The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection - Dorothy Fielding страница 31
Название: The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection
Автор: Dorothy Fielding
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066308537
isbn:
Christine said nothing for a few minutes.
"It must be very nice to be able to give away so much," she said musingly, "but for that, I don't see that wealth has much to offer. Which is as well"—she turned to Mrs. Erskine with a smile—"as I am never likely to have much of it."
Judging by Mrs. Erskine's face, she did not share Christine's philosophical point of view in the least.
"A gypsy woman read my hand when I was a tiny tot and said that I should die a wealthy woman, and years later I had the same thing told me—that I should die possessed of great wealth."
They drove home in silence. Christine turned over in her mind what she had just learnt as to her hostess's division of her money. At first she was a little skeptical as to its literal truth, but after a week in the villa she took this suspicion back. Mrs. Erskine did live apparently on the scale of one thousand a year. Apart from the villa and its furnishings, which she had evidently purchased years ago, and the motor-car and meals which all the household shared, she spent but little on herself.
Of anything that could help John Carter Christine learnt nothing. Mrs. Erskine, though she had never heard of him before his arrest, now proclaimed his guilt as firmly as though he had already been tried and convicted. There was only one startling fact, after close on a fortnight, which the villa had revealed to Christine, and that was that Mrs. Erskine was afraid of something.
She herself openly alluded to the fact, when discussing a case in the paper, that she slept with a loaded revolver under her pillow.
"Day or night I always have one close at hand, and I'm quite a fair shot."
"In the midst of life we are in death," cackled the Major, who had not shown himself for several days.
Mrs. Erskine looked at him with one of her frosty smiles, but said nothing. It suddenly struck Christine that here might be the reason why Mrs. Erskine kept the Clarks and the Major with her. They were even in the habit, she learnt, of sharing the summer cottage together, yet Christine did not think that Mrs. Erskine cared any more for them in her heart than she did for herself—Christine—whom yet she had asked to extend her visit for at least another fortnight.
Were they all not so much friends as a bodyguard? If so, from what danger were they intended to shield their hostess? She puzzled over the matter greatly. It seemed to her the one point of interest she had unearthed. As for Pointer, he wrote no comment, only that she was to watch every detail closely that came under her notice. True, she remembered Robert saying that his mother was timid, a timidity which he himself had inherited, just as he had her one uneven eyebrow, and also a little mannerism of the wrists which Christine never saw without remembering him with a pang.
Poor Rob, lying, after little but struggle and failure, in his family vault! If the living man and his danger meant more to her than the dead, not for that reason did she forget Robert Erskine's murder.
CHAPTER VIII
CHRISTINE had not accepted Mrs. Erskine's invitation to stay for another fortnight, but decided that another week at the villa would be the utmost she could afford to waste in futile efforts to learn some clue in a past to which no one referred. She was glad of her caution when one morning towards the close of her stay she found a letter for her at the shop where she had all her correspondence delivered. It was from Mr. Meukes. She tore it open with a beating heart, and read:
Dear Miss West,
I have had an interview with our friend. He was well, and sends you the following message which I have taken down word for word:—
"Please be in Lille by September twenty-fourth. Do you remember my little contribution to your Toronto flat-warming party years ago? Go to that street. The number of the street you want is the age you were that birthday when we all got upset in the river. Go at midnight. Secrecy is vital, for the house may be watched. On the third floor ring the bell. Give no name, but ask for M. Meunier. He knows why I cannot come, and has instructions, left with him for just such an emergency when Rob died. In them I stated that in the event of my death you are my sole legatee, and that if I am incapacitated or prevented in any way from being present in the house at Lille on September 24th, you have full power to sign any documents for me. I enclosed your photo and a sample of your signature. He agreed to accept you as my proxy. For your further identification. I wrote a password in the letter. It is the name we three gave our island at Four Winds, and he is to reply with the name of the rock on it. You can sign any papers M. Meunier hands you without reading them; there will probably be only two. M. Meunier will then give you a slip of paper on which he will have written "Yes" or "No." Enclose this in a letter, but send me (Meukes) a wire to say which word has been handed you. If all goes as I hope, I may soon be able to clear myself of at least one of the charges hanging over me. If you are detained, wire Meunier at the address and sign yourself 'Minuit.'"
There, Miss West, is the message he sends you. He is still as obstinately silent on what interests us as ever, but I do not wonder that you are fond of him. He has a way with him. Will you allow me to wish you good luck in your errand? I shall be glad to have a wire from you to say that this is received and burned.
Very truly yours,
Mortimer Meukes.
Christine read the note very carefully. Entered a few notes in her shopping diary under the heading of last January, and as though they concerned dress items, and burned the letter in the shop womans stove before she turned back towards the town itself and the villa.
To-day was the eighteenth. Her visit would be up on the twentieth. She decided to spend the days between its end and the twenty-third at Avignon, among antiquities which would well explain any lingering should eyes be on her. She would have liked to go direct to Lille, but in a town she did not know she doubted her ability to remain unnoticed for so long.
Of Mrs. Erskine and the inmates of the villa she took a friendly farewell on the twentieth, and caught the train to Avignon as she had mentioned in conversation. Here she browsed among its Roman remains and suffered its Roman wind till the twenty-third, when she motored out to the next station on the P.L.M. beyond Avignon and caught the Paris express, and on to Lille. Arrived at Lille early in the forenoon, she took a tram and saw the sights like any stranger. Only for lunch did she allow herself to drift into the Rue des Muguets. A café-restaurant almost opposite to No. 15 was her choice. She seated herself discreetly in an obscure corner, and had hardly finished a very good meal—Christine was no believer in a poached-egg day—when in walked Mr. Beale. She had his photograph inside her note-book at the moment. He paid no attention to her, but took a window-seat facing No. 15, and not only faced the large building but watched it intently. Once or twice he looked around, included her in his casual glance, and returned to his close watch. She laid down her paper.
"Isn't that M. Voiron?" She named a popular cinema actor as she paid her bill. Her tip made the waiter willing to linger.
"No, Madame," he obviously regretted to shatter an illusion, "that is un Anglais. He comes here lately daily and always to that table."
Christine seemed to be barely listening. That the house was also kept under observation by others for the rest of the twenty-four hours was obvious. She emptied her letter-case under the table into her handbag. It was a plain black leather case.
"I СКАЧАТЬ