It was late on the afternoon of Thursday that the Chief Inspector
again went meticulously over every article of Eames' which he had in
his safe. The watch he lingered over longest. His advertisement had
brought in no helpful replies. He had taken the watch to a
neighbouring goldsmith, who had only been able to tell him that the
maker, a very poor one, had long ago given up work and life itself.
Pointer laid it on one side for a moment and took up the waistcoat. It
was a well-worn garment, with very small pockets, one of which—the
watch-pocket—had a permanent bulge. He fitted the watch into it. As he
looked at it attentively it struck him that the watch did not conform
at all to the outline supposed to have been made by it. An idea came
to the police officer. He put on a pair of magnifying glasses and
scrutinised the inside of the back of the case long and minutely.
Finally he rose, with a faint flush in his cheek, and took a taxi to
the largest watchmakers and goldsmiths in London.
“Sorry,” the manager said patronisingly when Pointer, after asking for
a private room, had shown him the watch; “it's not the kind of article
we ever deal in. Not our class at all.” He handed back the watch
contemptuously, and endeavoured to look over the other's head.
Pointer, unruffled as ever, opened the case again.
“Then you don't know that mark? Those crossed semicircles?”
He pointed to two almost invisible pin scratches.
The manager started, and took the watch again quickly.
“Two semicircles crossed? By Jove, so there are! The marks are so old
and worn that I didn't notice them. You've good eyes, Inspector.”
“I look at what is before me,” was the quiet reply, which the salesman
greeted as a sally of wit.
“Ha, ha! We all do that, I suppose. Well, to tell you the truth, that
happens to be an old private mark of our own.”
“Just so. You changed it some twenty years ago.”
“Oh—ah! You certainly are well up in your work! If you sit down again
for a moment I'll make inquiries.”
Some time went by before the manager returned.
“I can't trace the watch in the least. I think that mark must be a
mistake, or a joke, though it's our own mark right enough.” He was
obviously puzzled.
“Could it be a watch you lent a customer in place of one left to be
mended? Or what about your branch establishment in Bond Street?”
The manager left him alone again and returned to say that he thought
the Chief Inspector's suggestion highly probable, but that they had no
record, even so, of the watch on their books. He recommended him to
try their branch.
Pointer thanked him and took another taxi.
At Bond Street he found that the manager had 'phoned, and he was shown
at once into a little room where he found a salesman waiting for him.
“Chief Inspector Pointer? We've been going over our books. I think I
may be able to help you.”
The police-officer handed him his treasure. The man opened the case.
“Yes, this is a watch I let a young gentleman have”—he laid it down
and ran his finger along a ledger—“last Saturday morning. As a rule,
we furnish no watches to our customers, but in this case we supplied
him with one as a makeshift for his own very valuable repeater.”
“Was this the young gentleman?” Pointer held out Eames' photo. The
salesman identified him after a long scrutiny. “He wore a brown tweed
suit and a soft brown felt hat.”
“That's him,” muttered Pointer, drawing a deep breath.
“He gave the name of Eames. But his repeater, I have it here, has
another family's coat of arms engraved on the back. Do you know
anything about heraldry, Inspector?”
“A little.”
“Well, of course, we have to, and besides—well frankly, the repeater
was of a very superior kind, and the young man's clothes were not
quite in keeping, you know what I mean?”
Pointer secretly damned any interest in clothes just then.
“Oh, quite! And the crest was?”
“I recognised it at once, but as a mere matter of form I looked it up,
as I thought it is that of the Perthshire branch of the Erskine
family. Here is the repeater.” He laid it down beside the Scotland
Yard man. “And now, I presume, I may take back this. And what about
the charge for the spring we supplied?”
Pointer assured him that that would doubtless be settled by the
family. He asked the salesman how it was that he had missed the offer
of a reward for the watch, and whether he had not noticed any likeness
between his customer and the picture of the “Hotel suicide,” let alone
the name of Eames which had been given in the Press. The shopman
smiled a little wearily.
“Stocktaking,” was his laconic excuse, “and besides our three lending
watches don't go by number any more. They're too ancient for that.”
Pointer left the shop with a buoyant tread just as the shutters went
up.
The Yard has its own short cuts, and after a couple of hours of
strenuous trunk-calls, he was able to get into touch with a certain
solicitor, a Mr. Russell, of Russell and Son, of Perth, who, when
driven into a corner, finally admitted that he acted, since his
father's retirement, as legal adviser to the particular branch of
Erskines in whom the Yard was interested.
