Dorothy Fielding - Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries

"No, partly because the two men who talked with him speak of him as possibly an American. Mr. Beale is an American, and Eames' clothes looked to me like Yankee cut, besides his umbrella. Thank God, tomorrow's Monday. I'm a Christian man, but there are times when I could do without Sundays—here at home. There is where the foreign police score. I shan't forget that Avery case when I was sent to Naples—"

"I know," yawned Jim; "it rained all the time, and as for the famous view of the Bay—why, Plymouth Harbour beat it by ten goals to none."

"I don't wonder there are so many hasty marriages," Pointer spoke in sad soliloquy; "a man does feel a wish sometimes to come home to something alive, something intelligent."

"She wouldn't have much intelligence if she let you find her at home," pointed out his friend dispassionately, damping some leather with a hot sponge preparatory to making a fresh start, and for a while there was silence.

"When Cox tapped on the window of No. 14 who did he expect would open it for him?" the Irishman asked suddenly. "Eames? Or d'you think he knew that Eames was dead, and wanted to meet an accomplice there? If so, who? Beale?"

"I've only one idea about Mr. Beale so far, but it's a fixed one," Pointer replied slowly. "For some reason he's playing a game of his own. Judging by his eyes, it's bound to be a crafty scheme, and by his mouth, it won't boggle at trifles. However, the shape of his head guarantees that it'll be a clever one."

"You're a wonder, Alf. Since you've gone in for those phrenological and graphological lectures at the Kindergarten there's no hiding anything from you. Can you tell me by the shape of my head what Mr. Grey will say to me when he sees how that tooling has been done? You can't! Well, I can! You might as well continue your sermon by the way. I'm helpless, I must listen to it."

His friend was far too canny to proceed.

O'Connor began again: "Was the crime, for of course you think it was a crime, you hope it was one, you sin-hardened man-hunter, was it meant to be discovered by Beale, or...by someone else? Was Eames' body placed in that locked wardrobe so that the wrong person shouldn't find it, or so that the right person should?" O'Connor had given up all pretense at working and tried to read the answers to his conundrums one by one on Pointer's face, who finally answered a little wearily:

"Only time can tell, but as I said last night, frankly I'm puzzled as to what Mr. Beale with his position—for as I said I haven't a doubt but that he's all he claims to be—and his dollars are doing in this business of a shabbily-dressed young man who puts up in a single room at the Enterprise. Miller found out today that Mr. Beale didn't make any inquiries for rooms at the smarter hotels, but only applied in Southampton Row."

"Had he tried the Marvel?"

"No, he seems to've worked from the other end."

"Look here, you don't suspect him of being the actual murderer, do you?" O'Connor asked guilelessly.

Pointer pursed his lips. "Not the kind of man to do that sort of thing himself, I should judge, yet the way the job was done"—he trailed off into silence.

"Supposing it was he, and not Sikes, who was at the hotel earlier in the day, why should he come back in the evening? D'ye suppose he thought of those fingerprints of his which he had left everywhere, and wanted to have a chance to make them openly, as it were?" Judging by the detective's face he thought but poorly of this suggestion.

"You say the smaller footmarks, those on the canvas and on the doorstep about fitted Beale's slippers, didn't you?" persisted the other.

"As far as size goes—yes. Mr. Beale could have—though it would seem a mad risk to take—still he could have gone back upstairs again, when he left us last night in No. 14, and got out on to the balcony through the landing-window. But to get out with an umbrella and a raincoat would have been a feat he didn't look up to, though you never can tell. When I saw him a little later in the manager's room he certainly hadn't been clambering about in the rain."

"Well, his departure looks to me very fishy," maintained O'Connor in a tone which suggested that Pointer had steadily upheld it as a proof of the absent man's innocence. "What made him bolt out of the window?"

"I think he saw Cox pass by and recognized him."

"Suppose he and the manager are in it together? It was the manager who put Beale into No. 14. Perhaps Beale knew it was empty and the inquiries at the other hotels were only a blind."

The Irishman reveled in these talks early in a case, when there were not sufficient facts to hamper his idle fancy in its flights.

"Ah, as for the manager—" Pointer walked up and down the room. "That bit of acting about that green and white striped paper was badly enough done."

"So badly that it was creditable to him, eh?"

"...And as for not discussing Eames' death with Mr. Beale—well, was it likely! When our expert tells me how much of that ash is Mr. Beale's cigars and how much the manager's cigarettes—he doesn't smoke cigars—I shall know better how much time those two spent hobnobbing together. At any rate something has changed the manager overnight. Then he acted like—well, if not an innocent man, then at least like a man who feels himself safe."

"Perhaps this bolt of Beale's has made the manager, too, think him guilty."

"He should tell us his reasons, then," the police-officer spoke very firmly. "Whatever it is, today he's all nerves, afraid to commit himself as to the day of the week."

"I wonder if he left some clue lying around in that room No. 14 and has recollected it during the night?"

"He needn't worry if it's that," Pointer spoke bitterly, "unless it's tagged: 'This is a Clue; don't miss ME!' I shouldn't see it. Too much fog about."

"Oh, come now," persisted his friend, "you've done jolly well so far—going at once to the Marvel and ferreting out about Cox. I don't know that I should have thought of that myself," he added handsomely.

"Well, true, I've not fallen far below you as yet," agreed Pointer in a cheered-up tone of voice. "I've already lost Mr. Beale, missed Cox, and can't find Eames' bag nor any trace of its whereabouts."

The two men laughed.

"As for Mr. Smalltoes,—I mean the man who stood on the canvas and walked out and then back through the little side door—I don't know where to place him yet. Center or circumference."

"You mean Beale?"

"He may prove to be, but Mr. Beale picks his feet up as neatly as a water-rail; this man dragged his along. Mr. Beale wears pointed shoes; this man had on curious 'reformed' or 'true-shaped' boots. Straight on the inside and curving sharply about in a semicircle. Here's the outline." He held it out to O'Connor, who asked: "What are the manager's feet like?"

"Two sizes larger. Well, this case is going to make or break me. I feel it in my bones."

Next morning Pointer was early at the Yard mapping out the day's campaign. As he expected, on telegraphing to the American Embassy he was assured that Mr. Augustus P. Beale, a sub-editor and part proprietor of the New York Universe, a small gentleman, very bald, with reddish moustache, and gold fillings in his front teeth, was one of the States' choicest ornaments, a man of vast wealth and many interests. To clinch matters, one of Lester's snapshots was sent off to the Embassy, who sent back an immediate reply that this was undoubtedly the Mr. Beale whom all Americans abroad had been instructed to honour. If he were missing, he must be missed, until such time as it might please him to re-appear.

"Just so," sighed Pointer as he hung up the receiver. His first outing was to the small confectioner-tobacconist near the hotel which he had marked in his yesterday's rambles.