The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ ourselves, if a woman could marry a man against his will, I should be a re-married man. See?"

      Pointer saw.

      "Also I wasn't sure that she had heard or seen nothing that Thursday night."

      "And Miss Scarlett, does she know?"

      "Trust a mere girl with facts that could ruin her brother's whole future? My dear fellow, Sibella couldn't keep a secret to save her life! My only terror was lest she should guess, or had guessed, something of the truth. I was afraid she had. I suppose I can't ask how in the world you found it all out?"

      "Just routine work, sir. I went wildly astray about those broken flower pots at first. You would have done much better to've confided in us from the start, though I will acknowledge that in this case the position was difficult for you."

      "Difficult? It was damnable. But I still don't see how you got on to my son's presence in Europe, when the Nairobi papers reported his progress week by week around Mombassa."

      "It was something I heard in town, after I got on the track of a man having been taken to the nursing home."

      And the colonel never knew that it was the kiss that he had given Mrs. Lane which had first opened Pointer's eyes to the true, the only possible explanation.

      A man does not kiss a woman with whom he is not in love, and Pointer was certain that there neither was, nor ever had been, any love between the colonel and his lady-housekeeper, because a man whom one, or both, has badly injured is safely in a nursing home. Gratitude alone, he thought, could explain that little scene. A sudden burst of gratitude for loyal help. Scarlett had no male relatives but his son. Granted it could be that son, which it apparently could not be, then all became coherent. The operation suggested brain trouble. That suggested some epileptic-like seizure, which explained the singular way the plants were broken, the lashing of arms and legs on the stone flags. Pointer attacked the apparent proof of the commissioner's presence in Uganda. Found he could pierce it, and had the facts worried out for him while he was in Italy. He had read the report in Paris. Now the last lap was in sight Pointer's heart beat quicker as he entered the middle room. The business of taking the imprints of each man's fists was done exactly as on the first day, except that there was no accident this time. The typewriters of the constables in the outer room drowned all possibility of talking, until Pointer sent out word, asking them to defer, their activities until later in the day. The two commissioners came in as they were finishing.

      "They look excellently taken. How soon can you pour in the plaster?" the Assistant Commissioner asked. "This ought to help forward the case."

      "It will settle it, sir," Pointer said quietly.

      The Chief Commissioner affected surprise. As for the men, who were just preparing to leave, they started as though each had been shot.

      "Yes, sir," Pointer repeated, "this will end the case."

      "Suppose you tell us just how we stand at present," suggested the Commissioner. "Let's all sit down again and hear it."

      Every one sat.

      Watts, too, took a seat, after putting the plates on one side. He chose a chair in the centre of the doorway, and quietly locked the door. He had a civilian assistant this time, who bore the not uncommon name of O'Connor.

      "The details'll come out later, sir," Pointer began, "but as we are at present, this is how the case runs. Miss Charteris had an engagement that Thursday evening with Mr. Bellairs in his studio. He was painting her portrait. Count di Monti had learnt of her visits, and arrived on the scene. Miss Charteris had been fetched by a friend, but the count and Mr. Bellairs quarrelled over her."

      Both men looked as though they would like to break in, but Pointer's impassive, eye held them, while he passed on.

      "The count, as an additional proof of her presence, took away a letter that Miss Charteris had left behind her by accident. It was the enclosure that her father had sent her in her letter of the afternoon. When Count di Monti learnt of the 'accident', as it was called, to her, he at once handed this letter to a friend's brother who was starting that same Friday morning for Italy. It was posted back from Milan to the professor's club. Miss Charteris missed it at once when she returned to her room, and went to the top of the summer house to speak to you about it, Mr. Bellairs. She had asked you to meet her there as soon as you could come. Evidently ten was the hour one or other of you set. I take it she had asked you to let her know how things had gone between you and Count di Monti. She was sure you would quarrel. You decided not to go."

      A chuckle came from di Monti.

      "I decided for him."

      "Had you gone," Pointer still spoke to the artist, "you might have postponed, but you would not have changed the end. The murderer caught sight of her standing alone under the light of the electric lantern up above. He thought that she was there to hand on the enclosure. He switched off the light, ran up the stairs, possibly made some comment about the lamp being out of order, and then as she leant back, perhaps to look at it, an arm was thrust under her knees, and she was flung full force backwards on to the flags below, breaking her neck as she struck them, and cutting her head on a flower pot."

      There was one collective gasp from the room.

      "As far as we know, she didn't even cry out. Had she done so, and had it been heard, he would have been the first to shout for help, we may be sure, and rush down to see if anything could be done for her. But he would have taken her silver chain bag just the same. Either from the top, where she had dropped it, or from beside her—"

      "The bag?" Scarlett said in a dazed voice

      "The bag which had held the enclosed letter. Miss Charteris was murdered for the sake of something which, her father was believed, quite erroneously, to have sent her. And now I am sorry to say I have to tell you about another death. Professor Charteris was murdered, too. He was killed in Northern Italy, for the same reason that cost his daughter her life By sheer accident he was present when a so-called Bulgarian traveller was killed. But the man was not a Bulgarian. He was Neumann, the great secret leader of the Soviet spy system. On him was a paper in cipher giving the names of all the chief Bolshevik agents in Europe. As a matter of fact, the professor never saw that paper, or knew of its existence. But the men with Neumann knew that he had helped their friend into the hospital, saw him reading a similar slip of paper on the hospital steps, followed him, and killed him in a lonely valley, where they could rifle his pockets. In his letter-case they found the receipt for a registered letter sent off immediately after his visit to the hospital."

      So still was the room that the ticking of the watch which each man wore could be heard.

      "But to go back to Miss Charteris's murderer. He had received news that a paper had been sent her which must at all costs be intercepted, and at once. If she had read it, she, too, was to be killed. The professor, being one of the finest cipher readers in the world, might very likely have written her the real names which were hidden in that apparent Russian poem. I think the murderer asked her about that letter before he flung her over. Miss Charteris, very much upset by the evening's events, as we know from her maid, forgot, I think, that she had taken it out, and spoke of it as still there. In any case, he jumped to the conclusion that it was there, and that she had read it. Now, he has the bag, the girl is dead, but he has no letter. He feels sure, however, from what she had said, that nothing had been done with it. It will be in her room, and he must get it later. He notices, for the first time, that when he stooped far over the rail to watch her fall, he smeared green paint on the inside of each СКАЧАТЬ