“It's about young Erskine who's come over from Canada lately——”
This seemed to galvanise the man at the other end. So much so that it
was some time before Pointer could get his query through the
Scotsman's ejaculations.
“He's dead. Suicide apparently. Could you identify the body?” With
many repetitions he got a general description of “Eames” over the
line. The watch clinched it. The invisible Russell said he would come
to town by the earliest possible train. Then followed a little
difference of opinion as to the exact meaning of that term, Russell
pointing out that he said the earliest _possible_, while Pointer
maintained time-tables to be the only standard. He won finally, and
Mr. Russell agreed to take the midnight express south, leaving his
office in the hands of his father.
He arrived at the Yard late the following afternoon, and almost in
silence the two men drove to the chamber where “Eames” still lay in
his patent ice-coffin.
Russell recognised him at once, and the Scotsman's air of almost
suspicious reserve—as that of a man whose valuable time might be
wasted—left him. Seated in the Chief Inspector's room at the Yard over
a glass of his own mixing, Mr. Russell told all that he knew of the
young man.
“You're quite sure, Mr. Russell, that you recognise the corpse?”
Pointer was writing swiftly. So was Watts.
“Aye, only too sure. I knew him as a boy well enough, and besides he's
the very image of his father.” He stared ruminatingly out of the
window. “It's not easy to know how much I ought to tell you, Inspector
Pointer. Under ordinary circumstances I should, of course, say nothing
till I had talked with Mrs. Erskine—poor leddy! poor, poor leddy!—but
as you say time is important—well, I've thought it over well coming
down here, and I've decided to tell you the whole family story as far
as it concerns young Robert Erskine. Their branch has been settled in
Perthshire since the battle of Flodden Field. His father—Mr. Henry
Erskine—was the owner of a fine bit of land and fortune. He sold all
the land long ago, all but a park with the dower-house in it which was
included in his wife's settlements. She had a property of her own,
too, and comes of an equally good house. She was an Abercrombie and is
still alive. The father is dead. The marriage, I fancy, was not an
over great success. She is a quiet, deeply religious body, and Mr.
Erskine—well, he liked concerts, and operas, and paintings, and
travelling. He had one younger brother Ian who had bought a large
ranch in Canada, and seventeen years ago—Robert was then twelve—Mr.
Erskine and his son went on a year's visit to this brother. While
there—I think it was only after a couple of months,—Mr. Henry Erskine
was thrown from his horse and killed. By his will—I have a copy of it
here with me—he left the use of his property to his wife during her
life-time with remainder to his son should he outlive her. In case of
Robert Erskine's death, before his mother, half was to become his
wife's possession absolutely, and the other half goes to found art
scholarships in Perth. In case both son and wife were dead, the
estate, it was worth about seven thousand a year at the time of Mr.
Erskine's death, and has since greatly appreciated—to be split up into
various art scholarships at Scotch towns. His brother, Ian Erskine was
a wealthy man, a bachelor, who had expressed his intention—in
writing—of leaving his entire fortune to his only nephew Robert. Do I
make myself quite clear?”
“Oh, quite,” breathed the two police officers, who were lapping up the
information thirstily.
“This uncle was appointed the boy's guardian, and Robert was to remain
with him until he should be of age. By that time Mr. Ian Erskine had
died, too, leaving his fortune as he had promised, I understand, and
Robert stayed on at the Four Winds Ranch near Calgary. We had very
little indeed to do with him after his father's death. I presume he
preferred to employ his uncle's man of business. I doubt but that he
takes after his father and is a bit careless with money, for over two
months ago, on May 20th to be exact, Mrs. Erskine instructed me to
send Robert £1,000. I was abroad for my holidays at the time, so I
went to see her. Mrs. Erskine lives in France for the sake of her
health. She left Scotland shortly after her husband and son went to
Canada and has a fine villa outside Nice. There she showed me his last
letter, in which he asked for the money to settle some card debt. I
gathered from Mrs. Erskine, more by what she didn't say than by what
she did, that he frequently applied to her for funds. I'm not saying
that she can't afford it, for owing to her profitable investments—she
has a rare head for finance—her income has been more like ten thousand
than seven these many years past. But, frankly, gentleman, it wasn't
the kind of letter I should have cared to write to my mother,—and her
a widow and frail. Well, we sent the one thousand pounds by a draft on
a Toronto bank, and received a scrap of a receipt on June seventeenth,
along with a sealed envelope marked ‘My Last Will and Testament’ with
instructions to keep it for him, and use it if need be.”
