Miss West looked at the man sitting at his ease on the other side of
the fireplace with a very determined tilt of her chin.
“Now, Mr. Pointer—you mustn't mind if I call you that, but I'm not
talking to the Inspector of Scotland Yard just now——”
“_A_ Chief Inspector from the Yard—” he corrected modestly,
disclaiming the elevated rank she thrust upon him.
“I don't want to see _him_. I want a talk with just Mr. Pointer—a
man,—a human being—who can be sorry for folk in trouble, and not look
on them just as cases.”
“But you see . . .” Pointer's face was very kind . . . “any
information given to me is sure to be overheard by the Chief
Inspector, and he may feel it his duty to make use of it. There's no
use pretending he won't, miss.”
She sat a moment studying him again.
“Very well. Let him overhear what he likes, but all the same I want to
talk to you, and not to a police-officer. I want you, and not the
Inspector, to talk the case over with me, or we shall never get
anywhere. And that's just where the police are in this case.”
“Eh? Where?”
“Nowhere!” Miss West's eyes snapped; “nowhere at all with John Carter
in prison! Now, Mr. Pointer”—her smile was infectious—“you see my
position, don't you? A police-officer doesn't have any personal
opinions—how can he have? But _you_ have, you know.”
“Well?” Pointer was smiling.
Miss West jumped up and paced up and down the room. She walked with a
fine, free swing.
“I'll start at the very beginning. John Carter's father”—Pointer
noticed that Carter was to be more to the fore than Robert
Erskine—“was a prospector. He and Uncle Ian became great friends out
on a shooting expedition uncle took once, and after that Mr. Carter
used to regularly stop at Four Winds on his way out and back from his
trips. I don't remember him well. I was such a little tot at the time.
He was a widower, and once, after Jack had been ill, Uncle Ian
insisted on his sending him to stay at Four Winds for six months.
After that Jack used to spend his holidays from school regularly with
us, and when Uncle Henry—I call him that, though, of course, he wasn't
any relation to me, any more than Uncle Ian was—well, when Uncle Henry
and Rob came out from England we had great times together, we three.
Jack was the eldest, he was fifteen; then came Rob, who was twelve,
and then I, a year younger than Rob.” She paused a moment, evidently
back in the happy days of which she was speaking, then with a sigh she
went on: “Jack's father died when he was about eighteen. He went to
the Calgary College to study engineering, but of course he lived at
Four Winds. Mr. Carter had died, leaving awfully little behind him.
Uncle Ian would have paid Jack's college expenses, but he would have
none of that. He used to work just like any one of the hands on the
Ranch in his holidays, and took his pay just like them. Then before he
was through college Uncle Ian died. Dear, kind, generous Uncle Ian! We
found out that he was fearfully badly hit by some wheat speculations
he had got into, which did well at first and then let him in for
thousands. He had mortgaged the ranch up to the last fence rail, and
though it all went to Rob, there was fearfully little money for him to
carry on with. Well, of course, after uncle's death everything was
different. I didn't see much of the boys at this time. Rob decided to
sell the ranch. Mother moved to a sister of hers in Toronto, where I
was studying, and after college I got a post in the High School there.
Finally Rob put the money from the ranch into the Silk Mills at
Toronto and came on there as their manager. He did well, too, and was
quite one of Toronto's smart young men. Then came the war.” She paused
for a minute or two. “Jack enlisted in the Princess Pats. and went out
with the first draft; he was frightfully injured at Vimy trying to get
his officer back from between the lines. He was in hospital in France
for months and then was invalided out, but he stayed on in France till
the armistice, giving engineering courses in the Y.M.C.A., I believe.”
“And Mr. Robert Erskine?”
“Rob didn't go out. The factory was turned into surgical supplies, and
he thought he could do as good work there as in Europe. Besides, he
had lost his heart to a girl who was practically German, a Miss
Heilbronner. That was how he originally got his chance as manager of
the Silk Mills. Old man Heilbronner was the head of the American
syndicate which owned the Toronto factory and mills.”
“Was Mr. Erskine engaged to Miss Heilbronner?”
