constable opened Pointer's door at the Yard. "A lady to see you by appointment, sir."

"Show the lady in. And bring in the gentleman who's been waiting in Watts' room at the same time."

Sibella entered with a sort of rush. She looked shocking. So ill, so worn, so white. Pointer thought of some plant whose roots are perishing. It seemed to him as though all the healthy, multifold ties between a woman and the world around her had been cut through in this case, and that Sibella was dying by inches of some fungus, some mildew, of the spirit.

With all her impetuous entrance, she sank wearily into a chair. But her eyes stared at him almost as her father's might have done.

"You telephoned me that there were important developments."

"They're coming. But first I want you to answer a few questions, and to hear some facts. Ah, here's Count di Monti."

Sibella sprang up with a gasp. Di Monti, too, looked unprepared for the meeting.

"Please sit down, both of you," the Chief Inspector went on, "it may take some time, this preliminary clearing of the ground. Miss Scarlett, first of all, the information you gave Count di Monti about the meetings in the studio had nothing whatever to do with your cousin's death."

"Oh!" It was a cry of mingled anguish and relief, of horror and joy. "Oh, is that true?" Her eyes went from him to the count, and back again.

"If you were told to the contrary," Pointer went on very sternly—

"I never told you that was the reason. I don't know the reason. How can I? I had nothing to do with that death." Di Monti's voice was hard and strident as he interrupted.

Sibella turned on him. She evidently dared not trust herself to speak. She only looked.

"If this man told you anything else, Miss Scarlett," Pointer went on, "it was because it suited his purpose that you should think that you, too, in a sense, were a contributory cause—"

"In a sense!" Sibella covered her face. "Oh, it's not possible! Not possible! No one would make their worst enemy suffer what I've suffered since Rose's death. I've been down, down, down," she broke off, shuddering. "I thought that I had killed her in everything but actually striking the blow. That my hand had directed his—I mean—" she stopped herself. "Since they brought her body home I've thought that it was my doing."

She was shuddering from head to foot.

"I want to know the whole story, Miss Scarlett. As for the count—well, that will come later."

He looked hard at di Monti, and the count's jaws tightened.

"This man has no authority to ask you a single question, Sibella." The Italian strode over to her and caught her hand in his. "If I made you suffer, I had to."

"Why?" Her eyes fastened themselves with an incredulous stare on him, as though she saw a stranger before her. "Why did you have to make me suffer? And so terribly? Why you—me?"

She did not give him time to answer. And he looked as though he would have needed time.

"What made you torture me? Torture me, soul and body? I—oh—" She flung away, as though it were a tarantula, the hand he laid on hers. "You played me! You used me as a pawn! You thought that I might speak, might betray you, if my tongue were not tied. It nearly worked the other way. I all but went to the police instead of helping you to escape. All but!" She turned to Pointer with a gesture that would have been the pride of a film actress.

"Ask whatever you want to know. I shall tell you the truth."

"Anima mia!" In a stride the Italian had her in his arms. He might as well have held a statue.

"I had to tell you that lie," di Monti went on, "all our future hung on my not being arrested just then, as this buffoon would have done. I knew when they got hold of the pendant which I had picked up in the studio, what was coming. My faithful Arrigo saw a policeman talking to the man to whom I had flung it, flung it as I would a clot of mud. It meant no more to me. The pendant worn by that—" he used an ugly Italian term, "I never wanted to soil my fingers with again. Don't you see, darling, that all hung on my getting away? I would never have stooped to act the mourner at her funeral but for that necessity. I—and mourn—for her! I knew you would not help me as you did unless you thought my life was in danger, and I must have your help—"

"I quite see the reason," Sibella said, in a hard, dry voice.

"An arrest just then, or the talk of it, would have spelled ruin. But now," he let her go as she stood unresponsive, no whit softened, "but now I can snap my fingers at the policeman here," he turned and did so, with a crack like a whip, "the post is definitely given, passed by our Inner Council."

"But you told me that you had killed Rose," Sibella repeated in a voice colourless as her face, heavy as her weary lids, lifeless as her dull black hair. "You said that you had struck harder than you meant in your anger. And so, I thought, had I! Oh, so you let me thinks had I!"

"Well, I didn't strike her, nor kill her. The man here has just told you I didn't. He said truly enough, that the studio meetings had nothing to do with the murder. That means I didn't kill her, eh? My only reason for killing her would have been because of them. Cristo! She deserved to die, but I did not do justice on her," di Monti snarled.

"Justice! You to talk of justice, Giulio! What justice have I had from you? When you told me that you had killed Rose, you killed something in me, too. I'm not the woman to love a murderer, but at least I could dream of what might have been if I hadn't sent you there. You've taken even my dream from me now!"

Sibella finished in a sort of forlorn whisper. Di Monti made a gesture towards her, but Pointer cut in, "And why did you tell the police that Miss Charteris was afraid of some one or some thing?" Pointer's voice was very cold and official. "She was. But of you. You knew that her fears pointed to you, and you alone. Besides, it does not necessarily follow that there was no other reason for putting her out of the way than anger or jealousy." He turned to Sibella, "Would you mind," he said gently, "telling me exactly what happened that Thursday night?"

"Sibella!" the Italian began, but Pointer, who was watching him closely, stepped between him and the girl.

"Don't forget that you're in Scotland Yard. Unless you want handcuffs on, you'll stand back, Count di Monti."