“Can I see the covering letter to his will?”
The solicitor held it out. It was the briefest of notes headed from a
Toronto hotel and dated June 4.
“Dear Mr. Russell,
I shall be much obliged if you will take charge of the enclosed. It is
my last, and only will. Should I die kindly act on it at once.
Faithfully yours,
Robert Erskine.”
“You have the will with you, too, sir?”
“Aye, I have.” But Mr. Russell made no motion to produce it.
“Under the circumstances, as you have definitely identified the body
as that of Robert Erskine, you would save us all a great deal of
trouble, and yourself a long detention in London, by letting us have
it now.”
The lawyer pondered this for a moment. Then he drew out and broke the
seals of a grey envelope. In it was a half-sheet of notepaper. By to
Robert Erskine on June Fourth had left everything of which he might
die possessed to one Henry Carter, of 10401 Street, Calgary.
“Alias Cox,” was Pointer's silent comment as he passed it on to Watts.
Then he compared it carefully with a letter which he took out of his
safe, the note found on Eames' body. The writing tallied. He handed
the note to the lawyer, who read it with emotion. For he and the young
fellow in whose name it stood, were about of an age, and had known
each other as children.
“To think of it! To think of the Perthshire Erskines ending like this!
All their money and all their land to come to no better finish!”
Pointer pressed a button and had the will handed over to the Yard's
experts to be photographed and enlarged.
“Now about this Henry Carter, who is he?”
“I never heard of him before in my life. He won't be a Perthshire
man.”
The Chief Inspector played with his fountain pen for a while.
“Do you think Mrs. Erskine could come over for the adjourned inquest?
It won't be till a week from Tuesday?”
“I doubt it might kill her. She is a very delicate woman. Robert was
her only child, you remember. Nor can I see the point. In his letter
he says clearly enough that his intention is to commit suicide. And as
for identification—she hasn't seen him since I have. He's never been
back to Europe before. I know that.”
“Did you know that he was coming?”
“My dear sir, I know as little of Robert Erskine's movements these
last years as I do of the Pope. Barring that receipt for the thousand
pounds, and that envelope with his scrap of a will inside, we haven't
heard from him since his father died these many years ago. And at that
time it was my father who transacted the winding up of the estate. I
was but a lad.”
“Well, I hope Mrs. Erskine will come. I must run over to France, if
not. She may be able to throw some light on the reasons for her
son's—ah—end. Now, Mr. Russell, do you happen to know whether Mr.
Robert or Mr. Ian Erskine took any interest in politics out in
Canada?”
“I do remember a letter my father read me, in which Mr. Erskine—Mr.
Henry Erskine—spoke of difficulties his brother was having with some
Communist settlers near by; but what would that have to do with young
Erskine's suicide?”
“Nothing probably, but we must leave no stone unturned. Well, Mrs.
Erskine may know more. I should like to find out what Robert Erskine's
attitude on labour questions was.”
“But his letter—! Man, a young fellow is hardly likely to kill himself
for such like whimsies.”
“True again, Mr. Russell; but as there doesn't seem any reason lying
around on the surface why a wealthy young man should kill himself, we
must poke about for one. By the way, do you know how much his uncle
left him?”
“Mrs. Erskine wrote to the effect that he was now wealthier than she.
That's all I know.”
“Thanks.” The Chief Inspector drew Watts into another room.
“Cable to the Toronto police for full particulars of young Erskine and
Cox. And repeat to Calgary police.” Pointer turned to his desk with
the air of a man who has still a full day's work before him, whatever
the hands of the clock might say about it.
Mr. Russell cleared his throat, but his courage apparently failed him,
as with a bow and a “See you to-morrow at your hotel, Mr. Russell—at
eleven, if that hour suits you,” the Chief Inspector was gone.
Mr. Russell cleared his throat again.
“Mr. Watts—I wonder, now—I'm wishful to see the room where poor Robert
Erskine took his life. I knew him as a boy, you see.” There was
genuine feeling in the Scotsman's face.
The detective opened the door. “Chief Inspector!” he called, but his
superior was out of earshot.