“For a time, just before and at the beginning of the war, I think he
was—sort of on probation, if he could keep on making good. I saw her
once or twice out motoring with Rob, and she didn't look the kind to
do life on the cheap. Then something happened—I don't know what—which
seemed to come between Rob and the Heilbronners. You see,” she turned
to the other, “mother and aunt and I didn't belong in the least to
Rob's real people. I mean—well, of course, I called Uncle Ian ‘uncle,’
but we were just plain farmer folk same as Jack Carter. The Erskines
were quite different, and though Rob never changed an iota himself,
his circle and mine didn't mix. Well, Mattie Heilbronner got engaged
to another man, and old man Heilbronner was out to get Rob's scalp, so
I heard people say; and certainly the factory, which had done so
splendidly up till then, didn't seem to do so well after the trouble,
whatever it was. But Rob kept his end up till after the armistice,
when it was turned back into silk weaving again. Then Jack came back
from Europe, and he insisted on coming in to help Rob. Wouldn't take a
cent except out of profits, and they thought they were going to pull
through in spite of Heilbronner's millions against them. But things
went from bad to worse. They were just being squeezed out, so folks
that knew said, and—” She came to a dead stop.
“Mr. Pointer, I've read the dreadful things they say of Jack Carter in
the papers here. Are they true? I mean, did you _really_ find all
those jewels in his trunk? You yourself? And does he still refuse to
explain?”
Pointer was quite honest with her. He told her exactly what the papers
knew, but he did not add that the American police claimed to know
Carter as Green.
She said nothing for a minute or two, but sat down in her chair again,
propping her chin on her hand, looking out of the window. She took up
her story as though she had not asked any question.
“And then on June nineteenth the Toronto papers were out in head-lines
that both Rob and Jack had disappeared, and that a warrant was out for
their arrest for embezzlement. And that's all I know.”
“All?” asked Pointer very quietly.
She flushed.
“I had a letter from Jack and one from Rob sent me on June fifth from
Toronto. Just a line—literally—to say good-bye and that I should hear
from them again.”
“Have you the letters?”
“No, they were each marked ‘Burn,’ and I did so at once.”
“And—did you hear from either of them again?”
“Not a word. I saw Rob's death in the paper. I didn't recognise him in
that picture as Eames, and then I—I read of Jack's dreadful trouble.”
There was a long silence between the two.
“And Mr. Beale? Where does he come in?”
“Beale?” She repeated the name questioningly. “Who is he? Never heard
the name that I know of.”
“Humph! And Miss Heilbronner, what of her?”
“She married still another man, so someone told me, shortly after the
armistice. But Mr. Pointer, you're thinking of Rob Erskine. I'm not.
Not for the moment. It's John Carter we must save. Poor Rob is killed,
but Jack—” There were tears in her eyes which she winked resolutely
away. “Mr. Pointer, you're a fair-minded man, one only has to look at
you to see you wouldn't have a hand in faking up a case against an
innocent man, and the case against Jack _is_ faked.”
“Then why doesn't he speak out, Miss West?”
“I can't imagine. I can't imagine!” She spoke as one who had tried
hard enough, “but he's no murderer, far less a thief.”
Pointer was sorry for her, and stirred uneasily in his chair.
“You see, I knew him as a boy, and knew him as a young man. You can't
make a mistake as to the very foundations of a character you've known
so long and so intimately. Uncle Ian, too, loved him. He loved him
better even than Rob, and Uncle Ian couldn't have cared for anyone who
wasn't straight.” Again there was a silence between the two. Then she
leant forward and laid a hand on Pointer's sleeve for a second.
“Do _you_ think he's in danger, too, Mr. Pointer?” she whispered.
“Unless he speaks out, and can clear himself with a good alibi, I do,
indeed. I'm speaking only of the murder charge—the other doesn't
concern us over here. Now, Miss West, you think the charge against
Carter is faked. That means he must have a bitter enemy. Robert
Erskine was murdered, not by Carter, you say. He, too, had a bitter
enemy. Could the same enmity link the two? Can they have a common
enemy? Do you know of any event in their lives, common to both, which
could have roused any such feeling on the part of anyone?”
She sank into deep thought and then slowly shook her head.
“Of course, one's first thought is that they were partners together,
disappeared together, and were accused together of embezzlement. Could
Mr. Heilbronner be in it for anything?” probed the police-officer.
“Mr. Heilbronner has been touring Europe for his health since July. I
heard by chance on the steamer I crossed on that he was staying in
Geneva, but I can't think of him as caring for anything but his
money-bags—at least judging by his looks.”
