The Eames-Erskine Case (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ will, there certainly was an easy enough way. But why the will? Why should the editor of an important newspaper leave by the window rather than by the door, even though he were an American?

      He looked Mr. Beale's bag over. Nothing had been taken. He saw in it no paper to match the little end he had "absentmindedly" stuffed into his pocket.

      "I thought I saw a piece of striped paper lying around"—he glanced about him—"did it belong to anything of yours?"

      The manager shook his head. He was even paler than he had been.

      "Was it anything of yours, sir?" persisted the officer, peering under the table.

      "No." The manager's voice was harsh.

      "Odd sort of paper, too. Oh, here it is"—Pointer fished it out—"Did you see anything like it in Mr. Beale's hands last night?"

      "I suppose on a modest estimate I had near a dozen people in this room yesterday." The manager's voice was studiously level. "I should say that the probabilities are that any one of them dropped that little tag."

      "Shouldn't wonder," agreed Pointer amicably. "Did you and Mr. Beale sit up long together last night?"

      The manager hesitated for the fraction of a second. "N—no, not beyond saying good-night, after his refusing to let me give him my bedroom."

      "You didn't discuss Mr. Eames?"

      "Not at all. Not at all."

      "Kindly look carefully around the room and see if anything is missing."

      The manager obeyed, and Pointer with one deft swoop, while he back was turned, emptied the contents of an ash-tray, which stood on a little table between two easy chairs, into an envelope. Then he sauntered casually into the bedroom, and watched the manager in a mirror, as he aimlessly took up trifle after trifle, stopping now and then to stare out of the window with a puzzled, worried look. Suddenly he seemed to leave the world of speculations.

      "I say, Inspector, this is all rot! Mr. Beale isn't a thief. You saw his passport, and I saw a letter of credit and various other letters of his."

      "Have you any idea, sir, as to when he left this room?"

      "I dozed off about three o'clock. Last night's affair doesn't help a manager to sleep any better than usual, you know. So I suppose Mr. Beale must have left some time after that?"

      "You had no idea why he left by the window?"

      "I? Certainly not! I know no more than you do about the whole affair. Probably not so much," he added with a rather forced smile.

      Pointer went carefully all over the little suite of three rooms, with its lobby opening into the lounge and on to the landing of the service-stairs with a door into the street. He found nothing to detain him, and rapidly drafted a notice to be sent out to all taxi-drivers describing Mr. Beale, and asking for news of any fare resembling him picked up on Sunday morning or late Saturday night. Watts was off duty, with his family at the Zoo, but the Chief Inspector had no time for relaxation.

      He sent Miller to find out which maid was responsible for the manager's rooms and to send her up at once. Miller, who had made himself quite popular in the staff breakfast-room, slipped away, and within ten minutes ushered in a very fluttered young woman.

      "Now, my dear, did you make up a bed in the manager's sitting-room late last night?"

      "Oh, no, sir. I was in bed when it all happened. Oh, dear no, sir." And she edged towards the door.

      "Come, come, I don't bite, you know. Then did you do up his room this morning?"

      That was better. Kate twitteringly acknowledged that she had.

      "Did you see anything of a letter I left on the bedroom table? The window was open at the top, it may have blown on to the floor; anyway, I haven't been able to find it."

      The maid had seen nothing of any paper, which was not surprising, as Pointer had just invented it. "Besides, sir, the manager would have been sure to see it. He didn't go to bed at all, nor even lie down."

      "Tut! Tut! Worried, I suppose, by all the bother. He generally sleeps so well, too."

      He had learnt what he wanted to know, and the girl was allowed to scuttle away from his terrifying presence.

      Pointer next made his way to a window on the first floor landing. It, too, looked on to the balcony. He examined the sill with his magnifying glass very carefully, and bending out scrutinized the boards below.

      "Come here, Miller," he called softly, "could you scramble out of that window?"

      The detective proved that he could, provided that he were helped, but he found it difficult.

      "When the manager, and that American gentleman, left No. 14 last night, did you see them go on down the stairs?"

      "I saw them turn on to this landing, sir, but I couldn't see this window from where I was. I thought I heard their footsteps go on down."

      "The wind was rather rough. One or both might have come up quietly again and got out."

      "I don't think anyone could have opened that window without my hearing them. And I think I should have felt the draught, sir."

      "Humph!" was all Pointer said to himself, as he walked on out of the hotel and took a train to Streatham, where lived Doctor Burden, the great Government analyst, expert in poisons, and reasons for sudden deaths.

      Pointer had barely pushed open the gate of the drive when the doctor met him, swinging along, golf sticks under his arm. Too late he tried to dodge behind a clump of laurels, the law was upon him.

      "Just a moment, doctor. It's only for a second, sir," begged the police officer, with a firm grip on the clubs. "It really won't take you more than one glance. All I want to know is whether a spot on a label is morphia solution or not. That's all."

      "I know you, Pointer." The doctor tried to wrest his irons free; "you got me last time with that yarn, and tied me up in a thirty-six hour job before I knew where I was. Never again!"

      "But this time it really is only one spot of what I think may be a solution of morphia that I'm after."

      He won, and the doctor, growling at his folly in having gone to Service instead of straight on to the links, led him into his study.

      Pointer unpacked the bottle of cough-mixture which he had taken from the washstand in No. 14.

      "Here, sir, where the writing has run a bit on the label. Could that smear be morphia? The stuff in the bottle is all right, I fancy, but it'll be sent to you tomorrow to test at your leisure."

      "Leisure!" groaned the analyst, "you're a wag. My leisure!" He took the bottle and disappeared through a door to return in a couple of minutes. "It is morphia. And in a solution strong enough to kill an elephant. Don't ask me for exact quantities, I'm off."

      "Very much obliged to you, sir," grinned the Chief Inspector, as he carefully replaced the bottle, and followed the doctor at a more leisurely pace out of the garden.

      "The case begins to move at last," he murmured to himself with СКАЧАТЬ