Watts rubbed his chin.
“Well, sir, of course, strictly speaking, I should say no. But as
you're in the case as it were, and a friend of the family—well, as it
happens, I shall be at the Enterprise Hotel within the hour on
business. I'll pick you up in the lounge there if you like, and let
you just have a look at No. 14. The hotel doesn't intend to let it
till Monday.”
He was as good as his word, and took the solicitor up with him to the
threshold of the fatal room. Mr. Russell shook his head slowly.
“Pitiful, aye, pitiful indeed, to think of Robert Erskine come to such
a pass that he was glad to take poison and shut himself up in yon box.
Do you think there was a wumman at the bottom of it?”
“There often is,” agreed Watts. Not until the adjourned inquest did
the Yard intend a word to leak out which might suggest that the
“suicide” was a murder.
“Aye, just so,” murmured Mr. Russell as he tiptoed from the room.
On the stairs they met Pointer, who gave them both a baleful glare.
Watts would have explained, but his superior silenced him with a
gesture.
“Not out here. Mr. Russell, don't let us detain you, sir”; and the
lawyer left the detective to a grim little interview back in No. 14.
“My aim was to keep the man's identity a secret, as I told you.” The
Chief Inspector's voice lost none of its edge for being carefully
lowered; “and you bring the family solicitor to the hotel! Suppose the
criminal is still in the house—you give him notice that we know who
Eames was. Beale, or Cox, may both of them be staying under this very
roof as Jones or Smith for aught we know!”
Watts bent to the blast, and apologetically took himself off, inwardly
swearing that never again would he yield to a kindly impulse.
Pointer walked swiftly downstairs and knocked at the manager's door.
He was greeted with rather forced cordiality.
“Mr. Manager, I asked you once before if Mr. Eames left anything in
the safe. You said no. We have learned to-day that he may have had
some hundreds of pounds with him. Are you sure of the honesty of your
booking clerks?”
“Oh, quite! Absolutely.” There was no mistaking the conviction in the
manager's tones, but also no mistaking the fact that he had turned
very pale.
“You have the only key to the safe, I understand?”
“That is so.”
“I see.” Pointer was watching him intently and not disguising the
fact. “The night-clerk, Biggs, says that he happened to see you open
the safe several times during the days Eames was here, and noticed a
small sealed box, wrapped in green and white striped paper, on the top
shelf to the right. He is certain that he saw it last on the night of
the third—Saturday—when you opened the safe to give a Dutch gentleman
back his deposit. On Sunday morning the safe was opened at nine
o'clock to let a lady put in her jewels, and the box was gone. Can you
tell me anything about that box?”
“That box? Oh, yes, I remember now. That box belonged to me. I often
keep spare cash in the safe.”
Both men looked at the safe facing them cemented into the wall of the
manager's sitting-room.
“And the green and white striped paper? I showed the clerk the piece I
found in this room the morning after Mr. Beale's—ah—departure, and he
positively identifies it as similar to that which he saw in the safe.
Yet when I questioned you, sir, about that same piece you expressly
stated that it was not yours?”
The manager did not speak. He looked as if he could not, and after
waiting a full minute the Chief Inspector rose.
“You have no explanation to offer, sir?”
“What do you mean?” snapped the manager shrilly. “I have explained!
Good God, I am explaining! I may have wrapped a box up in any chance
piece of paper I found lying around without noticing its colour—its
stripes!”
Pointer waited again. Then:
“You have nothing further to add, sir?”
“No!” The manager passed his hand across his face as though to wipe
away an incautious word.
The Chief Inspector took out a small black book from an inner pocket
and held it in front of the other. “Do you identify this, sir?”
The manager's face glistened under the light.
“Of course. It's the safe receipt-book. You have no business with
that, officer. Aren't you overstepping your authority?”
“I think not, sir. Here are the entries up to July 25th—the date Mr.
Eames came to the hotel. Here are the entries up to August 4th, the
date of his death—and here are the entries from August 4th up to date.
Does nothing strike you about them?”
“Nothing!” The manager's voice was harsh. “They are all in perfect
order. Each entry initialled by me and by the visitor, and the dated
signed receipt in full when the article or articles were handed back.
What mare's nest have you got hold of now?”