“Humph, not always a safe guide. Now about his daughter. Was Mr.
Carter a friend of hers, too?”
“No he never met her. That I know.”
“And you can think of nothing, absolutely nothing, which will give us
any clue as to an enmity for one or both of these two men?”
“The Amalgamated Silk Society—but that sounds too silly to suggest,”
she said hesitatingly.
“I don't know about silly, but as they wanted both men for
embezzlement I can't see the point in killing one. And Miss West, you
can't separate one man in this case from the other, since Carter won't
speak out. It is the charge of killing Erskine that's Carter's danger.
Now suppose you tell me more about Carter. We have been told by the
authorities in Toronto that even though he was Erskine's assistant he
would absent himself from the town and the works for months at a time.
Can you guess why?”
“Rob said he was prospecting.”
“And what did he himself say?”
“He refused to talk of where he had been.”
“Miss West, why don't you believe that he really had been
prospecting?”
For an appreciable second she hesitated, then with a lift of her head
she looked up at him.
“I'll be quite frank. I _know_ the truth can only help Jack in the
end. He never came back looking in the least as a prospector does
after a trip. Face and hands burnt and cracked. Hair all rough, and a
gait that doesn't lose its stiffness for weeks. There's an
unmistakable look about a man who's been away in the wilds that you
can't mistake out there. But Jack always came back paler than he went,
and with his hands not sunburnt in the least. Nor has he ever been
able to walk much since the war. It was his leg that was so mangled.”
Pointer thought of “Green's” New York record.
“Now once more about the breaking off of the engagement between Robert
Erskine and Miss Heilbronner. I wish you'd tell me all you know about
it.”
“I never got to the bottom of it because Rob was too cut up to talk of
it. Perhaps it was only that old man Heilbronner didn't think the
mills were turning out enough money for his daughter. He tried his
best to get the place away from Rob, but Rob wouldn't let it go. There
was some sort of a clause by which he could purchase it, so much down
at once and the rest yearly. He had paid the sum down out of the ranch
sale, and I guess the old man was always hoping he'd trip up on his
payments, but Rob held on for seven years in spite of all, and then
they—he—failed on the last instalment. Oh, Mr. Pointer, it was cruel!
He first, and then Jack with him, had worked so hard. They had done
without everything, pleasures, or enough sleep, or even”—she
choked—“enough food those last months, and they just slipped up on it.
He needed five thousand pounds, and so, though it cut him to do it, he
wrote to his mother for the loan of the money. She sent one thousand
pounds and he couldn't scrape the rest of the money together, try as
he could. No one in Toronto would give him any help. That was the
doing of the Silk Amalgamated. So he lost the mills and they even
tried to turn him and Jack out of their positions, but Rob and he
refused to leave. And that”—she sprang to her feet again. “I'm sure
that is the _real_ reason for the charge of embezzlement—just to break
Rob and Jack because they dared to stand out against the Amalgamated.
Mr. Heilbronner swore that they had been cheating the company out of
its percentages for three years. Said that the Amalgamated had proofs
of big orders carried out at the Toronto Mills which weren't entered
on the books and on which nothing had been paid.”
Pointer tried here and there to come upon something approaching a
clue, but finally he saw Miss West into a taxi, and promised to call
upon her next morning. Then he sat up till far into the night trying
to clear up the new tangles which she had introduced.
Why—among many other ways—had Erskine given no idea of the nature of
his work to his mother? He had only written infrequently, but even so
he never referred to it. He only asked for funds and wrote as an idle
young man about town. Why had he told Miss West that he had asked for
five thousand pounds, when Pointer had read his own letter asking for
one thousand pounds exactly. Where had the rest of the money gone
which the young man had asked for and received, at the rate of about
two thousand a year? As yet Pointer had been able to find no proof
that Erskine speculated, though had he done so under another name it
would be difficult to trace it. However, the Chief Inspector went to
bed with a clear plan as to how Miss West would work into his schemes.
When he saw her next morning the wily man began by regretting that
there seemed no way in which she could make herself of actual service
such as she wanted to be engaged on, and only when Miss West was in a
sufficiently subdued frame of mind at the idea of not being able to
help after all did he advance his suggestion.
“I hope you won't mind my asking,” he began, “but is there any—eh—tie
between you and Mr. Carter?”
