The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ was to the Bolzano post-office, where he verified the registered letter sent off on the Monday before Rose's death, some twelve days ago now.

      He was shown the duplicate slip, which stated:

      Assegno L.—Charteris. Hotel Laurin.

      Destnario—Charteris. Medchester.

      The hour, Pointer learnt, must have been before noon, as at that time the clerks had been changed, and the one in whose writing the slip was made out had gone off duty for the day.

      At the hotel he learnt that the professor had shown no preference either for people or for solitude. Some of his meals he had taken in the dining room, some in his own bedroom. Apparently he had acted like any ordinary traveller.

      Pointer began to be more certain than ever that the murderer had made a mistake, that he had expected that registered letter's enclosure to contain—what?

      What was it, what could it have been, that might have been enclosed instead of that memo, that might have been wanted by some one who thought that some important piece of news might have been sent to the daughter by the father, news so important that at all costs to the receiver, at all risks to the criminal, it must be prevented from being passed on?

      Where was the professor? What had happened to him between Bolzano and his promised visit to Meranoo?

      A railway line runs between the two towns, but Charteris had expressly spoken of walking over the Mendel. Where could his walk have led him that no word of his only child's murder seemed to be able to reach him? The Mendel Pass is not out of the world. It is a favourite summer resort, with most up-to-date hotels, where every well-known English newspaper would be taken.

      Pointer went for a walk along the old dyke, planted with trees and shrubs, broad as the king's highway, that keeps the river in bounds.

      He loved nature as only the man can who spends his life in towns. And that walk is unique. With the chanting Talfer rushing past, clear as crystal, with vineyards stretching on either hand, with feudal castles and gleaming farmhouses, and tiny white churches like, candles dotted here and there, on the slopes of the green hills of Tirol that rise on every side, while far away, as though looked at through gauze, towers the great Rosengarten range, set like a throne of the high gods against the sky.

      Just now it was still hung with veils of white over its own changing purple and grays. At sunset it might show itself for a brief moment of incredible beauty, a garden of red roses blowing, tossing, blooming, only changed by the spell of King Laurin to stone, as runs the Ladine legend.

      Pointer stood drawing in deep breaths of the dry, pure air, hanging fresh pictures in the gallery for which he cared most, his memory gallery.

      An impression of being stared at made him turn. A little man had come up behind him, and was standing examining him attentively, from his English hat to his English boots. Pointer had an odd feeling as he looked back at him. The man was unlike any other whom the Chief Inspector had ever seen, and Pointer felt that the difference was racial, not individual. He had never met a specimen of the primitive man before who still exists here and there in Europe, and he was surprised at strong sensation, half repulsion, half interest, which he felt.

      The man was about five feet in height, very sturdily built, and conveying a sense of—not bad proportions but different proportions to what we call the normal. He was thickset, with next to no neck, and with odd, haunch-like hips. On his well-shaped—but still differently-shaped head, the hair grew straight, and coarse, and thick, like cocoanut fibre mat, to below the line of his low collar. He was clean-shaven, with a fawn-like face, and small eyes, brown and soft, and shifting quickly. On meeting Pointer's stare, he turned and walked away.

      A gardener was sweeping the walk.

      "Do you know who that little man is?"

      "That's Ladiner Toni. A guide from the Paesi Ladini."

      "A good guide?"

      "Very good. But now, of course, with the snow so late, there's little climbing to be done. He's been in Bozen a lot lately, but as a rule, other springs, one never saw him."

      Sauntering down in the town proper, Pointer again noticed the little man, and also that he was deliberately following him.

      The Englishman stopped in at one of the multitudinous wine rooms that are growing less of a curse to the drink-loving inhabitants under Fascist government. As he drank his glass of rough Tirol wine, a face peered around at him for a second, eyed him wistfully, and melted away. The eyes seemed to want to ask a question, and yet not dare.

      The waitress knew him at once on Pointer's speaking to her.

      "As a rule, he's up and away in his mountains. They're wild birds, the Ladini. But lately, two or three tourists have told me that he followed them about. I'm afraid poor Toni has found the year a bad one."

      "Can you send for him? I should like to speak to him."

      But Toni had melted away.

      Back at the hotel Pointer could not learn whether Charteris had engaged any guide in the town or not. Bozen is a walking, not a mountaineering centre. He got the address of Ladiner Toni and his character from the Carabinieri. He lived in Saint Christina, a tiny village in the Val Gardena.

      The detective officer took the motor diligence to its mouth, and set out for Toni's house. His father had been the schoolmaster. The driver knew Toni well. He, too, agreed that he had changed of late. He was in and out of Bolzano all day long, hanging around the station, or the post-office chiefly, though he would as like as not spend hours on the promenades or in the big square. He seemed to be always on the lookout for some one, the driver thought. Perhaps some one who had not paid him up.

      Pointer was in the little village before he knew it, so dark were the tiny wooden houses that they melted into the earth around them. That of the teacher's widow was like a toy gingerbread cottage.

      An old woman, sitting by her spinning-wheel, looked up. She, too, was short and squat, but her brown eyes were very bright.

      "Come in. You are looking for my son?" She spoke Italian or German with equal effort. "He will be in soon."

      Pointer took a stool and watched her, nimble brown fingers.

      "You want a guide, perhaps, Signo?"

      All through their talk of the weather she eyed him closely.

      The door, opened, and the little man entered. At sight of him, Pointer knew that he had not had his tramp for nothing. A curious pallor came into the man's swart face. His eyes flickered backwards and forwards from Pointer to his mother.

      "This gentleman wants to see you, Toni."

      "Well?" he asked in German, in a throaty, husky voice. "I hear you're a good guide among the Dolomites, and I want one."

      "There's no climbing when the snows are melting." A watchful, suspicious intentness was in the little man's face. He was breathing rapidly. The wheel had stopped, and the old woman, too, was staring at their guest.

      "I want you to show me some of the valleys around here. The carabinieri said you were trustworthy, and that what you don't know of the Dolomites towards Cadore isn't worth knowing. I will leave the pay to you, but I want a Ladiner."

      "Why?"

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