“You have no explanation to offer of the curious fact that up to the
25th the entries are in a different ink from the receipts, and the
receipts themselves differ according to the pen used. But from the
twenty-fifth of July to August fourth inclusive, that is these ten
pages”—he held them up—“though the handwriting differs as before, all
the writing is done with one ink throughout and with one nib—a rather
pointed fountain pen? After August fourth again the nibs and the ink
varies as they do before July 25th.”
“What do you mean?” The manager stared truculently at his inquisitor.
“What are you insinuating?”
“Then, too,” continued the detective's level tones, “this book is one
of a class Straker habitually stock. But this one is twenty pages
short. Someone has evidently cut out the pages on which were the
entries of July twenty-fifth to August fourth, and the half-pages
which correspond further on, and filled in more or less complete
copies—more or _less_ complete”—he repeated meaningly—“of the pages as
they stood.”
There was a long silence.
“Here is a copy of the book, sir, but this one I am taking with me, as
you have no explanations to offer.”
The manager made a gesture towards the door and turned on his heel.
Saluting stiffly, Pointer left the room, and after a word to an
unobtrusive figure watching outside, swung himself on to a Bayswater
bus.
O'Connor received the news of the day's work with enthusiasm. The
police officer took a more moderate tone and pointed out that they
were only now where most cases started—that is, in possession of the
name of the victim.
“—but I'm not denying it's a step forward, chiefly because it's our
best chance of getting at the motive. And the motive will be the only
key that will unlock this puzzle.” He spoke with conviction. “If it
were a case of circumstantial evidence we might spend the rest of our
lives working at it. That balcony, that service-stair practically
throw the case open to all London.”
“What about Miss Leslie?”
The other stared a moment. “Well, what about her? Her alibi is fairly
good. May be true, what young ‘what's his name’ says.”
“You think it's the manager?”
“I wonder if I really do?” murmured Pointer sarcastically.
“Looks as though he were certainly in it for something, even if it's
only shielding Beale,” O'Connor answered for him. “Then there's
Carter-Cox. He has a direct inducement.”
“Very direct.”
“Curious will that!” O'Connor spoke almost to himself.
“But then the whole thing is odd.” Pointer puffed away in silence.
“True for you,” O'Connor nodded; “the separate slips—that will sent to
his old family solicitor, with whom he had had next to no dealings.
And then you spoke of his clothes——”
“They struck even the jeweller when he went about his watch,” agreed
Pointer. “All well enough in their way, but not at all those of a
wealthy young man.”
“And a mother with over seven thousand a year, and an uncle worth as
much, too—he must have made the money fly!”
O'Connor's tone of virtuous horror made Pointer think of Russell.
The next day was a Sunday, but the Chief Inspector arranged that
Russell should send off a wire to Mrs. Erskine breaking the news to
her that an accident had happened to Robert in London, followed by
another telling her that the accident had been fatal. By the afternoon
they had the reply from Nice: “Starting at once. Erskine.” On Monday
morning, however, came another cable from Mrs. Erskine, this time from
Paris: “Ill. Doctor forbids journey.” It was sent from the Gare St.
Lazare station. Mr. Russell and Pointer set out the same day for the
French capital. It was to Mr. Russell, naturally, that the task of
telling the mother the facts about her son's death fell. In any case
Pointer would have seen to it that the man who knew only the general
outline should be the tale bearer. He saw no good in harrowing Mrs.
Erskine's feelings prematurely with an account of the wardrobe and the
police certainty of foul play.
He walked about Paris the morning after his arrival, wondering, as so
often before, at the city's reputation for beauty. Charming in parts,
yes, but—to his mind—its general reputation rested on “mass
suggestion,” so unspeakably dreary and sordid did he always find the
greater part of it. The cafés with their comfortless chairs and tables
at which people drank weirdly coloured drinks, of which—still
according to him—the less said the better, were a back number compared
with a London tea-room. He was glad when eleven struck, and he was
shown into Mrs. Erskine's great bedroom. A thin figure, almost lost
among her pillows on the couch, held out a trembling hand. Its chill
told him how greatly Russell's story had drained the mother's
vitality. He murmured some words of regret as he took a chair. The son
had evidently inherited his mother's general air of pallor, and he saw
where the young man had got his one peaked eyebrow from. The
Abercrombie eyebrow, as Mr. Russell had called it. Mrs. Erskine had it
very markedly, and its unlikeness to its fellow lifted her pale face
out of the commonplace.