“He won't let me consider myself engaged to him, but if ever he gets
enough money to marry on, he and I are going to be married. I have a
little income of my own, but he won't let that count.” She gave a
proud little smile.
“I see.” Pointer looked reflectively at his gloves. “I see. I was
wondering if there isn't some way we could use your offer of help, but
there is only one and you might not care for that.” He seemed to
dismiss the idea. She leant forward eagerly.
“Oh, but I'll do anything. _Anything._ I would for Rob's sake, let
alone in the terrible position Jack is in. What is it, Mr. Pointer?”
“Well, it's this. I wonder if you could go to France and look up Mrs.
Erskine's circle? As a sort of relation, well then a friend of the
family, her solicitor, Mr. Russell, would give you a letter of
introduction, I know. If possible I should like you to stay in the
house and try to find some clue which might clear up all this game of
cross-purposes, for that's what's going on, Miss West. There's no
_one_ case so tangled as this. What's happened, I feel sure, is that
half-a-dozen ends have all got knotted up together. Now the real one
may lie in the far past—back of Robert Erskine, or even of his father.
I can see no other way of possibly stumbling on it than by trying to
piece it out of his mother's recollections. Mrs. Erskine thinks
there's nothing to tell, Mr. Russell says the same, but it's the only
chance for a fresh cast as far as I can see. Will you go?”
As he had foreseen, the idea did not appeal to Miss West in the least.
“You mean,” she hesitated, “you mean to go and stay with Mrs. Erskine,
if she will let me, and be a sort of spy in the house?”
“Just so. No, I was afraid it wouldn't do. As a matter of fact, I wish
I could have had someone in her villa weeks ago. Only the Yard won't
run to needless expenses, you know, and—well, there it is.” He smiled
cheerily.
“You think it so important as all that?”
He was quite honest.
“I think it may lead to nothing, but I certainly think it worth
trying. If you cared to go, you would be the very person. Mrs. Erskine
used to have a companion long ago, I'm told. She might like to have a
bright and, if you'll permit me to say so, Miss, a pretty face about
her.”
Christine made her decision.
“I'm not going to pretend that it's what I wanted. And I don't think
you'd be in the least deceived if I tried to hoodwink you. But I'll
go, and if Mrs. Erskine asks me to stop with her I'll do it. I suppose
I can always write to you?”
“I should want you to write a report every day and post it to my home
address. I may not answer, but I shall get your letters all right, and
if there is anything special I want, or that you can do, I shall let
you know. You must arrange with some shop in Nice to keep your letters
for you. Remember, Miss West, you mustn't forget that there may be
enemies in the very household of Mrs. Erskine herself. I have no
reason whatever to think so, but you must act as though there were.”
“Do you know anything about her household?”
Pointer read her a letter he had received weeks ago in answer to one
he had despatched to the Nice Préfecture. Mrs. Erskine lived a quiet
but not secluded life in her charming villa, entertaining a little,
and altogether enjoying the respectful esteem of the authorities. Her
household was very simple. One man servant who was gardener and
chauffeur, and one woman, his wife, who did the work, together with a
first class cook. Mrs. Erskine only lived on one floor of her villa,
the other two floors being let.
“I'm afraid I shan't be of any use,” Christine said warningly; “it
sounds quite out of my line.”
The Chief Inspector would have preferred, as he had told her, to send
a trained detective, but Christine was the only woman who would be
able to enter under the ægis of a letter from Russell, and willing to
work for the truth, so he encouraged her with the prospect of coming
on some unconsidered piece of news which might set machinery in motion
which would ultimately liberate Carter.
Finally she decided to go up to Perth personally and see the
solicitor. Pointer looked up her train, and 'phoned about her to the
Scotsman. Then, taking a hearty farewell of her, for the two liked
each other, he went to the nearest 'phone and rang up for the second
time that morning an American reporter friend of his on the London
staff of the _New York Herald_.
“Pointer speaking. Have you looked her up? Good. Well, who did she
marry? Beale, did you say? Mr. Beale? Oh, Mr. Edward Beale, only son
of Mr. Augustus P. Beale, an editor of the _Universe_. I see. Eh? I
only said I see. Thanks very much indeed;” and Pointer hung up the
receiver and walked away, frowning deeply. So Miss Heilbronner, Robert
Erskine's one time fiancée, had married Mr. Beale's only son. Did this
stand for anything in the puzzle? If so, what?
