The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

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      "Who's he?"

      "Neighbour of the colonel's. Late of the same regiment. Tons of money."

      "Married?" asked Pointer.

      "Grandfather," Harris said triumphantly, in a tone that nipped any romantic suppositions in the bud.

      "Any sons?"

      "One. Fell at Givenchy."

      "Then very probably he sent the colonel a warning."

      "Ah, he would do that!" Harris quite approved of this idea.

      "According to Paul, the colonel dined with him on Wednesday in town, and spent the evening with him, getting back about half-past twelve."

      "They're often together," Harris threw in "Sir Henry, for one thing, owns a horse at this moment that the colonel's going to back for all he's worth, I hear. I'm rather inclined myself to—"

      Pointer brought the talk back to the matter in hand, and ran over the possible suppositions about the unknown man who had lain on the bed of the summer house, very much as he had done to O'Connor, but in a tabulated, abbreviated form.

      "That's the first point. The second we want to find out is, who was the man who pushed the carrier to the sand-pit. Thirdly, we want to trace out the woman who walked beside the man. She probably wore the stained blue dress. So much for the main facts. As to the motive for the murder—there's the idea of jealousy. We have two men and two women belonging to Miss Charteris's own circle that might have something to say to that. Bellairs and the count, Mrs. Lane and Miss Scarlett.

      "The count, you remember, said that not only had he a perfect alibi for all Thursday evening and night from eight on, but that he was going to bring down two friends, a Prince Cornaro and a Mr. del Greco, a relation of the Italian Ambassador, to confirm it. We know there was a meeting at which he spoke at eleven, but if he was late he could have reached it after Miss Charteris was killed. However, if his alibi's as good as he says, he's out of it—seemingly.

      "As for Mr. Bellairs, of course, in the ordinary way, we should ask for an explanation at once about that studio of his. But he's staying at Windsor Castle until Tuesday, painting a portrait of the Queen for the coming World's Conference of Women. But now, suppose the motive isn't jealousy, or anything in that line. Suppose Miss Rose's death was to some one's advantage—"

      "Ah, but it wasn't!" put in Harris almost gleefully. "Not advantage enough to the Stillwater lot. Miss Sibella gets that Italian legacy, if it's ever paid, and that's all the profit there is. Her money don't come to the colonel till after her father's death. I've been talking to Mr. Gilchrist."

      "I suppose the count's too wealthy to feel the pinch of letting the property go?" Inspector Rodman puzzled aloud, "but, of course, now there's only one girl to marry."

      Harris turned on him quizzically.

      "Look here, he's an Italian, not a Mormon."

      "What I mean, sir, is this. That Italian property went to Miss Charteris, and, after her death, to Miss Scarlett, and then back to the di Monti. Now Miss Charteris's gone, if the count marries Miss Scarlett, it takes it back into the family at once, as it were?"

      "I thought it went to Miss Scarlett permanent to will away," Harris said after a pause. "Let's look at the papers. I laid a note of her money affairs in with 'em."

      He opened the safe and took out a parcel, untied it, and then started.

      "Why, they're gone! These newspapers have been put in instead."

      "When were they out of your keeping?" Pointer asked equably.

      "The chief asked to see them, so I sent Briggs up there, yesterday about seven. The major sent them back again about nine. Mr. Thornton returned them. He'd been dining there."

      "Who else was at Major Vaughan's at dinner, do you know?"

      "Only the colonel, Briggs said."

      "You may be sure that any one even remotely connected with the case would look in in the course of the evening," Pointer said a little grimly.

      "I know the count did for a fact. But, Alf, the major wouldn't show these papers to outsiders—"

      "But he might leave them in some downstairs room, tied up, labelled, and ready to be sent back."

      Rodman nodded. He thought that the chief constable might very easily have done that.

      "But," Harris tried to keep his head above water, "they were only letters, except that note I shoved in, only Miss Rose's letters—".

      "Just so," Pointer said briskly. "Letters. Possibly some one thought that that missing enclosure the professor sent his daughter, and which no one seems able to trace, might be there too."

      "You thought that flake of sealing-wax on the table at the studio meant it had been there. Perhaps she had handed it over to some one, Mr. Bellairs, say."

      "Possibly. I've written to him to ask for a full account of how he spent Thursday night, from eight onwards. But that flake was on a little table by the door, you know, not on the central table. It looks to me more as though the black-sealed envelope had been merely laid down on the small table to be out of the way."

      "Pity one can't just ask the professor what the letter, and second, inside envelope, is all about," Harris said.

      "The colonel is inserting an advertisement in all the Italian, French, and Balkan newspapers addressed to his brother-in-law, and asking him to return immediately. That ought to reach him soon, wherever he is." And with that, Pointer left his two helpers and began to look through the reports that had been sent down by a motor cyclist from Scotland Yard.

      He learnt that no hospital had taken in any case on Thursday night that could possibly be connected with the man he wanted. Private nursing-homes were being investigated, but they would take time, as all inquiries were to be so carefully made. A list was furnished the Chief Inspector of all the doctors and surgeons who attended the French hospital in Soho. One of these, Pointer noted, had a nursing-home in a smart part of the West end. He was Sir Martin Martineau. In accordance with his instructions, very special inquiries had been made there, but they had led to nothing.

      Pointer filed the notes and went out for a stroll. The stroll took him to Doctor Metcalfe's. But that young man's flood of gossip had nothing in it which threw any new light on the facts of the case, and Pointer decided finally that perhaps sleep was not a mere luxury, even in the beginning of a case, and, following Harris's example, was soon himself tucked up in a room of the superintendent's. For Brown had taken his departure from Red Gates before the inquest.

      Next morning he was early up at Stillwater House for a chat with Paul, who liked him.

      "Nothing has been changed, I suppose?" Pointer asked, following him into the deserted dining-room.

      "No, sir. Funeral's at three," Paul said sadly. "Hasn't been a funeral of anybody under sixty from this house since I've been in service here. And me having been born on the estate can be relied on for facts. And to think of its being our Miss Rose now. It still don't seem real sometimes."

      "Ladies going?" asked Pointer.

      Paul said they СКАЧАТЬ