“Mr. Russell has just told me”—her voice was rather flat and
toneless,—“all the details. I can't quite grasp what has happened yet,
my only child. . . .”
Again he murmured a sentence of sympathy. “I wouldn't dream of
intruding, madame,” he said earnestly, “but we want to clear up the
motive for what has happened. Had Mr. Robert Erskine ever spoken of
putting an end to his life before?”
Mrs. Erskine did not answer for a moment or two. When she did it was
with a visible effort. The Chief Inspector guessed what it must cost
an evidently reserved woman to lay bare her lack of any affection from
her son. “Not exactly . . . but my unhappy son did not find in life
all he hoped from it, I fear. He liked gaiety—as youth always
does,—and perhaps . . . life disappointed him. His letters—he wrote
infrequently, naturally, his very popularity left him little time for
writing—his letters seemed to me to show but little real happiness.”
“Ah! his letters! May I see them?”
“Oh, I couldn't! My son's letters to me? Oh, no!” She shook her head
resolutely, but he insisted, pointing out in his kindest way that the
matter could not rest where it was, that some motive must have lain
behind that draught of morphia, and that the letters might furnish the
explanation. All of which was strictly true. Mrs. Erskine looked at
him tragically.
“I cannot do it! I canna!” she whispered brokenly, but finally he
persuaded her to draw out from under her cushion a leather
pocket-book.
“Don't—don't misjudge him,” she pleaded earnestly, looking away. “He
was a good son and loved me, but it's not easy for a lad to put his
love into words, is it?”
Certainly Robert Erskine had made but little effort in that direction.
The letters were only those of the current year, with the exception of
his last Christmas letter. Each was the barest of prefaces to a demand
for money to pay some pressing debt. In one he apparently
half-shamefacedly had added that the devil only knew where all his own
money went to. In another, evidently in answer to some suggestion of
his mother about living with an object in view, was a caustic line as
to the differing estimates put on objects by an old lady and a young
man; as for himself, he added candidly, it was to “squeeze the most
out of this rotten show.”
As a light on his character the four were damning in their clearness,
and in so far they gave the Chief Inspector a very good idea of the
vicious circle in which Robert Erskine must have lived; but they
mentioned no names and no facts. Not even an address was given. The
mother was directed to send the sums asked for, and very big sums they
totalled all together, to the Toronto main postoffice. There was never
a date or heading, but the Toronto post-mark on the envelopes supplied
some clue. Of coming to Europe there was no word. It looked much as
though young Robert's journey might easily have been a flight from
unpleasant consequences, for Pointer knew, none better, where such
paths as these could lead. He handed back the letters without a word,
except of thanks. Mrs. Erskine covered her face with her hands and
said nothing for a moment.
“You'll not—they don't do my poor lad justice—I shan't be called on to
show them again?”
“No, no, madame!” Pointer was thankful that he need not turn the knife
in a mother's wound. “No, there will be no necessity for any mention
of them. But his other letters, now——?”
“I didn't keep them,” she spoke in a low, pained voice, “you see, I
never dreamt that they might be all that I should ever have— I always
thought he would let me make my home with him some day—living alone is
hard when your son is so far away—but that was not to be.”
“You have no other letters from him, then?”
“None. I destroyed them each year. I make a practice of never keeping
letters long. My health is none too certain.”
“Did he ever refer to a John Carter in them?”
“You mean the John Carter to whom he left his money? Mr. Russell asked
me about him, too. No, I never knew him mention any names or places to
me.”
“You know nothing of a man called Beale?”
“Nothing whatever.”
Clearly it was no use putting any questions to her as to Robert's
political views. “Before I leave, could you tell me how much his uncle
left him?”
Mrs. Erskine sat silent awhile, evidently thinking deeply. She seemed
a very accurate person. “He did say how much it was, but I forget the
exact figures. I know he conveyed the impression that”—she bit her
lip—“well, that the ball of life was now at his feet. My dear husband
always spoke of Ian as a wealthier man than himself, but more than
that I can't say.”
It was a most painful interview. Pointer was thankful when he could
close the door gently behind him with a gesture symbolical of his
respectful pity.
Watts met him at Victoria Station, late though it was. The detective
was eager to wipe out the memory of Mr. Russell's visit to the hotel
room.
“I came across an interesting bit of evidence yesterday, sir,” he
began as soon as they were in the taxi, “in the manager's room. You
know that steel locked box in his desk? Well, he left his keys on his
desk for a moment. I slipped out of his bedroom, where I was keeping
an eye on him in accordance with your instructions, and unlocked it.