Christine meanwhile was speeding towards the rooms of Mr. Mortimer
Meukes, the young solicitor to whom she had brought a letter of
introduction from Canada yesterday afternoon.
“Did you see him?” she asked almost before she had shut the door
behind her.
“I did, Miss West. He has agreed to retain me as his counsel, but I am
bound to say that he refused to give me any information whatever.” The
young man gave a vexed laugh.
“Frankly, if I hadn't promised you to take the case, I should hand you
back your retaining fee.”
“I don't think you would.” Christine spoke entreatingly. “You would be
much too conscious of the fact that Mr. Carter is in a terrible
position. He doesn't speak, obviously because there is some good
reason why he can't, not because he won't.”
“He doesn't even give that much explanation;” but Mr. Meukes' tone was
less indignant.
“If you think Mr. Carter is a man to tamely or lightly submit to being
broadcasted as a murderer and a thief, you can't have had a square
look at him. Does he look a rabbit?”
Mr. Meukes hastily agreed that he certainly did not, for Christine had
spoken with warmth.
“Did he give you no message for me?”
“Yes, he told me to tell you, in strictest secrecy, that he was
thankful you had come, and that if you could remain on this side of
the Atlantic, as you told me to tell him you would, he might be very
glad of your help later on. He was really most awfully touched by your
coming and by your having sent me.”
Christine told him that she was going abroad for some time possibly,
unless Carter would prefer to have her stay closer at hand. She gave
Mr. Russell's address to the solicitor and asked him to wire her
Carter's reply.
Mr. Russell, like Pointer, took a liking to the Canadian girl. He sent
off a letter at once to Mrs. Erskine recommending Miss West to her,
and gave Christine a letter of introduction to hand her personally.
“I'm sure she will welcome you. After all, the poor leddy has little
enough that she knows about her only son.”
Christine looked down her nose.
“I shouldn't build on that. Mrs. Erskine must be an iceberg.”
Mr. Russell opened his eyes.
“My dear young leddy, anything but! Let me assure you she spends far
too much on charity. Far too much.”
“She let her ‘only son’ have a fearful struggle for years and years
when she could have helped him, and never missed the money. She let
the Mills for which he had worked so hard slip through his fingers at
the last moment.”
Mr. Russell was amazed.
“She sent him large sums of money regularly. I've seen his letters
thanking her for the sums sent and asking for more and always getting
it. Aye, _always_ getting it. As for the last thousand pounds, he only
asked for one thousand. I know what I am speaking of. The Chief
Inspector could have told you the same.”
Christine was bewildered. So bewildered that she held her tongue.
“Did you ever _see_ the letters Robert Erskine wrote. I mean see them
yourself?”
No, Christine had to acknowledge that she never had.
“Or any of Mrs. Erskine's letters to him?”
Christine had again to acknowledge that she never had seen one.
Mr. Russell nodded his head. “Just so. Just as I thought. Mrs. Erskine
is a quiet, still woman. You might think her hard if you didn't know
what lies behind her manner. My father could tell you of case after
case of charity and goodness which he found out, after she had left
Perth, of which she never spoke. She's not one to wear her heart on
her sleeve, like all her family now dead and gone, but it's a heart of
gold.”
Christine bade Mr. Russell good-bye, and picked up a telegram from
London in which Carter sent her word that any distance within a week's
journey of London would serve him perfectly. She travelled up to town
and on to Dover resolved to meet Robert's mother with a more
unprejudiced mind.
It happened to be a singularly cold September, so that Mrs. Erskine
had already returned from her Eze summer cottage to Nice, which
presented a more animated appearance than usual, considering the
month.
Villa des Fleurs was a beautiful house standing in a handsome palm
garden where roses bloomed all the year, and Christine rang the bell
of the first floor wondering what sort of experience lay before her.
She was not often nervous, but she hardly noticed who was in the
balcony to which the smiling French maid led her, until a white-haired
woman, quietly but richly dressed, held out her hand.
Mrs. Erskine told her how pleased she was to see anyone who had known
her husband and son in Canada, and asked Christine to stay at the
villa for a fortnight.
“Though Nice is still quite deserted,” she added.
