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

"A clove carnation. Was Miss West wearing any? There are none about."

"Not when I saw her."

"Marie!" called Pointer, and the maid came running up. "Was mademoiselle wearing carnations when she came to tea?"

Marie shook her head with a smile.

"Ah, monsieur met her, then, later? I did give her a bunch when she was leaving. Mademoiselle loves them so."

Marie was quite certain that Christine had only been in the loggia and the boudoir during her afternoon call.

Watts, who had joined the little group, shook his head. No one was in the house. Pointer walked swiftly downstairs and out on to the drive.

"How much petrol has been taken, Pierre?" asked the Chief Inspector. "As I said, we must catch up with mademoiselle, in her own interests, tonight. It is a question of a paper she must sign. These gentlemen have come as witnesses."

Pierre rushed off to the garage. "No tin has been touched, and there was very little in the car."

Pointer stood motionless. Carter started to speak, but a glance from the police-officer's eyes stopped him. Every mental nerve of Pointer's was strung taut to the call he was making on it. Where had Christine gone or been taken? He wasted no time on speculating on the why. He looked at the tire-tracks from the garage to the house, which showed fairly clearly in the dust.

"Those wheels wouldn't do for any hill climbing. Who generally drove the car?" he asked in French.

"Generally M. Clark. Sometimes, though rarely, M. le Majeur. Neither would try to climb with those tires."

"And very little petrol...humph!" Pointer picked up the 'phone mouthpiece and called a number, adding a code word swiftly.

"'Elio! Monsieur Guillaume there, by any chance, still? Ah, Monsieur Garnier! You will do perfectly. No, it is nothing to do with my 'phone from Tarascon this morning. That matter is all arranged, thanks to your colleague, but I would like to know whether Madame Erskine owns a launch or a yacht? No? Then, will you kindly have inquiries made at once as to whether one has been hired today, late in the afternoon, by anyone at the villa. It is most urgent."

Pointer walked up and down, saying nothing. Carter, very pale, stared hard at him, but did not offer to speak. Watts was lost in speculation. The Chief Inspector leapt to the instrument at the bell's first premonitory tinkle.

"Yes? Ah, good! Madame Clark hired it, you say. One of the swiftest steam launches here. By 'phone about six, to await her at the harbor steps by seven? Five people in all? Three ladies—one young—and two men. That is the party. Oh, thank you, we should indeed be most grateful. There are three of us. We will be with you in a little minute, and if your surgeon could accompany us he might come in useful. I do not know what we shall find."

Carter blanched as he heard him.

Pointer turned to the other two.

"Your car, Carter! Miss West is on a launch which we shall be able to overhaul on a still faster police boat which the Prefecture puts at our disposal. We're in plenty of time." But Pointer ran down the steps and leapt up beside the driver's seat as though the margin of safety were not so wide as he had said.

A direction or two, a turn of Carter's wheel, and they whirled up to a quiet part of the old town's harbor where lay a wicked looking little craft. A gendarme took charge of the car, they stepped aboard, and off the launch flew like an arrow through the quiet blue evening.

"So Mrs. Clark arranged this party, did she?" Pointer said with a hard stare through the lovely lilac shades of the early evening. "I fancy it will be her last pleasure jaunt for some time."

"What is it you're afraid of, in Heaven's name?" Carter asked, as so often before; but Pointer only shook his head.

"Too complicated to explain just now. I think we shall be in plenty of time."

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"IS Mrs. Erskine in any danger, too?" Watts ventured in an aside as the boat cut through the smooth water.

"In very grave danger, indeed, I fancy."

"And shall I still keep an eye on him?"

"Him" was Carter, staring ahead of the two police-officers.

"You won't need to, after tonight," was the oracular reply.

"There she is!" Carter called suddenly. "There's the large steam launch you described."

He was right. It was the Hirondette, the boat that Mrs. Clark had hired. Pointer, once he knew that she was the one they wanted, hardly glanced at her: his eyes were fixed on a black stretch of water, beyond a projecting arm of land, which lay sombre and unlit. "Catch her up before she reaches that."

"The 'Devil's Sock,' as our smugglers call it? Bien. We shall do it."

And they did. The launch when hailed stopped instantly.

"Who is it?" called Clark's breezy voice, in his bad French. "Anything wrong? Can we help?"

The police cutter closed up. In the light of its electric lamps the face talking to them changed suddenly, the jaw slackened, the eyes darted furtively from the police-boat to the pleasure craft about, who were watching the meeting with curiosity.

"It's all right, Mr. Clark," the Chief Inspector answered civilly as he mounted the ladder swiftly, followed by Carter and Watts. "Only Miss West is most urgently wanted, and we heard that she had gone out with you in the swiftest launch in Nice, so I borrowed a police-cutter." He had opened the door of the little cabin as he spoke. Carter would have pushed in first if the other's sheer bulk had not prevented it. As for Watts, a glance from Pointer made him wait outside.

In the unusually large and airy cabin sat the three other occupants of the villa and Christine. The women lay back in their chairs with closed eyes as though asleep; only Major Vaughan blinked evilly at them.

"Christine!" Carter fell on his knees beside her. "Christine!" He shook her gently. "She's unconscious. Give me some brandy—some coffee." His gaze swept the table doubtfully.

Pointer said something over the rail, and a man stepped up on to the deck.

"Here is the surgeon. He'll soon tell us if anything serious is the matter."

The doctor rolled up Christine's eyelid, felt her pulse, and poured her out some brandy from his flask. He looked at a coffee-tray on the table, smelt the coffee, tasted it, and added his brandy to a cup of the steaming beverage. "She'll be all right with as much of that as you can get her to drink."

He bent over the other two women. "Same here. Opium den, eh?" He whispered to Pointer, who nodded.

A French sergeant of police stepped in, curled his moustache fiercely, and made a few notes in a book.

"You will all accompany me to the police-station for inquiries on arrival in the harbor."

The major cackled softly.

"Why? The ladies would try a little dose of my Eastern friend. I told them beginners should go slow."

" Il n'y' a pas d'explications!" snapped the Frenchman, seating himself between the two men, while Watts lounged against the door. Christine opened her eyes drowsily,' and closed them after a look of infinite relief as she saw Carter's face bending over her. Another sip or two, and she was able to stagger outside, and supported by Carter and the doctor walk up and down in the fresh air.

"Where's Mrs. Erskine—Mrs. Erskine's in danger," she suddenly babbled after her second cup. "And I thought I saw Mr. Pointer—"

"Here I am, Miss Christine," came the cheery answer as the Chief Inspector relieved the doctor, who returned to the cabin to look after the other two ladies.

"Oh, Mr. Pointer!" Christine clutched the cup he held out to her dizzily.

"I—there's a letter Mrs. Erskine has which Rob never wrote—someone's deceived her all these years. He never wrote any of them." She tried to speak coherently. Pointer pressed her arm soothingly.