He rushed back a second later, picked up his keys, and hurried off. I
opened the box. There was nothing in it but a new cheque book for the
Chiswick branch of the Midland bank with one cheque gone. It was a
close shave, for I had hardly laid it back in the box and put it away
again in its drawer when he came back and went on with his writing. It
was an order for some repairs. I slipped out and down to Chiswick, and
there I had a bit of luck. Their doorkeeper is Higgins of the City
Police. He and I used to be on the same beat. So I showed him the
manager's photo, and had a chat with him. He said the manager gave the
name of Parsons, and called at the bank to open an account. Higgins
has been at the branch for fourteen years, so he has the run of the
place, and during the lunch hour he managed to get a look at the
signature book. There was only one Parsons in it—T. A. Parsons, of 8
Parma Crt., Turnham Green. He had opened a current account on August
6, but the amount Higgins couldn't find out. Off I went to the
address. It's a block of flats, and at No. 8 I asked for Mr. Parsons.
It seemed that on last Monday a Mr. Parsons had taken a room which had
been advertised as to let. The landlady asked for payment in advance,
so he paid for a week as requested, and called daily for letters,
saying that as his mother was ill he might not move in till later in
the week. She had not seen him since Thursday, when he had left a note
saying that he was giving up the room, as his mother's illness was
taking a turn for the worse. I showed her the manager's picture, which
she and the servant identified as Mr. Parsons. I pretended to be from
his bank, and said that there was some difficulty about a pass book I
had sent him which he had not received. Did she know his home address?
She did not. But both she and the slavey were certain that a thick,
sealed envelope, such as generally contains a pass book, had arrived,
with the bank's name on the seals, on the morning when Mr. Parsons had
left. That's all, sir.”
“Good work, Watts, though, of course, it won't prove anything. A hotel
manager will have a dozen excuses for a separate account, even under
an assumed name, but still—it all fits in—perhaps too well. At any
rate, it shows us what first class men we have trailing him.”
“It's Marsh and Ketteridge, sir: they're both sharp fellows; but they
say that the manager goes to his club and vanishes, or to some shop
they've never heard of, which turns out to have a dozen entrances. Oh,
he's clever enough!” They had arrived at Pointer's rooms, but he had
Watts follow him in and share a supper.
“What changes at the hotel itself?”
“Two of the first floor rooms have fresh occupants. Mrs. Willett is
still staying on. Miss Leslie is in bed with a bad cold.”
“Nothing odd noticed?” Pointer asked the routine questions.
“Nothing reported by Miller, sir.”
Only when the men had finished an excellent meal of gravy soup and
fried chicken did Pointer hold out his hand for any cables from the
Canadian police.
There were two. The first one ran:
“Toronto. John Carter, assistant manager of the Amalgamated Silk
Mills of this town. Served in the war. Promoted Sergeant. Had local
reputation of trustworthy man, but disappeared July fifteenth,
together with Manager Robert Erskine. Warrant out for both men
issued July eighteenth for embezzlement of the Amalgamated's funds.”
This was quite along the lines Pointer had expected. He opened the
second. It ran:
“Robert Erskine, Scotsman. Came Toronto seven years ago from Calgary
as Manager of Amalgamated Silk Mills. Invested twenty thousand in
Mills. Did well at first. Gone downhill since war. In hands of
money-lenders. Disappeared June fifteenth, together with Assistant
Manager John Carter. Warrant issued June eighteenth against both men
for embezzlement of the Amalgamated's funds to amount not yet
ascertained.”
Both cables were signed by the Toronto Police Commissioner.
Watts had already seen them when the Assistant Commissioner at the
Yard had sent them in. As no comment was made he ventured on one
himself. “It looks very bad for the partner Cox, or Carter, doesn't
it, sir?”
Pointer looked at him with the filmy eyes of deep thought. “Think so?
Possibly.”
“What do you think, Mr. O'Connor?”
O'Connor was quite willing to oblige. “Carter is a big chap by all
accounts, and Erskine's friend. Why should he choose a place so
certain to be discovered as a hotel bedroom? Why not take Erskine for
a run in a motor, stun him, and drop him into a pond? I can't think
he's such a fool as not to have been able to make some better
opportunity than that wardrobe.”