Christine suggested that her wardrobe might not be quite up to Nice's
standards, but Mrs. Erskine smiled faintly at the idea. She insisted
on sending to the station where the luggage had been left, and Marie
the maid showed the Canadian, after a delicious tea, into her room.
“We dine at eight o'clock,” her hostess had told her. “The other
people in the villa are friends of mine, and we have all our meals
together. There is a Mr. and Mrs. Clark, who have the ground floor,
and are splendid tennis players—you may like to practise with them of
a morning—and then there is Major Vaughan, who has the floor above
this. He is rather an original, but as an old bachelor, as well as an
old friend of my husband's, I humour him.”
The room assigned to Christine was very barely furnished. After a bath
in a luxurious bathroom, she opened the door next to her own by
mistake, and stepped into a really beautiful bedroom, all silver and
petunia shades. Closing the door hastily, she raised her eyebrows a
little as she stepped on into her own very comfortless nook. Mrs.
Erskine might be delighted to see her, but, though she had had ample
warning of her coming, she had certainly not been over concerned with
her guest's comfort. At dinner, which was of a quality and served with
a luxury Christine found a revelation, she met the other inmates of
the house. Mr. and Mrs. Clark were a cheery, rather noisy couple, who
seemed to consider all life a great joke. Christine decided that the
lady had once been on the stage, from her partiality to paint and
powder and richly tinted locks, but there was a breezy good nature
about her which offset Mrs. Erskine's chilly manner. To Major Vaughan
she took an instant aversion. His light eyes stared at her insolently,
from the simple hair-dressing to the hem of her equally plain little
frock.
“An almost-relation”—he repeated Mrs. Erskine's introduction; “you
must adopt us, too, Miss West. We are all one happy family here, you
see. Having everything in common.” Christine thought she had never
seen a more odious smile. She refused to talk to him, but all through
the Clarks' chaff she could hear his biting speeches and neighing
laugh. Mrs. Erskine's answers were chiefly monosyllabic, and before
she joined the others at bridge under the palms and roses on the
terrace she turned a rather weary face to the young woman.
“The Major is so brilliantly clever, when he cares to exert himself,
that one has to overlook his little moods. After all, we shouldn't
live like this if we didn't fit in very well together.”
Which was more than Christine did. She sometimes thought it was her
guilty conscience, the secret purpose which had brought her to Nice,
that the villa seemed an uncomfortable place to her. Wherein lay the
discomfort she could not analyse, even for Pointer's benefit. Mrs.
Erskine took no interest in the open air life beloved by the Clarks,
but lay for the most part on a chaise-lounge. The Canadian girl had
heard of Scotch taciturnity, but her hostess was the most reserved
person she had ever met. Only point-blank questions would bring out
any of the remembrances on which Pointer had built his hopes.
Of her husband she spoke with a certain old-fashioned respect and
affection that touched Christine. About Robert as a baby she spoke,
too, and equally tenderly, but of his life after he left with his
father for Canada, she either had nothing to say, or refused to say
it.
“I would rather not discuss my son,” she said once in her low, prim
voice. “I am thankful that his murderer has been caught, but I dread
what revelations the trial may bring to light.”
Christine kept silence only by an effort. Rob had been no saint, but
neither was his mother perfect. Shortly after her arrival her hostess
had suggested that they should drive into Monte Carlo to make some
purchases.
“There's a milliner I've heard of who's having a bankrupt sale of
stock. I'm told there are really some good bargains to be got.”
Christine and she drove down to where they were received by a very
pale young woman, with dark shadows under her eyes, who looked as
though a square meal would be a novelty. The hats were very moderately
priced, indeed. Mrs. Erskine decided on a couple, and then began to
dispute the price. Christine marvelled as she listened. It was a
shabby scene, heightened by the air of triumph with which the
Scotswoman turned to Christine when they were again in the car.
“They were bargains anyway, but I felt quite sure that I could get
them still cheaper.”
“She looked very sad, and so young,” Christine said soberly.
“It takes capital to succeed in Monte Carlo,” was Mrs. Erskine's
rejoinder. Something in her companion's face arrested her attention,
“You mustn't think me hard”—Christine did—“but I consider it wrong to
spend a larger sum than necessary upon myself. Three-quarters of my
income is needed for my charities, and the remaining quarter I
consider I should stretch as far as possible.”
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 gipsy 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 sceptical 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.