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

"You say, she wasn't the kind of woman to stir people deeply," the Chief Inspector repeated. "I'm afraid the fact that she very likely had some fifteen hundred pounds, on, or near her, last Tuesday afternoon, and that they may have thought she had three thousand with her, would stir some hearts to their very foundations."

Vardon showed an aghast face. He asked about the money. Pointer told him the outlines of the land sale, and then questioned him about his work.

Vardon spoke interestingly of it. He had started out as a painter of portraits in Buenos Aires. Come down to barns, fences, and signposts in Argentina, then, so he told Pointer—drifted to Patagonia, taken up photography when he had a frozen right wrist that refused to limber up—and now was working as a film photographer of wild animals. Of the creatures that live lives so like, yet so unlike our own.

Pointer asked him whether he could change his own film camera into one that would carry plates, and the two discussed mechanical means. Vardon showed an expert's skill in taking a kodak to pieces that he drew out of his pocket, and re-assembling it.

Finally Pointer questioned him about the lost bag. Vardon did not seem in a hurry to let him have the details.

"I'm afraid it's gone for good. Left in the taxi probably. Fortunately, except for that paper of Mrs. Tangye's, there was nothing of value in it."

"Rather an important exception," Pointer said dryly. He had ascertained that the young man had not acted as though there was nothing of any value in the bag when he first learned of its disappearance.

"Very much so," Vardon agreed. "I thought I gave it to the page-boy when I drove up. But they deny that. I was paying the cabby at the time, who was slow about making the right change. Then in the lounge, after a room had been given me, I stayed down looking up time-tables and comparing routes. It must have been nearly half an hour later that I finally went upstairs. Even then I didn't miss the bag at once. When I did, I ran downstairs but the hotel denied all knowledge of it. We got a bit warm, and I went off to another hotel."

"Did you go back to the first one afterwards to inquire?"

"I did, naturally. I asked for the manager. And the band played the same tune as before. Hall porter, lift-boy, chamber-maid, and reception-clerk. I think on the whole, now I'm cooler, that they're doubtless right. I must have left it in the cab or at my old diggings. Or on the pavement outside while I waited for the taxi to come up."

Pointer knew that on Wednesday morning, Vardon had made every effort to get the bag traced. He had telephoned Scotland Yard about its loss, describing its contents as chiefly papers of no value except to the owner but offering a reward of five pounds for its return. He had sent a similar announcement to be inserted in the personals of the Morning Post. His message to the "Lost" department had been very urgent. He had spoken as though greatly concerned to recover the bag. Now he professed himself quite prepared to accept its loss as a definite fact. Yet, in it, so he claimed, was this important paper. Pointer thought that Vardon on the whole, would prefer the bag not to be found. And the Chief Inspector wondered why. Was the paper, the important half-sheet, with Mrs. Tangye's words on it, really in the bag? If so, was it accompanied by other papers of which he wished the police to remain in ignorance?

Had there been a bag at all, or had there not?

Pointer's last questions were about Tangye. Vardon said he knew him fairly well. Had he approached him about this "gold mine" of his in South America? Vardon at once said that he had written to ask if the subject would interest him, and had received a pleasant but definite letter saying that Tangye never speculated or went in for possibly risky investments. As to Riverview itself, Vardon had spent many a week there as a lad. It had belonged to his grandparents.

Pointer spoke of Oliver Headly. Vardon had met him once by chance on a boat crossing to South America about eight years ago, and taken a great dislike to the man whom he spoke of as a disgrace to his race.

Did he know what had become of him? Vardon said that save for the fact that he had made Latin America too hot to hold him, he had heard nothing of him.

Pointer found Haviland waiting for him at the Yard. Ostensibly with some housebreaker's finger-prints to be verified, but in reality to hear how the interview had gone. He had no doubt as to the guilty man. Vardon's flight, he thought, meant just that. And his explanations, he considered very poor.

"In fact, I never saw a poorer case," he repeated now for the third time. "The money traced to him. He confesses to having the whole of the missing sum, and he takes good care to get it into the hands of a confederate. Keys of her safe and doors found in his possession. Proof that he knows the dead woman's companion. Proof that he was seen hanging around the house at the time of the death. Why, it's a cert, for a fact!"

"Dorset Steele's a good man," Pointer murmured, "no better criminal solictor in town." The wording was ambiguous, but Haviland agreed.

"Still, not all the lawyers' brains in the Kingdom can talk away facts. But it's odd he doesn't seem to give a damn for the bag now. It should be all important to him, and that's a fact. But with, or without it, his solicitor'll have his work cut out to get him off, if you choose to have him arrested."

"That's just it." Pointer seemed finally convinced that his boot tips had nothing more to tell him. "That's just it, Haviland. Send Vardon up for trial, and accuse him of Mrs. Tangye's murder, and I doubt if he'd have a dog's chance of getting off without at least penal servitude for life."

"You don't think he's guilty, sir? Not after those keys?" It was not so much a question as an exclamation.

"I don't know yet."

"Well, I can't see what answer he could make to such a charge, in fact," Haviland said in a distinctly disappointed tone. Visions of returning with Vardon handcuffed fading from his mind. He bore the young man a grudge. He had all but cost Henry Haviland his official life.

Dorset Steele was thinking very much what Haviland was saying as he ordered his lunch. He sat staring at his meat with such a suspicious air, that the waiter hovered near anxiously.

"Tough job!" muttered the solicitor, stabbing at the plate with his fork.

"Tough chop?" repeated Smithers horrified. "Indeed, sir?" and whisking it off, he retired in person to the grill.

Dorset Steele gulped down a glass of port, followed it with boiled potatoes, and rising, under the impression that he had had his usual meal, passed out.

"Miss Barbara waiting to see you, sir," he was told at his office. A young girl who looked about twenty—she was six years older—light of foot as Atalanta ran up to him.

"I couldn't get to you before, grandfather, how did it go? Will he be all right?"

"Nice muddle you've got the firm into," he said testily. "The young man is guilty."

"Guilty of stealing that money? Oh, no I No!"

"If he can't find the bag, supposing he's definitely arrested, that's what the jury will say, and that's all that matters!"

Barbara pulled a chair up, stood on it, and laid her cheek against his wild, gray hair.

"How you frightened me till I remembered it was only you now tell me all—everything."

He told her, peering at her every now and then over his glasses. She was a pleasant sight. A pretty girl, if the term be not taken too strictly. She was tall, slender, erect; with bright brown eyes, bright brown hair, a bright pink and white complexion, bright rose-red lips, a bright smile, and one beauty. A laugh of rare charm. Like silver bells ringing in the sunlight. But she was not laughing now. Dorset Steele had been to see Pointer. The Chief Inspector had been frank as to the larger charge that hovered as yet dimly in the background, but which was to move slowly, inexorably, to the foreground of its own weight as it were. Barbara listened in silence. She was breathing fast and tense when the solicitor had finished.