“Fit of passion, sir?”
“But,” objected O'Connor, “why the marks of tugging on Erskine's
collar which the photo shows?”
When Watts had taken a belated departure, O'Connor looked at his
friend.
“So they're crooks. I shouldn't have thought that somehow. Your
account of the honest marks of wear on Erskine's wardrobe made me put
him down as poor but honest.”
Pointer only smoked on, his hands clasped behind his neck.
“D'ye think some of your light-fingered friends have welcomed their
brethren from across the ocean and the lot have fallen out?”
“This doesn't look like the work of anyone I can call to mind at the
moment.” Pointer ruminated over the masterpieces he had come across in
the past. “Still you never know,” he wound up.
During the night a cable from Calgary arrived and was duly waiting on
his table at the Yard.
“Calgary. Robert Erskine, Scotsman. Inherited largest ranch here,
Four Winds by name, from his uncle, Ian Erskine, twelve years ago.
Sold it seven years ago at a loss and moved to Toronto. Reputation
of uncle and nephew of the best in every way.”
“John Carter. Frequent visitor at Four Winds. Prospector and son of
a Toronto Prospector. Good repute.”
Pointer meditated some time over this before he filed it. Another
cable was sent to Toronto asking for full particulars of the warrant
out against the two men, and the photos of both were duly posted for
identification.
Mr. Russell dropped in on the Chief Inspector at lunch, but beyond a
question as to whether he had ever heard that Robert Erskine was
interested in any business Pointer kept his own counsel. The solicitor
was evidently unaware that young Erskine did not still own the ranch.
“So you didn't get anything helpful by coming to Paris?” the solicitor
continued, as the two men turned in for a cup of tea. He himself had
been prostrated by the rough crossing the night before, and had hardly
been able to exchange a couple of words with his companion in the
crowded railway carriage.
“Except a general idea of the deceased's character as shown in his
letters.”
“Ah, yes, true. I had a long conversation with Mrs. Erskine and a very
trying one.”
“How so trying?”
“Aye, women, even the best of them shouldn't be trusted with money.”
The Scotsman drank his tea sternly. “She wants everything sold out and
put into an annuity.”
“She” of course referred to Mrs. Erskine. The Chief Inspector turned
the matter over carefully to see whether he could extract any grist
for his mills from it.
“Well, why not?”
“Eh, man, why not?” Then light seemed to break on the Scotsman. “Ah, I
see I hadn't made myself clear. The trouble is, she wants it done
immediately. You know how securities change. All of hers are good
enough. Some very sound, some industrials. For instance, she put quite
a large sum into some shares a few years ago which stood at twice what
they stand at to-day. We approved after a fashion, provided she was
willing to discount market fluctuations. But now she wants to fling
some thousands of shares suddenly on the market—it's madness. The same
way with some mortgages we arranged for her, you can't change that
class of security into cash at a moment's notice. Yet that's what she
wants. Of course, we won't do it. In her own interests we can't. I
didn't tell her that naturally, but she'll find that it takes more
time than she thinks to put a fortune as large as her half is into an
annuity.”
“I wonder why the hurry?” Pointer was deeply interested.
“I can't make it out.” Mr. Russell's curiosity was evidently at work.
“Mrs. Erskine has hitherto been such a good business woman. I'm the
last to deny that she has made most advantageous purchases at times,
but now to be willing to throw away at least one quarter of her
fortune, if not a half, just for some mad whim of speed—it's beyond
me. And an annuity, too! They're none so safe these days. Why not
Government gilt-edged stocks? That's what I've been recommending to
her, but no! It's to be an annuity and damn the cost. Man, I'm fairly
tired out with yesterday's argy-bargy.”
Pointer turned the whim of Mrs. Erskine over and over in his mind
while the inquest progressed next day, and finally laid the matter on
one side, “to come up if called upon to do so” at some future time
when it might fit some fresh fact.
The inquest caused a great stir among the papers, as any whisper of a
murder always does, and in the facts as laid before the public—in a
strictly limited dose—there was enough and to spare of the strange.
Mr. Beale was not mentioned, neither was Mrs. Erskine, nor were the
cables from Canada read, but a detailed account of the finding of the
body by the police in the wardrobe, and of its belated identification,
caused the evening papers to do a roaring trade, while the inquest
itself was adjourned for another fortnight so as to “allow of the
authorities in Canada being communicated with.”