The Italian looked murderous. Just for a second he hesitated. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he sat down in the chair at which the Chief Inspector was pointing, and crossing his legs, lit a cigarette.

"Rose really was in love with Mr. Bellairs," Sibella began, speaking as though she were glad to. "My father thought that he and I would have suited each other better. There had been some boy and girl affair between us, but that was all over long ago. After Count di Monti came to England, Rose hesitated between the two. Finally she decided to accept the count, but she wrote to Mr. Bellairs still. And lately they met in his studio."

"Where he was painting her portrait?" asked Pointer.

"Yes I—I thought the whole position not fair—to any of us. So I told Count di Monti on Thursday just before lunch what was going on. Then I grew wretched. I realised, when I saw his rage, what a fearful thing I had done. What an awful thing! And though I knew that neither of them loved the other, I was afraid of trouble. I knew that the count would never forgive her having played with him—he prefers to do the playing!" She shot a glance at the young man which was very reminiscent of her Italian grandmother. "I didn't go to the concert in Medchester Thursday evening. I drove on to Harry Bellairs' studio, getting there just as my cousin scrambled out of the studio window. She heard the count. At the front door. We drove home. Later, when I missed her from her room, I thought that she must have gone back for some reason. Next morning, when I heard that she was dead—oh, how could you have let me suffer what I have!" she burst out again, turning her burning eyes on di Monti.

"What time was it when you went to your cousin's room?" Pointer asked.

"When I dropped her at home it was about ten o'clock. That must have been when the maid spoke to her. I drove back to Medchester, but I didn't go to the concert till practically the end. I needed the fresh air to calm me down. When Mrs. Lane and I got back it was a little past eleven."

"And you picked up that registered letter she had left behind her—forgotten—to confront her with the proof that she had been in the studio?" Pointer asked the Italian.

Count di Monti nodded curtly. "That and the pendant, as I said in Verona." He turned to Sibella. "I would have told you the truth—-" he began, but she stopped him with a hand raised as though to ward off something distasteful, and finished his sentence in her own way.

"Had you not wanted to make use of me, of my remorse, Of my agony of mind! By a trick, you got my help, got away, and would have gone to Jubaland without a word to me—"

"Altro! Tutt'altro!" His face flamed. "Never! For a while—yes. I had to let you bear your burden, but you knew that whatever had happened to her she had richly deserved. She had played with me!" He trembled visibly with fury at the thought still. "But even if you mourned her, I would have made it all up to you. All, and much, much more! I would have taken you—away from all suffering—into a world all light, all gold, all fire."

He repeated the sentence in his own beautiful tongue, "Un mundo di luce, d'oro, e di fuoco." His voice made each word shine and glow. He knelt before her and raised the hem of her black lace frock to his lips. He kissed it passionately. She neither swayed towards him nor away from him. Her eyes rested broodingly on that proud, bent head. On her face was a gentle, and yet a very remote look. It was as though she were hearing again a strain of music which held memories of poignant joy and love in every note, but the joy was a departed one, and the love was dead.

With a sigh she seemed to return to the present, and now there was no softness about her. He rose on the instant, feeling the change, rebuffed by it before she spoke. But he was a good fighter. He did not give up.

"Do not draw away from me! Listen to your heart. Your heart that does love me, say what you will. Let it plead for me. Love can forgive everything but lack of love."

"It does not love you," Sibella said with convincing finality. "I did love you, yes, but that was not why I helped you to escape when I thought you had killed Rose. And you know that."

She took a step towards him at last, but it was as an accuser.

"You knew that the only thing that would make me help you, was the belief that it was I—I who was guilty of throwing fuel on that jealousy of yours, that mad jealousy that burned without any love back of it only pride!"

Pointer looked at his watch.

"I'm sorry," he said, and the two started as though they had been talking on the top of Mount Everest, and had no idea that another human being could be within a mile of them, "but I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Scarlett. I wanted you to know the facts of the case—well, to know them—some of them." He pressed a bell. A constable announced that a taxi was waiting for the lady.

Sibella hesitated. She did not hold out her hand to the Chief Inspector. Suddenly she realised what all this meant, what that hand might be—in all likelihood was—about to do. It came home to her that possibly it was the last time that she, or any one else, would see Count di Monti a free man. He knew it. His cigarette end fell, bitten through, to the carpet. He had risen when she rose; and they looked at each other. Again their world dropped away from them. He made a gesture, but Sibella stopped him.

"I said good-bye to you, Giulio, when we parted before," she spoke in a low broken voice, "there is no one I love left for me to say it to now." Turning her head away with something like a shudder, she passed swiftly from the room.

Di Monti was pale enough now. Tears stood in those fierce, cold eyes. Eyes that looked as though they might have been handed down from some Etruscan tyrant of old. He blinked them away, straightened his straight back still more, smoothed a non-existent belt, and faced Pointer.

"Ebbene?" he snapped, "but if it was that whelp Bellairs who betrayed that I was at his studio"—he thrust his jaw forward—"I told him that I would kill him if he dared speak of my having been there, when heard that she had been found dead—"

Pointer did not trouble to answer him.

"This way, if you please. There are still a few proofs to be accumulated before the whole story is cleared up."

"And the handcuffs clicked on?" Di Monti threw back his head. "Hardly on my wrists, my good man."

"The end is very close at hand, Count di Monti," Pointer repeated quietly.

The Italian's face stiffened, as though he tightened all his muscles, but without a word he stalked through the double door into Pointer's second room, which again was almost filled by a big table with chairs set close around it.